Catherine Ashcraft
ABSTRACT
Girls and women continue to be underrepresented in computing, and this results in costly consequences for U.S. innovation and productivity; it also reproduces existing socioeconomic inequities, especially for women of color. This poster session will provide an in-depth look into Compugirls, a culturally responsive technology enrichment program for girls in under-resourced districts. The program ultimately enables girls to design technologies to address social inequities and foster social justice. Girls participate in three courses over the course of a year: 1) learning to use technologies such as iMovie, GarageBand, and iPhoto, 2) designing games with SCRATCH, and 3) programming "builds" in a virtual world environment. Throughout all three courses, the girls engage in a research project that connects the technologies they are learning to social justice issues they choose to address in their communities. The poster will also present findings from our three-year, NSF supported mixed-method study of the program. In particular, the session will illustrate how the girls developed their identities and abilities as technosocial change agents. The session also identifies conditions that, at times, limited the power of these possibilities and will report on key "lessons learned" in developing large-scale, sustainable computing programs.
- Bettie, J. (2003) Women Without Class: Girls, Race & Identity. University of California Press.Google Scholar
- Scott, K. A., Sheridan, K., & K. Clark (2014) Culturally Responsive Computing: A Theory Revisited. Learning, Media and Technology. 1--25.Google Scholar
- Wajcman, J. (2004). Techno Feminism. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Index Terms
- Culturally Responsive Computing: An In-depth Examination of Outcomes in COMPUGIRLS (Abstract Only)
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