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Is Computer Science Education Racist and Sexist?
theodp writes "What's wrong with this picture?" asked Code.org at its launch earlier this year, lamenting the lack of Computer Science students in a race and gender reference-free infographic. But as the organization has grown via public/private partnerships and inked agreements to drive the CS curriculum for the Chicago and NYC school systems, the same stats webpage has adopted a new gender and racial equity focus, positioning Computer Science education as "a chance to level the playing field" for women, Hispanic and African American students. The new message is consistent with the recently-forged Code.org partnership with the NSF-funded Exploring Computer Science (ECS, "a K-12/university partnership committed to democratizing computer science") and Computer Science Principles (CSP, "a new course under development that seeks to broaden participation in computing and computer science"). According to The Research Behind ECS, an "insidious 'virtual segregation' that maintains inequality" is to blame for keeping the number of African Americans and Latino/as CS students disproportionately low. So, what might the future of Code.org's proposed equity-based U.S. K-12 CS education look like? "Including culturally relevant instructional materials represented a driving focus of our course development," explained ECS Team members who now advise Code.org. "Cultural design tools encourage students to artistically express computing design concepts from Latino/a, African American, or Native American history as well as cultural activities in dance, skateboarding, graffiti art, and more. These types of lessons are important for students to build personal relationships with computer science concepts and applications – an important process for discovering the relevance of computer science for their own life." And — ironically for Code.org — it could mean less coding."
If you're not from Bangalore you don't have a future. ...and as for sexist, I actually knew girls who took the IT course to meet a husband because of the insane ratio of males:females. One of them even stayed through the course and earnt her degree.
FUCK this is bullshit.
It doesn't have to be that overt to still be racist or sexist.
But the first issue is whether Computer Science (and "STEM" in general) is more or less racist/sexist than the larger society.
Talk to women who take the bus to college and ask them whether their experiences on the bus are better or worse than in the classroom. Or even join an on-line game with a female avatar and name.
In the classroom it is usually more subtle. But when you depend upon a good grade from a sexist/racist teacher there will be issues.
Really? Insightful?
I think that if "not-sexist" and "not-racist" are reduced to "not physically threatened because of gender or colour", then you're going to miss a discussion that's important to have.
If computer science is like other science, then your competence, your hire-ability and whether you are considered to be mentored are reduced if you are thought to be female compared to male.
Women are no less sexist than men. So is it a problem? We are not selecting or encouraging exactly the best people. This has economic and scientific consequences, and it has social consequences. If the work "sexism" doesn't apply to this, then you need a word that does, because there's plenty to discuss here.
But everyone else is using "sexism". It might be quicker to use that one.
(Because the article I link to references work on sexism, I use that term in this post, but racism acts on the same level.)