Computer Science Education and Social Justice Youth Development
All young people need digital competence and computational thinking abilities, whether or not they plan to go into the high tech workforce. However, opportunities to participate in computer science education is limited, especially for youth in lower-income households, girls, youth living in rural communities, and Black, Indigenous, and/or Latino students. The computer science workforce is 75% male and 90% White or Asian. Women of color comprise 1% or less of all computer science employees, and 8-9% of computer science employees are Black and/or Latino.
NUREC fellows Steven Worker and Fe Moncloa from University of California, Agriculture and Natural Resources, are addressing this issue by developing a curriculum that focuses on identity and cultural heritage to help young people strengthen their computational thinking abilities, computer science attitudes, career motivations, and aspirations for sustained study in computer science and STEM more broadly. With funding from their NUREC fellowship and and other entities, they developed the iCode curriculum for 11-13 year old youth in middle school. The curriculum, grounded in culturally relevant youth development and experiential learning, is intended to be delivered outside of school classes by professionals, volunteer educators or computer science industry mentors.
Products & Resources
Curriculum
The iCode curriculum: Identity exploration through computer science for middle school youth is currently under peer review through National 4-H. More information about the curriculum and the current downloadable draft is available at https://ucanr.edu/site/uc-science-connect/identity-exploration-through-computer-science.
White paper
STEM Education and Social Justice Youth Development
Poster
2024, National Association of Extension 4-H Youth Development Professionals, Boise, ID
Publications
Worker, S., Moncloa, F., & Mitchell-Hawkins, V. (2024). Integrating computer science education and ethnic-racial identity exploration within a social justice youth development framework. Journal of Youth Development, 19(3). https://open.clemson.edu/jyd/vol19/iss3/1
Worker, S. M., Nayak, R., & Moncloa, F. (2024). California 4-H computer science education pathway. Journal of Extension, 62(1). https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/joe/vol62/iss1/9/
