Forewords

Beyond Access: Rethinking Equity, Language, and Identity in Computer Science Education

“Sometimes respecting people means making sure your systems are inclusive.”
—Joy Buolamwini, Computer Scientist

When Christy Crawford^[1] first invited me to be a part of New York City CS4All, I immediately knew I was stepping into a space of real transformation—a space where educators weren’t just teaching computer science but actively reshaping who gets to participate, who gets to feel seen, and whose knowledge is valued. Christy is a visionary whose unwavering commitment to culturally responsive computing has left an undeniable impact on CS education. She and the extraordinary computer science educators and scholars of racial literacy, translanguaging, and disability in education who created this book understand something fundamental: access alone is not enough—representation, relevance, and justice must be at the center of how we teach computer science.

This book, Advancing Educational Equity in Computer Science, is a labor of love—curated by educators fighting for true equity in CS, working to redefine CS education as deeply reflective, culturally inclusive, and justice driven. At its core, this book reflects the very foundation of my work in racial literacy—developing the ability to read, discuss, and challenge systemic inequities in education. Just as I ask educators to excavate their own biases and histories through the Archaeology of Self™, this book asks educators to move beyond inclusion toward transformation—to not only invite more students into CS spaces but to interrogate and rebuild the very structures that have kept so many out.

One of the key frameworks discussed in this book—Universal Design for Learning (UDL) in Computer Science Education—challenges educators to think not just about who is in the room but how learning environments are designed to honor diverse ways of thinking, communicating, and problem solving. Language is a critical equity issue, and this book doesn’t shy away from that truth. Translanguaging in Computer Science Education pushes us to recognize programming and code as languages of their own and exposes how monolingual, Eurocentric norms in computing marginalize multilingual learners. This book makes it clear: language itself is a site of exclusion—or liberation.

For too long, diversity in CS has been framed as simply broadening participation without questioning the structures that create the inequities in the first place. This book challenges that narrative. It pushes educators beyond surface-level inclusion toward meaningful, structural change in CS classrooms.

To the educators, scholars, and students engaging with this book—know that you are stepping into something that requires your imagination and belief that change in CS education can happen. Your reflections, actions, and willingness to challenge the status quo in CS education will help ensure that this field is not just a space for a select few—but a pathway to liberation for all.

Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz, Ph.D.
Professor of English Education
Teachers College, Columbia University
New York City, New York, 2025

Making Computer Science Education What It Was Meant to Be: Computer Science for All

Teaching equitable computer science is about meeting the original purpose for the field. The first publication of the term “computer science” was by George Forsythe in 1961. He argued that all students in science and engineering would need computer science. (As did his wife, Alexandra, whose contributions weren’t acknowledged by the field—see Chapter 3).

Alan Perlis, the first ACM Turing Award laureate, argued in 1961 that we should teach all students at all universities how to program because learning to program changes the way that you understand. He explicitly foresaw how the use of computational models and simulations would change the way that scientists and engineers would come to know.

When Forsythe and Perlis were making these claims, there was no Silicon Valley. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were both six years old. No one had a job as a “software engineer.” Computer science is such a powerful set of ideas that the inventors of the field thought it should be taught to everyone, long before it offered the lucrative opportunities that it does today.

The economic benefits of computer science have changed how we educate students. How can we not prepare students for those opportunities? For students from underprivileged backgrounds, the benefits of a successful computer science education can be life changing. Of course, we should give every student every opportunity to get a great job in computer science. To reference Jane Margolis and colleagues (2017), to do otherwise is to keep students stuck in the shallow end of the economic pool.^[2]

But not every student is going to be a professional software developer. Not every student wants to be a professional software developer.

We also need scientists, artists, managers, and informed citizens of a technologically rich society who participate actively in the democratic process. We need everyone to know about computing, to use it in whatever career they choose, to make informed choices about computing, and to advocate for fair and just uses of computing.

This book offers insight into how to reach the broader goals for computer science laid out by the inventors of the field. The pioneers of the field meant computer science to be taught to all students, those who will program in the future and those who won’t. Our world needs computer science teachers to embrace diverse methods of teaching to attract a diverse range of students who will use computing in a diverse range of careers.

Mark Guzdial, Ph.D.
Director, Program in Computing for the Arts and Sciences
Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, Michigan, 2025

Computer Science Education: Overthrowing Fences and Uplifting Humanity

Rarely does one read a book that expands one’s view, brings into sharp clarity new understandings, and transforms one’s world. This is what reading this book has done for me. With clarity of intent and with lucid writing, these authors have transformed the way that I see computer science (CS) education. As an older Latina, CS had always presented itself to me shrouded in mystery, the purview of white young well-to-do males. But this book has helped me understand that a fence, a socially constructed barrier, had kept me, and many educators like me, from getting a full and equitable vision of CS. This was especially brought home to me in Chapter 4 with the analysis of the popular social media images of equity depicted as people of different heights trying to see over the same fence. This book has given me understandings of why the fence exists, but also a toolkit to overthrow fences and barriers that keep CS in the hands of the few.

As I write this, fences in and around CS have been rebuilt with more hardness than ever. Technology has become Elon Musk’s weapon as he exerts power and control over others, and in so doing, dehumanizes CS. But this book centers not technology but the teachers, students, and people who engage with CS in ways that can build back a human, generous, democratic world. Putting processes and ideologies surrounding race, language, disability, and gender at the center of teacher engagement with CS brings back a world and an education system in which we can all be equal participants.

To do so, myths in this book are debunked, images of who and what counts as CS transformed, and pedagogical tools identified. We are not presented with codes, algorithms, and static visions of separation. Instead, we are told stories of real teachers in real classrooms. Rather than projecting the usual image of CS as one lone person interacting with a machine, the process of collaboration among many teachers and students are described. Equity is built by understanding relationship-building. Literacies are not separate; they are syncretic. Languages, including that of code, do not constitute different systems; they form one network of meaning-making. Our identities are intersectional.

This book is written with care and respect toward CS teachers and their students. Care is taken with words and images. Beyond describing the dynamic networks of signification in these CS classrooms, there is precise clarity in the writing. By giving CS teachers a clear path forward towards equity, this book disrupts the miasma of despair with which computing and technology are viewed today and renews our hope in its transformational potential.

Ofelia García, Ph.D.
Professor Emerita
The City University of New York, Graduate Center
New York City, New York, 2025