The challenge of engaging African-American men in computing
March 16, 2010 at 11:44 am 9 comments
Betsy DiSalvo defended her dissertation proposal (based on her Glitch project) this morning. Her presentation was amazing — engaging and thought-provoking.
Betsy is coming at the question of engaging African-American men in computing from a cultural perspective. What do these teens value? What do they want to achieve? She designed Glitch in a participatory fashion, with several smaller activities and workshops to inform her design of Glitch. She learned that the middle schoolers whom she was trying to involve in game testing just weren’t engaging, but the high school students bought in. She asked students to look at a user interface (with bugs in it) then challenged them to fix the underlying code, where they’d never seen program code before. Her subjects found that fascinating:
I learned that I might take interest in that career…With the language, I really want to learn how to read stuff like that, to understand what it means not just letters and objects in a square, but to understand.
The real challenge in teaching computer science to these students is that learning about technology is not a value for them in their culture. As Betsy phrased it, as a research question: “If the collective identity of young African American men does not encourage technology production for the love of making or learning, then how do face-saving tactics allow for participation, and what are the limitations?” While she believes that the Glitch game testers were actually interested in learning the computer science, she had to provide them with face-saving tactics in order to give them a way of engaging in front of their peers. So, she set up competitions, because competitiveness and sportsmanship were part of their cultural values, and her participants could work hard at finding bugs because, “I want to win.” Betsy paid them, so that they could put in extra hours because “It’s my job” and “to make money,” where having a job was important to their culture and family values.
One of the things she found was pushback from some (not all) of her students for using Alice. It was “a toy,” and not what real game developers used. It was hard enough for the kids to find a way to engage in CS, and then to be “insulted” with a toy was a significant issue.
Betsy’s results are already really interesting. She’s getting some big changes in attitudes about studying CS and going on to college. In her dissertation study, she’s going to explore more these issues of “face-saving” and about providing strategies for learning that avoid conflict with cultural values. Her work tells us a lot about how to make computing into a viable career choice for students in different cultural settings.
Entry filed under: Uncategorized. Tags: BPC, broadening participation in computing.
1.
Ben Chun | March 16, 2010 at 9:44 pm
I love the sheer practicality of her approach: Listen to the people you’re trying to help, and respond in ways that work for everyone. This is important work.
2.
Norcross schools | March 17, 2010 at 7:58 am
This is fascinating and very informative. I have believed from the revolution of technology that doors for minorities to succeed had been thrown open wide. Of course, it has opened doors no matter of race. Very cool.
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White Boys are Boring: Demographic Impacts on Who We Teach « Computing Education Blog | March 20, 2010 at 12:09 pm
[…] By 2050, Whites are expected to be a minority in the United States. The percentage of women in the United States is rising. Time predicts that the changing demographics of the United States are going to lead to dramatic changes over the next 10 years. Certainly, these changes are going to impact who we teach and how we teach over the next 25 years. We know that race matters when teaching, and that successful models teach differently for different cultural value systems. […]
4.
Minority Men in Community College « Computing Education Blog | April 9, 2010 at 8:14 am
[…] three areas of challenge for these men. The issues related to their identity reminds me of Betsy DiSalvo’s Glitch work. Their motivations for attending college are interesting and link back to the issues of identity. […]
5.
Neil Fraser on CS in Vietnam and (unfortunately) in US | Computing Education Blog | April 12, 2013 at 1:29 am
[…] but rarely get access to it. Agreed that nobody wants to be labelled a “nerd,” and Betsy’s work shows that “face-saving” is an important part of her efforts. But that’s not the main reason why students aren’t taking computer science. The […]
6.
SIGCSE Preview: Project Rise Up 4 CS: Increasing the Number of Black Students who Pass AP CS A — by paying them | Computing Education Blog | March 5, 2014 at 1:28 am
[…] didn’t talk about the money. It may be that the money wasn’t an incentive as much as a face-saving strategy. (Barb’s preview talk was also recorded as part of a GVU Brown […]
7.
RESPECT 2015 Preview: Project Rise Up 4 CS | Computing Education Blog | August 12, 2015 at 7:43 am
[…] Program (APIP) from AP Strategies (see paper about that work) and Betsy DiSalvo’s Glitch (see blog post here). Barb is offering financial incentives to African American students to encourage them to take […]
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First RESPECT Conference: Differences between computing fields and enrollment for women of color | Computing Education Blog | August 24, 2015 at 7:41 am
[…] (involving the target student populations involved in the creation of the classes, like the participatory design methods that Betsy DiSalvo uses) to get buy-in and to insure that the interventions are culturally […]
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What’s the impact of the Hour of Code? It goes way beyond an Hour | Computing Education Blog | January 22, 2016 at 8:43 am
[…] just those self-reporting without prompting! Students associate CS with being a geek and wouldn’t want to let their friends they like computer science, even if they do. Few students get any kind of computer science education outside of Hour of […]