7 Setting Your Computer Science Equity Commitments

Acknowledgements: Melissa M. Parker

Chapter Overview

This chapter builds on previous chapters, inviting readers to set commitments and lead out in equity-centered computer science education (CS Ed). The chapter considers making commitments in four areas: (1) self-awareness and personal learning; (2) ways of seeing and being with others; (3) advancing CS pedagogy; and (4) advocating for equitable change in CS Ed. The chapter also offers tools to create a plan for setting commitments and identifying goals that work toward change.

Chapter Objectives

After reading this chapter, I can:

• Explain how commitments are part of an equity-oriented journey.
• Set commitments as a CS educator that are specific to myself, my students, and my CS Ed context.
• Identify action steps I can take to work toward equity in my CS Ed context.

Key Terms:

advocacy; commitment; critical consciousness; deficit framings; host leadership; praxis; savior complex

Christina’s Story

Chapter 6 focused on journaling, dialogue, and reflection as key practices in developing self-awareness and the ability to discuss inequity. An important next step is setting commitments, or pledging to a course of action, that will work toward equity in CS Ed. This chapter will explore four areas where you can commit to engage in a journey of equity-oriented praxis.

To get started, let’s hear from Christina, a CS teacher who has made multiple commitments as part of her equity journey that have led to changes in her classroom and her work as an educator.

Christina’s story illustrates how making commitments leads to taking action. Christina’s commitment to personal development led her to take PDs and read. Her commitment to advocacy led her to “fight” for CS opportunities for all students. However, her story also shows how commitments are part of the ongoing process of working toward equity in CS Ed. For example, her commitment to giving students a voice in the classroom is not something that is always comfortable for students because it is new. This commitment is something that Christina and her students are still working on. In this chapter, you’ll consider which commitments can best help you take action in your CS Ed settings.

Committing Yourself to a Journey

As an educator in CS, you stand at the threshold of a discipline and an industry that continues to reshape our world. Computing is social and political — computing fields and tools can improve lives but also cause harm and perpetuate injustice. This tension is often not made explicit in classrooms where students are learning CS. Teachers who explicitly acknowledge power dynamics in CS fields and education in their classrooms can promote more relevant, inclusive, and empowering CS Ed for everyone.

As Christina’s story shows, this work is a journey. The nature of this journey requires committing yourself to ongoing efforts that promote and center equity. While you make personal commitments focused on your own sphere of influence, this work is not meant to be done alone. Equity work is most successful when you are supported in your commitments by colleagues, school and district leadership, and broader institutions and policies. Your role requires working to develop personal self-awareness, working for change in your classroom and beyond, and engaging in shared leadership in community.

This chapter considers four areas in which you can make commitments and plan to take action for yourself, your students, and your teaching to serve as an advocate and leader.

These areas include:

• self-awareness and personal learning;
• ways of seeing and being with others;
• advancing CS pedagogy; and
• advocacy for equitable change in CS Ed.

We provide examples of commitments in each area to help you get started. But we also invite you to draw on your reflections from previous chapters, especially Chapter 6, to create commitments that represent yourself, your identities, your work, and the communities that you are a part of.

Area #1: Self-Awareness and Personal Learning

The first area involves committing to taking action to understand yourself and your own identity, to strengthen your ability to engage in dialogue about equity issues, and to continue your personal learning. We invite you to commit to developing your knowledge about social dynamics that shape educational contexts broadly and within CS and CS Ed specifically. This includes things like expanding your understanding about issues related to topics like class, disability, gender and sexual orientation, language, and race and ethnicity. An important related skill is learning to take stock of your in-the-moment emotional reactions to issues of identity and power. Developing this self-awareness is essential to adequately respond to equity-related challenges in the classroom. We begin with critical self-reflection and then become students of historical and contemporary social inequities in computing, computing education, and the wider society. We can then examine the veracity of our own assumptions and beliefs and take steps toward interrupting harmful myths. We can also give ourselves grace, space, and time to do this work. There is no way to develop perfect self-awareness. Everyone will make mistakes, learn, and move forward. The key is to continue in the process. Changing our own ideas over time is necessary to change how we show up for our students.

CS teacher Amanda shared an example of how her classroom practices changed as a result of her commitment to continual learning and an awareness of her own racial identity in relation to her students and her CS curriculum.

Amanda’s commitment to critical learning about issues related to race and gender led to rich discussions about social justice topics with her students. Her awareness of her own internal hesitancy to engage in conversations about race and her commitment to continued learning allowed her to take action and deepen her conversations with her students in ways that addressed broader issues of identity and power.

Area #2: Ways of Seeing and Being with Others

The second area to consider is how you perceive and share spaces with others, including students and their families, your colleagues, and the communities to which you belong.

Because our own perspectives shape the work we do in classrooms, we must critically examine and expand the lenses through which we view those around us. Some teachers perceive students through deficit framings and focus on what students lack or cannot do. This may lead to savior complexes, or a sense of needing to “save” or “rescue” marginalized groups. By contrast, students know when a teacher values who they are as a full person and respects their dignity as a learner by “recogniz[ing] and cultivat[ing] one’s mind, humanity, and potential” (Espinoza et al., 2020, p. 326). We can counter deficit narratives about learners by learning about our students and respecting their humanity, their full identities, their insights and contributions, and their potential. When we see and interact with students in these ways, students are more likely to feel a greater sense of belonging and succeed.

Respecting the dignity of our students and cultivating their humanity and potential can be done in many ways. One key way is supporting our students to enact changes that they think are important in the world. We can use our classrooms, curriculum, and pedagogical practices as tools that promote our students’ critical consciousness, or a social and political awareness of how social inequities are created and reproduced. Critical consciousness is a powerful tool for students who are afforded power based on their identities and those who may be marginalized because of their identities. As students come to recognize their own power, even as youth, they can use computing to become change agents in their communities and beyond.

Amanda, the CS teacher from the previous section, shared one of her commitments related to seeing and being with students:

Amanda’s commitment has already shaped her practice — from how she decorates her classroom to her curriculum to the expectations she has for her students. Even more significantly, Amanda’s commitments are guiding her current and future work. Her plans to take action by inviting her colleague to revise an existing project will engage students in critically examining the role of colonization and create a more equity-oriented learning opportunity.

Area #3: Advancing CS Pedagogy

Another place to commit to take action is with regard to CS pedagogy. It has been well documented that CS is often taught in ways that can exclude some groups. Given the history of inequitable practices in CS Ed, we invite you to consider commitments related to advancing pedagogy in ways that support all learners to take part in deep, rigorous CS learning (Hammond, as cited in Rebora, 2021).

Accomplishing this goal involves building on the diversity of learners and their backgrounds. As Black feminist scholar, educator, and activist bell hooks noted in her book Teaching to Transgress, “pedagogy must insist that everyone’s presence is acknowledged. That insistence cannot be simply stated. It has to be demonstrated through pedagogical practices.” (hooks, 1994, p. 8). Culturally and linguistically responsive pedagogies acknowledge everyone’s presence and affirm, value, and extend the diverse abilities, experiences, language practices, and identities of marginalized communities. They involve teaching responsively by developing new strategies to learn about our students and to transform the way we teach based on what we learn. Such approaches push back on the notion that the cultures that dominate CS and CS Ed now are the only or best cultures for CS. These kinds of pedagogies deepen and transform learning for all students, including those from dominant groups, and they can especially benefit marginalized students (Eglash et al., 2013; Lachney et al., 2021; Mirakhur et al., 2021; Vogel et al., 2020). The remainder of this guide (Chapters 8-17) focuses on specific techniques, rooted in critical pedagogy and research in equity-centered CS Ed, that can help you accomplish goals related to these commitments.

CS teacher Brandie shared an example of an activity that she incorporated into her CS instruction that was tailored to students’ interests and also worked to develop their critical consciousness.

Brandie explained her approach:

Brandie’s commitment to equity-centered pedagogy led her to tailor an existing tool and adapt it to her CS context. This move empowered her students to develop skills to critically analyze technological tools and their impact on society through an equity lens.

Area #4: Advocacy for Equitable Change in CS Ed

An equity-oriented praxis also includes shared leadership and advocacy for broader equitable changes in CS educational policies and structures. No individual person can wave a magic wand and make CS, education, or anything else equitable. And yet, as professionals and teachers, CS educators can make a tremendous difference in how just or unjust the lives of our students will be. The ways we show up, the choices we make, the relationships we form in classrooms, and how we use our own voices to amplify students’ voices have profound impacts on society and on students. It can be tempting to imagine solving problems of oppression in CS by focusing solely on our own classrooms. Yet these problems, by their nature, require engaging the larger world, and as education professionals, we have an ethical responsibility to do so.

The National Equity Project describes this advocacy as leading as a “host” rather than as a “hero” (National Equity Project, n.d.). Hero leadership is described by the National Equity Project as “planning the work and working the plan.” Because a hero approach is often done in isolation or is disconnected from the communities impacted by an inequitable status quo, hero leadership may fall short of lasting change and can lead to savior complexes. By contrast, host leadership requires building coalitions across communities that involve listening, multiple perspectives, and working collectively for change. Liberatory design mindsets can help build these coalitions (Anaissie et al., 2021). Liberatory design mindsets include building relational trust, practicing self-awareness, recognizing oppression, embracing complexity, focusing on human values, seeking liberatory collaboration, working with fear and discomfort, attending to healing, working to transform power, exercising creative courage, taking action to learn, and sharing instead of selling ideas. Enacting these orientations in community with others can allow groups to navigate the complexity of equity work and develop creative and lasting solutions. Change may begin in our own classrooms, but by necessity it must be larger, encompassing not only our own hearts and minds but the hearts and minds of those around us.

Planning for Change

Committing to equity work in CS Ed is a multi-layered process. Figure 2 illustrates this idea through three nested circles that cover the four areas explored in this chapter. While equity work starts within, it quickly expands outward to encompass leading for transformative change.

Figure 2
Committing to Equity Work

Committing to equity work across these different areas might feel overwhelming. But it is important to remember that this work is not something to be accomplished all at once. Small, consistent efforts can make a big difference, a concept that scholar Ruha Benjamin referred to as “viral justice” (Benjamin, 2022). Commitments help provide a sense of purpose and direction on our journey, offering an orientation that can guide our everyday actions. It may help to translate your commitments into small, concrete action steps. You might break down a broader commitment into actions that span different amounts of time. (e.g., Today, I will …; This week, I will …; This month, I will …; This quarter or semester, I will …). The size of your commitments and actions is not important. What matters most is that you find ways that work for you and are consistent in your efforts on this journey.

We invite you to try setting a commitment below. Consider the thoughts, ideas, and experiences that have come to your mind as you have read this chapter. Resource 1 is a similar worksheet that can help you identify and set your CS equity commitments.

Revisiting Christina’s Story

Christina’s practice of setting commitments and taking action as part of her own equity journey has continued, and she has identified ways to hold herself accountable and to monitor her growth. Christina shared:

Christina also highlighted how her efforts have been amplified as she has joined in communities beyond her classroom and moved toward advocacy:

Like Christina, in this chapter we have invited you to begin a journey of transformation. This journey will make your own CS teaching more inclusive and equitable and help you advocate for equitable changes in CS Ed and CS fields. To change how our classrooms function, we have to focus on our own roles in systems of oppression or liberation and better understand how power affects both the historical and current world of CS. As we raise our own self-awareness of how those systems have affected our experiences with society, with schooling, and with technology, we can commit ourselves to being a part of more systemic change. That will, of course, impact how we teach or what we might do in our own classrooms, but it can also put us on a path to act as advocates, leaders, and movement builders in our communities. As we become “hosts not heroes,” we turn personal goals for equity into shared work toward equitable change.

Reflection Questions:

1. Which suggested commitments from this chapter resonate with you? What ideas come to mind for how those commitments apply to your own CS Ed context?
2. What stands out to you about making commitments and taking action from the teacher examples in this chapter? How can you remind yourself that this work is an ongoing process and journey?

Takeaways for Practice:

• If you haven’t already, set some commitments based on this chapter. The chapter resources can help with this.
• Identify 2-3 individuals with whom you can share your commitments. Create an action plan to periodically check in with them and discuss your progress, challenges that have arisen, and successes that you’ve experienced.

Glossary

Term	Definition
advocacy	Publicly supporting and championing policies and changes that support equity-oriented CS Ed. Advocacy involves taking action to disrupt the status quo.
commitment	A statement that involves aligning personally with a set of values and pledging to a course of action based on those values.
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).
deficit framings	Broadly held beliefs, including stereotypes, that identify groups of people as lacking or deficient in some way (Louie et al., 2021; Steele, 2011).
host leadership	Building coalitions across communities that draw on multiple perspectives to work collectively for equity-oriented change.
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 Ed.
savior complex	Attitudes and actions where a person believes that they are responsible for “saving” or “rescuing” others by fixing their problems. The person acting as a “savior” often has a sense of superiority and takes action without the consent of those they are “helping,” denying their agency.

References

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. (2022). Viral justice: How we grow the world we want. Princeton University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9780691222899

Eglash, R., Gilbert, J. E., Taylor, V., & Geier, S. R. (2013). Culturally responsive computing in urban, after-school contexts: Two approaches. Urban Education, 48(5), 629-656. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042085913499211

Espinoza, M. L., Vossoughi, S., Rose, M., & Poza, L. E. (2020). Matters of participation: Notes on the study of dignity and learning. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 27(4), 325-347. https://doi.org/10.1080/10749039.2020.1779304

hooks, b. (1994). Teaching to transgress. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.3366/para.1994.17.3.270

Lachney, M., Bennett, A. G., Eglash, R., Yadav, A., & Moudgalya, S. (2021). Teaching in an open village: A case study on culturally responsive computing in compulsory education. Computer Science Education, 31(4), 462-488. https://doi.org/10.1080/08993408.2021.1874228

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

Louie, N., Adiredja, A. P., & Jessup, N. (2021). Teacher noticing from a sociopolitical perspective: The FAIR framework for anti-deficit noticing. ZDM-Mathematics Education, 53, 95-107. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11858-021-01229-2

Mirakhur, Z., Fancsali, C., & Hill, K. (2021). The potential of CR-SE for K-12 computer science education: Perspectives from two leaders. Voices in Urban Education, 50(1). https://doi.org/10.33682/3en3-cbgn

National Equity Project. (n.d.). Networks and communities of practice. https://web.archive.org/web/20240808060608/https://www.nationalequityproject.org/networks

Rebora, A. (2021). Zaretta Hammond on equity and student engagement. Educational Leadership, 79(4), 14-18. https://www.ascd.org/el/articles/zaretta-hammond-on-equity-and-student-engagement

Steele, C. M. (2011). Whistling Vivaldi: How stereotypes affect us and what we can do. W. W. Norton & Company.

Vogel, S., Hoadley, C., Castillo, A. R., & Ascenzi-Moreno, L. (2020). Languages, literacies and literate programming: Can we use the latest theories on how bilingual people learn to help us teach computer literacies? Computer Science Education, 30(4), 420-443. https://doi.org/10.1080/08993408.2020.1751525

Resource 1: My Commitments to Equitable CS Ed

Resource 2: Suggested Commitments to Equitable CS Ed