1 Introduction: Getting Started with Equity in Computer Science and Computer Science Education

Chapter Overview

This introduction welcomes readers to the work of advancing equity in computer science education (CS Ed). It presents some of the inequities that CS students and teachers face, as well as some of the efforts that are underway to work toward equity in CS and CS Ed. It also describes the values and goals that are the foundation of this guide.

Chapter Objectives

After reading this introduction, I can:

• Describe recent efforts to work toward equity in CS and CS Ed.
• Identify inequities that continue in CS and CS Ed.
• Explain the values that shaped how the authors of this guide approached their work.

Key Terms:

broadening participation; critical consciousness; culturally sustaining pedagogies; equity as access; equity as transformation; praxis

Getting Started

Welcome! This guide focuses on advancing equity work in CS Ed. To begin, we wish to recognize how we as authors come to this work. We are a collective of CS educators and scholars who came together to work on a multi-year project focused on equity in CS Ed in New York City. We hold different identities at the intersections of disability, gender, language, and race among others. We have collaborated on many equity-related CS efforts, and this guide is a product of those collaborations. See the Preface for more details about our positionalities and the history of the guide.

We also acknowledge that you, our readers, come to this guide with different backgrounds and experiences that shape how you do this work. Some of the ideas presented here may resonate strongly with you. Some may make you pause or feel discomfort. We hope that as you explore these ideas, you’ll feel compelled to process your responses, talk out what you’re learning with colleagues, and importantly, try out something new in your settings. Equity work takes time, critical reflection, commitment, and individual and collective action. There’s no one perfect way to do it. We hope this guide helps you take steps big and small to create more accessible, just, and ethical forms of CS Ed for your students.

To get started on our journey, let’s meet Marilyn, a CS teacher who is asking some important questions about what equity looks and feels like in CS Ed.^[1]

Marilyn’s Story

It was a few minutes after the last bell on the last day of school at STEM Preparatory Academy, a diverse school in New York. Students had just cleared out of the building, and Marilyn, a sixth and seventh grade CS teacher, began to clean her classroom. On the walls were posters of “giants” in computing, people like Katherine Johnson, Jerry Lawson, and Alan Turing, whose racial, ethnic, and gender identities reflected the diverse student body at her school.^[2] Marilyn had hung them up after attending a professional development (PD) workshop about representation in CS Ed earlier in the year. As she took down the posters, she sighed. A math teacher for fifteen years, this was Marilyn’s first year tentatively entering the world of CS. She found the PD trainings intellectually interesting and the mission to bring CS to all students a compelling one. But she couldn’t deny that her entry into CS this year had left her with many questions.

Marilyn’s PD trainings had shared troubling statistics about how young women and girls are often excluded from CS Ed and careers. Inspired to change this, Marilyn adopted a curriculum from the Girls Who Code organization and convinced her principal to fund an after-school club.^[3] Marilyn reflected on her experience:

Marilyn’s questions point to complex issues. On the one hand, programs like Girls Who Code are designed to address the fieldwide issues that Marilyn learned about at her PD by helping girls spark an interest in computing. This interest might lead more girls to major in CS-related fields, create innovative tech tools, found tech companies, experience economic mobility, and have an impact on society. On the other hand, Marilyn recognized that programs like Girls Who Code might not feel welcoming or relevant to all of her students. Marilyn acknowledged how the diverse groups of boys at her school were not always interested in a coding club framed for girls. And we would add that non-binary and gender non-conforming students might also not feel comfortable in a program called Girls Who Code.

Marilyn’s questions might also prompt us to reflect on the girls at her school. They were alike in some ways, but they also had varying abilities, racial and ethnic identities, language practices, and lived experiences. What kinds of CS learning opportunities might help her reach girls with disabilities? Black and Latine girls? Black and Latine girls with disabilities? Girls who are bi/multilingual? The questions that Marilyn asked about recognizing the diverse identities and needs of her students are thought provoking, especially when teachers, including Marilyn, have limited time, resources, and capacity. Where is the best place to put that energy?

There are also issues related to equity in CS that Marilyn didn’t touch on in her quote. She was inspired to bring CS Ed to her school in response to statistics about a lack of gender diversity in technology industries. Is that the core reason to do CS Ed? Are there other purposes for learning and doing computing that might resonate more deeply with students? Or that might serve students’ communities? Or that might push toward social change?

Marilyn’s ultimate goal is to support her students to realize their potential and thrive, and she thinks that CS Ed is a part of reaching that goal. But she wonders what kinds of changes in policy, curricula, and pedagogy would be needed — not just in her club, but in her school, her district, and even her state — to engage all students and their diverse identities in meaningful and equity-oriented computing education.

CS for All?

Marilyn isn’t the only one with questions about equity in CS Ed. The initial movement to provide CS Ed for all students in the United States, known as Computer Science for All (CSforAll), took off in the 2010s. More than a decade later, educators and policy makers are still grappling with how to make CS Ed more equitable. For years, those working toward equity in CS Ed have focused on providing “access” to the kind of CS Ed that will “make them job-ready on day one,” a goal that President Barack Obama identified at a 2016 Hour of Code event at the White House (Smith, 2016). To meet those and similar goals, hundreds of millions of dollars from the government, private foundations, and industry were committed to broadening participation in computing. This vision worked to help young people from a range of backgrounds learn the kinds of CS skills that would help them join fast-growing and exciting industries.

Responding to these national initiatives, educators across the nation worked hard. They expanded CS course offerings, recruited students to take new courses, and built up after-school programs like Girls Who Code. They spent hours in professional development learning new CS skills, worked to keep up with emergent professional standards, taught new courses like Advanced Placement Computer Science Principles (AP CSP) from the College Board AP program, and integrated CS concepts and skills into other subject areas. They created new CS departments and industry partnerships and advocated for CS graduation mandates. These efforts have made progress toward the broadening participation vision: access to CS classes increased from approximately half a million students in 2013 to 46 million students in 2019, and booming enrollments continue in CS departments across the United States (Code.org, 2020). There is also increased infrastructure for CS Ed and a greater awareness of the importance of CS Ed.

However, CS Ed equity has not yet been fully realized. CS Ed still disproportionately benefits the students who have historically been centered in education: white students, male students, students from affluent backgrounds, and students who attend high-resourced schools. Inequities related to CS Ed, industry, and technology continue to abound. A recent report documented how students with marginalized gender and racial and ethnic identities, multilingual learners, low-income youth, and students with disabilities continue to be excluded at nearly all levels of CS Ed, from K-12 to higher education (100Kin10, 2021). A similar report specifically about New York City Public Schools found that the schools who made the most progress toward CSforAll initiatives were schools who served fewer Black and Latine students (Fancsali et al., 2022).

Some argue that these disparities persist because those working to promote CS for all students simply haven’t found the right combination of funding, courses, policies, and curriculum to truly broaden participation. But the causes of inequity in CS Ed are complicated and multilayered, and they reflect deeper social and structural realities. Schools and districts serving higher proportions of bi/multilingual learners, low-income students, and racially marginalized students are often under resourced. Implementing equitable instruction in content areas like math and literacy in these settings is a struggle in its own right, which often means that CS Ed gets further sidelined. When CS is offered to marginalized groups, it is often presented in culturally irrelevant ways or delivered with negative assumptions about students’ computing abilities.

Cultures of exclusion also exist in higher education settings and tech companies, centering white, middle class, male, nondisabled cultural norms. These settings become unwelcoming and marginalizing for well-trained and qualified CS experts who have identities that are not centered in the CS industry. Even tools produced by the tech industry disproportionately harm marginalized groups through biases embedded in the tools’ algorithms, interfaces, and systems (Benjamin, 2019). Tech industries also negatively impact society at large by polluting our environments, promoting misinformation and labor exploitation, and enabling mass surveillance and new ways to wage war (see Ko et al., 2020; Philip & Sengupta, 2021; Vossoughi & Vakil, 2018). As with tech tools, these industrial impacts also disproportionately affect those from marginalized groups.

Focusing on broadening participation alone can’t address issues of inequity that are deeply rooted in our educational systems, in computing industries, and in wider society. As one CS teacher, Anna, pointed out, it’s often “implicitly assumed that creating better CS education programs [is] the same thing as getting more kids to participate in said programs.” However, getting students to participate in unjust CS programs doesn’t achieve the visions many of us have for a more just world. We argue that access to and transformation of CS industries, CS Ed, and society are needed if we are to advance equity in CS Ed.

What Can Educators Do?

In the face of these challenges and our students’ needs, what can educators do to advance equity in CS Ed?

This question is at the center of this guide. For five years, the authors of this work — a collective of educators, district leaders, educational researchers, students, and other stakeholders in CS Ed — have collaborated to support public school teachers, preparing them to provide K-12 students with meaningful CS learning experiences. (See our Preface and Crawford et al., 2023, for more about us.)

As we’ve engaged in this work, we’ve connected with some incredible agents of change. These include educators who have been named Equity Fellows by the U.S. Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA) and members of the CSforAll Ingenuity Team in New York City Public Schools.^[5] We’ve also met many educators making quiet changes in small and practical ways in their classrooms on a daily basis. These educators vary just as their students do. They hold different identities around disability, gender and sexual orientation, and race and ethnicity. They work in urban, suburban, and rural settings with different student populations. They use many languages, teach different content areas, and have different backgrounds in CS.

What all of these teachers have in common is a commitment to advancing equity in CS Ed. They are working to build on the strengths of the students and communities who have been marginalized in computing and in education. They advocate for and promote expansive, just, and ethical kinds of CS and CS Ed. They recognize that equity work requires self-examination and self-awareness and involves building community and coalitions. And these teachers understand that advancing equity in CS Ed is a long-term effort and an ongoing process that is never done — a marathon, not a sprint. It’s hard work, but through learning, action, and connecting with others, these educators have found joy and purpose in their efforts. Recognizing the transformational work that educators across the nation are doing, we highlight a few real stories from their classrooms in Table 1.

Table 1

Meet Some Equity-Focused CS Teachers

CS Teacher	Equity-Focused Examples
Ethan Brown	Ethan taught middle school CS, and now he works as a technology instructional coach for his school district. He has developed lessons to engage his students in thinking about ethics in CS and the role of artificial intelligence (AI) in learning. For example, in one of his lessons, students discussed issues that exist with chatbots as they learned about the history of hip-hop and rappers in their local communities.
Melissa Hannon	Melissa studied industrial design before coming to education as a Library Media Specialist. In that role, Melissa integrated CS into her time with students, helping them make natural connections between CS, literacy, and libraries. For example, when teaching how to code using the Scratch website, one of her students connected CS terms in Scratch (like “sprite” or “stage”) to literacy examples (like “character” or “setting”). These parallels helped make CS more accessible to all of Melissa’s students, including her multilingual learners. After eight years as a Library Media Specialist, Melissa is now part of her district’s CS Ed team, designing and facilitating professional learning series to support the dedicated and talented teachers she works with as they deliver impactful and engaging CS content to their students.
Kristi Jones	Kristi is a high school CS teacher. She took a culturally responsive approach to her AP Computer Science Principles curriculum by creating a Barbershop Computing event. Her students learned about the history of barbering, designed haircut styles using code, and had barbers come in to cut the winning styles. In coordinating with families to plan the event, Kristi worked to meet the different needs of her students’ families. For example, Kristi sent messages home as texts to a student with a parent who was deaf instead of making phone calls and leaving voicemails that might be incorrectly auto-transcribed.
Katy Liang	Katy is a high school math teacher. She integrates CS into her Algebra 2 and Pre-Calculus classes. Her students used mathematical modeling to figure out how a water footprint calculator was determining its results. They collaborated with industry partners and created new models for water footprint calculators available in multiple languages that more accurately reflected their local community.
Aaron Lober	Aaron seized the opportunity to become a middle school STEM teacher. He refined his craft by learning various coding languages and pursuing a second master’s degree in CS Ed. He spearheaded the establishment of a STEM department at his school and works to craft STEM curriculum for his district. Aaron prioritizes student-centered education, social-emotional learning, and experiential learning. In his CS classes, he has students explore the history of coding through a project that investigates stereotypes and historical narratives.
Ilka Stoessel	Ilka is an educational technology integration coach and CS teacher with more than two decades of experience in education. She transitioned from corporate America to teaching and is deeply committed to helping marginalized students (particularly racially marginalized students and girls) see CS as a viable and exciting career path. She continues to deepen her understanding of equity in CS and shares this passion with colleagues. For example, she regularly leads professional learning sessions like Leveraging Technology for Educational Equity, exploring AI’s implications for teaching and learning.

Our work with teachers has shown us that educators, working together in community, can and are making a huge difference. Because inequities have been created by humans over time, they can be dismantled by people too. Resource 2, Historical Efforts to Advance Educational Equity, describes some of these examples, which include the 1960s New York City School Boycott, efforts in the 1970s to address the needs of bilingual students and those with disabilities, and contemporary efforts against gun violence in schools. People are also working to bring about change in CS industries. Joy Buolamwini is one contemporary example of someone working to dismantle inequities in technology. Read more about Buolamwini below.

Following the examples of these change agents and others, we too can work to make change in CS Ed and computing fields. Promoting equitable change requires tenacity and nerve. It calls for the stirring up of what Congressman and civil rights activist John Lewis called “good trouble” (see Hayden, 2020). It requires collective action and people who are “coconspirators” against inequity, using their privilege to challenge and undo inequitable status quos (Love, 2019).^[9] As U.S. state and federal legislation prohibit attention to diversity, equity, and inclusion in schools (Betts, 2024; Gross, 2022), our collective efforts as CS educators to work toward equity and justice are needed now more than ever.

Our Guide and Values

This guide is designed to support educators who want to advance equity in CS Ed for themselves, their students, and their communities. It will provide you with a foundation and tools to develop a praxis, or mindsets and theory put into action, that can advance equity in CS Ed.

What do we mean by advancing equity in CS Ed? This is a question that we will explore throughout the chapters of this guide. However, the authors of this guide share core values that are important to highlight at the outset. As a collective, we believe that advancing equity begins by acknowledging that inequities in education, in CS, and in CS Ed exist and persist. We recognize that the inequities we live with today are a result of choices made by individuals, groups, and institutions historically. We also acknowledge that injustices are continually reproduced today through systems of oppression, or socially organized patterns of mistreatment, and not solely through the actions of individual people or “bad actors.” These systems create inequities based on social categories like race and ethnicity, class, disability, gender and sexual orientation, religion, and more. Inequities are reproduced by individuals, groups, and institutions in ways that contribute to unjust conditions and outcomes for marginalized individuals and groups. Because these systems are woven into our social life, how we understand ourselves and our students, how we interact, and how we learn are all influenced by inequities, shaping what happens in our schools and classrooms.

We also recognize that we as individuals and groups have the power to resist and change social patterns and norms. For equity to become a sustained reality, we need to think of it not as an object or thing that can be acquired. Instead, equity is an ongoing effort to disrupt inequitable systems and to create dynamic structures that reinforce and replicate equitable ideas, habits, resources, distribution of power, and outcomes. Working toward equity in CS Ed doesn’t happen in isolation. It’s part of a conversation about educational equity more broadly. There’s also not one perfect way to do this work. The work will naturally look different in different communities that have different histories and interests. We may make mistakes along the way, but we can take responsibility for them, learn from them, and move forward. As we know better, we can do better. And what is better or right may look a little different for each teacher, classroom, school, and community.

Many educators, researchers, and scholars are making significant contributions to these efforts. In our own work, we were particularly influenced by the ideas of Zaretta Hammond (2014), Gloria Ladson-Billings (1994, 2021), Gholdy Muhammed (2020, 2023), and Django Paris and H. Sami Alim (2017). Their scholarship centers teaching that honors and incorporates students’ histories, identities, and experiences into instruction to create culturally sustaining pedagogical practices.

We have drawn on the work of these equity-oriented scholars as we have thought about what it means to promote equitable changes in CS Ed. Their ideas have helped us define the futures we want to see, futures that include:

• Access to relevant computing tools and literacies so that learners whose identities have been marginalized in society have what they need to learn and thrive and to contribute to and sustain their communities’ cultural and language practices.
• Equipping all learners with critical consciousness about computing tools, cultures, and industries so that they can work toward the ethical and just transformation of those tools, cultures, and industries.

We also share some principles that guide how we act in service of these goals that might also inspire educators to act. We hope you will notice the following principles in action in the coming chapters:

• We critically examine our own identities and relationships to CS Ed and industry.
• We exercise creative courage to disrupt the status quo. We invite our students to do the same (Anaissie et al., 2021).
• We actively elevate multiple ways of knowing, being, and computing, especially those ways that have been marginalized in and by our systems.
• We support multiple goals, cultural and language practices, and pathways for success, including those not always valued or accepted by our systems.
• We promote all learners’ agency to tinker with, create, and modify computing tools for purposes that matter to them.
• We create supportive CS learning environments where each student has what they need to participate meaningfully.
• We cultivate collaboration within and outside of institutions and together with marginalized communities to dismantle oppressive systems in education, computing, and CS Ed.

We share these values and principles with you as the foundation of this guide. The guide is intended to help you examine and reimagine how you understand yourself, your students, and your teaching. With those new perspectives, you can identify concrete ways to transform what happens in your contexts every day. You will find ways to support all of your students to use computing to meet their personal goals, to reach their potential, and to become change agents for their communities and the CS field.

Revisiting Marilyn’s Story

In reflecting on her efforts as a CS educator, Marilyn expressed very real concerns about how to “build equity without being inequitable” given her students’ diverse backgrounds, identities, interests, and needs. Marilyn’s questions point to the complexity of doing equity work. Marilyn discussed these challenges with her colleagues several times during the summer. During their conversations, Marilyn and her fellow teachers realized that there wasn’t a quick solution. They recognized that these conversations were just the start and that they needed more time to figure out how to “do equity equitably.” They worked to plan time and space for collaboration into the coming school year. They look forward to getting to know their students and making concrete changes that will benefit their classrooms as the new year begins. We’ll follow their thinking about how to best support their students’ needs and work toward equitable outcomes in CS in the chapters that follow. We hope that this book will inspire you to engage in your own conversations about equity in CS like Marilyn and her colleagues.

Reflection Questions:

1. Which pieces of Marilyn’s story resonated with you? What challenges do you face or anticipate facing in your work as a CS educator?
2. What kinds of inequities are you aware of in your teaching settings? In the communities where you and your students live?
3. What values and principles currently shape your work as an educator generally? As an educator in CS specifically? As an equity-oriented educator? How do these align with, differ from, or build on the values and principles that shape this guide?

Takeaways for Practice:

• Review the current state of CS Ed in your setting. Inventory who has access to CS Ed currently, what assets you have to support CS teaching and learning, and what resources you need to work toward equitable CS Ed in your setting.
• Consider which of the seven CS equity principles listed above you would prioritize in your own teaching in the near and long term and how you might center those principles.
• Learn more about some of the diverse leaders in CS and CS Ed by exploring Resource 1. Consider integrating these individuals into your existing lessons to help students recognize themselves in CS.

Glossary

Term	Definition
broadening participation	A way of thinking about equity, similar to access, that seeks to increase the participation of members of underrepresented and/or marginalized groups in CS and CS Ed. These groups have historically been excluded from computing fields.
critical consciousness	A social and political awareness that allows for a critique of how cultural norms, values, and institutions reproduce social inequities (Ladson-Billings, 1995).
culturally sustaining pedagogies	Ways and approaches to teaching that value and center students’ cultural identities, practices, and ways of knowing as resources for learning, rather than excluding or eradicating students’ cultures from the classroom (see Ladson-Billings, 2021; Paris & Alim, 2017).
equity as access	Giving all students the opportunities and support they need to participate in CS. Equity as access emphasizes giving everyone what they need to participate in mainstream CS. This approach recognizes that members of marginalized groups may not have the same opportunities to participate in CS, leading to a focus on broadening participation in CS and CS Ed.
equity as transformation	A way of thinking about equity that recognizes that because the status quo tends to reproduce inequity, it needs to be transformed. Equity as transformation works to disrupt what is considered “normal” in CS disciplines and industries by valuing and centering marginalized knowledge systems, tools, and people.
praxis	The combination of teaching practices and theory. This guide supports praxis by providing theories about equity that help teachers develop mindsets to take transformative action toward equitable CS education.

References

100Kin10. (2021). unCommission research summary on the communities most excluded from STEM learning. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xOgL3AvDkYjyjVTxgxaDUfpUIEC7c0czPUsDSfLhYzE/edit

Anaissie, T., Cary, V., Clifford, D., Malarkey, T., & Wise, S. (2021). Liberatory design: Mindsets and modes to design for equity. Liberatory Design. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/60380011d63f16013f7cc4c2/t/60b698f388fe142f91f6b345/1622579446226/Liberatory Design Deck_June_2021.pdf

Benjamin, R. (2019). Race after technology: Abolitionist tools for the new Jim code (1st ed.). Polity. https://doi.org/10.1093/sf/soz162

Betts, A. (2024, May 23). What to know about state laws that limit or ban D.E.I efforts at colleges. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/21/us/dei-education-state-laws.html

Buolamwini, J. (2023). Unmasking AI: My mission to protect what is human in a world of machines (1st ed.). Random House.

Code.org. (2020, February 20). Code.org 2019 annual report: The state of K-12 computer science. https://code.org/files/Code.org-Annual-Report-2019.pdf

Crawford, C., Kuyenga, M. A., Talley, L., Mirakhur, Z., & Clark, H. (2023). Organizing for educational equity in computer science: Lessons from New York City’s CS4All initiative. New York City Public Schools.

Fancsali, C., Lee, J., Adair, A., Hill, K., Rivera-Cash, E., & Clough, S. (2022). CS4All: Examining equity in computer science access and participation in NYC schools. NYU Research Alliance. https://steinhardt.nyu.edu/research-alliance/research/cs4all-examining-equity

Gross, T. (2022, February 3). From slavery to socialism, new legislation restricts what teachers can discuss. NPR. https://www.npr.org/2022/02/03/1077878538/legislation-restricts-what-teachers-can-discuss

Hammond, Z. L. (2014). Culturally responsive teaching and the brain: Promoting authentic engagement and rigor among culturally and linguistically diverse students. Corwin.

Hayden, C. D. (2020, July 19). Remembering John Lewis: The power of “good trouble.” Library of Congress. https://blogs.loc.gov/loc/2020/07/remembering-john-lewis-the-power-of-good-trouble/

Ko, A. J., Oleson, A., Ryan, N., Register, Y., Xie, B., Tari, M., … & Loksa, D. (2020). It is time for more critical CS education. Communications of the ACM, 63(11), 31-33. 4:01. https://doi.org/10.1145/3424000

Ladson-Billings, G. (1994). The dreamkeepers: Successful teachers of African American children. Jossey-Bass.

Ladson-Billings, G. (1995). But that’s just good teaching! The case for culturally relevant pedagogy. Theory Into Practice, 34(3), 159-165. https://doi.org/10.1080/00405849509543675

Ladson-Billings, G. (2021). Culturally relevant pedagogy: Asking a different question. Teachers College Press.

Love, B. L. (2019). We want to do more than survive: Abolitionist teaching and the pursuit of educational freedom. Beacon Press.

Muhammad, G. (2020). Cultivating genius: An equity framework for culturally and historically responsive literacy. Scholastic.

Muhammad, G. (2023). Unearthing joy: A guide to culturally and historically responsive curriculum and instruction. Scholastic.

Paris, D., & Alim, H. S. (2017). Culturally sustaining pedagogies: Teaching and learning for justice in a changing world. Teachers College Press.

Philip, T. M., & Sengupta, P. (2021). Theories of learning as theories of society: A contrapuntal approach to expanding disciplinary authenticity in computing. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 30(2), 330-349. https://doi.org/10.1080/10508406.2020.1828089

Smith, M. (2016, January 30). Computer science for all. The White House. https://www.obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2016/01/30/computer-science-all

Vossoughi, S., & Vakil, S. (2018). Toward what ends? A critical analysis of militarism, equity, and STEM education. In A. I. Ali & T. L. Buenavista (Eds.), Education at war: The fight for students of color in America’s public schools (1st ed., pp. 117–140). Fordham University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt2204pqp

Resource 1: Historical Giants in Computing

Resource 2: Historical Efforts to Advance Educational Equity