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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."
Is Computer Science Education Racist and Sexist?
Well, no. Unless there are roaming gangs of white nerdy kids beating up anyone with the wrong color that I haven't heard of.
I don't see anyone complaining that nursing or primary school teaching is sexist, yet those professions have a definite bias towards one sex.
So men tend to like computers more than women, does anyone seriously think this is somehow the industry keeping women from participating? (well, ok, but only because a lot of the "men" in the industry tend to be about as mature as the primary school children I referred to earlier!)
Racist? I can't answer that so readily, but I know a lot of foreign chappies working in IT, and my last company actively discriminated against white guys by only hiring Indian developers - though admittedly they were located in India, and cost a lot less. The one previous to that recruited a lot of Lithuanians, so they could hardly be said to discriminate against the usual native causcasian population.
Now ageist... that is definitely a problem in IT.
- There are crazy stock valuations of computer companies that have almost no revenue.
- People claim that everyone should write computer software including those with minimal STEM background and minmal interest in such.
- When crazy articles about computer science racism starting appearing.
Computers science is a poor fit as a vehicle to level the playing field. Its not the sort of job you can do well if you don't have some sort of inherent interest or curiosity in.
Certainly any group can have members that have such an interest in programming. Finding those individuals would be a good thing. I just have severe reservations against trying to push anyone into this field. I've seen too many programmers who got into the field not because they have any inherent interest or curiosity rather somebody told them it was a good career path. They don't do well.
Should some sort of CS or programming classes be availably to anyone in K-12 that is interested or curious? Sure. It would be a great elective class.
From near the end of the ECS Team Member link:
The learning environment of the more advanced computer science classrooms has supported the culture of these students and often made others to feel as "outsiders," as if their concerns, perspectives, were not valued in the field.
So what exactly does that mean? I don't remember any CS classes having a "culture" of any kind. Unless they are saying that "dry and sometimes boring" is "white culture"?
The whole reason you TAKE a CS class is because you are a relative "outsider" to the concepts being presented and want in.
They talk about the solution being "vision of success" for all cultures. But in the end the only possible "success" from a CS class is a better understanding of how to build software. Not only is that not tied in to a culture, ideally it's not even tied to a language! It's totally abstract, yet they seem to want to make it more concrete somehow...
I don't understand how the deride access as "not being enough" when access is EVERYTHING. Grafting hip-hip or graffiti into a college CS class is way, way too late. You want to help people from "other cultures" - well then figure out how to get them something they can and will program on when they are five years old up until college age. Then if it takes they will happily end up at the "dull" CS classes years later to learn mastery of the thing that they love.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
In computer related fields nobody cares how hot you are.
possibly the wrongest thing I've ever read on Slashdot! :-)
You don't need an above average IQ for CS, you just need to think you have one.
This is totally bullshit and it's being done for bullshit political reasons. Nothing good comes from the politicization of science and yet the politicians cannot resist making a political issue of the lack of "diversity" in CS education. In my own CS experience nobody gave a shit about whether you were black, white, asian or latino and yes we had all of those races represented in the program. What mattered was whether or not you could hack it and continue advancing through the curriculum. The grades were always on a curve and the competition was intense. If you weren't smart enough or fast enough you washed out. In CS, as in other sciences, people respect knowledge, ability and intelligence, not the color of your skin or your cultural background. If you wanted to major in foo-fa the Humanities department was on the other side of campus.
"Cultural activities in dance, skateboarding, graffiti art, and more."
As a black software engineer I am tired of needing things dumbed down (or "hipped up") to be made more acceptable to minorities. We don't need skateboarding, "graffiti art", or dancing to teach a kid how to code. Just like we didn't need a substandard English (Ebonics) to teach kids how to properly read and write.
If under representation of minorites in computer science is racist, I'd love to know what they think of the under representation of non-Asian minorities in all science, medicine, and technology fields. By their metric there would be rampant racism.
Racism is a real thing, and a very terrible thing, and it's offensive to assume a lack of minority representation automatically means racism. I came from a culture that shunned academic excellence of any kind, and I think that's the reason there is under representation. But nobody wants to talk about the elephant in the room which is asking people to blame their perceptions and beliefs instead of their environment. Racism makes a convenient enemy when the enemy is within.
Actually, you have to be able to think very logically. However, good logic skills also correlate with higher average IQs. There is also a bias in the black community that devalues education as it "trains you to be like the man" and ruins street cred.
As a manager in IT, I used to go out of my way to hire attractive women in CS, but they are just super rare. They hardly exist, and the smart ones are very expensive.
All in all, people need to relax and understand we are all different. Just like most pro sports are dominated by blacks because they kick ass athletically, the geeky "brain" sports are dominated by people who spend more time developing their brains (Chinese, Indians, and whites typically). If we would stop judging people for being "weak" or "stupid", humans wouldn't have such a big issue with this simple fact. Fact is, we make fun of dumb jocks and geeky nerds. For a long long time, it was totally uncool to be a weak geeky nerd (Revenge of the Nerds anyone??). It's only because geeks make the most money (on average) that we are cool now. Otherwise, we'd still be outcasts as we were for 30 years.
So, again - if you want to be great in CS, you have to exercise your brain. And it helps if you are introverted and truly enjoy sitting in front of a computer screen for 13 hours a day. Simple as that. If that isn't you, you aren't going to be a good programmer.
Little girls, given the choice between dolls and building blocks, overwhelmingly choose the dolls. You can't reverse biology, and it's idiotic to do so.
That's not to say women can't do CS. Plenty can. Most choose not to do so.
The barrier for entry in learning to code is virtually nil. You need a computer - it doesn't even have to be a good one - and access to the Internet.
That's it. If you have that, you have all of the resources, tutorials, books, exercises, and help documentation needed to start learning CS.
Oh yes - and the motivation to do self-start and learn something yourself.
I don't see anyone complaining that nursing or primary school teaching is sexist, yet those professions have a definite bias towards one sex.
If you haven't heard any complaints, it can only be because you haven't been listening:
Why Men Don't Teach Elementary School [ABC News, March]
Men in Nursing [October]
Betteridge's Law of Headlines.
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.slashdot.org Errors found while checking this document as HTML5!
Interesting how biasing hiring towards women is not considered sexist yet biasing towards men, is? All in the name of 'equality' of course.
Wrong. You can't change advertising. Advertising comes in many forms: novels, television shows, films and so on. No matter how hard you attempt to shield your children, girls tend to want to be pink princesses because that's how women are portrayed in a majority of children's media. It's not a matter of bad parenting either, you can actively ignore mentioning this stuff and little girls still want to be pink simply because their friends do and everywhere they look it's ingrained in society.
no.. Girls innately prioritize socialization, which, for whatever reason, is given more respect these days than abilities (like computer programming) that actually accomplish something. Give girls toy trucks, and they treat them like dolls, anthropomorphizing them.. Give dolls to boys and they'll treat them like space ships, or have them fight or whatever..
Gender is not a social construct. Society is a gender construct.
Wrong race. In my experience, whites are one of several minorities in Computer Science. Both in my B.S. and M.S., more than half of my classmates were Hindu males.
24 beers in a case, 24 hours in a day. Coincidence? I think not!
Hindu is not an ethnicity.
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
I don't have personal relationships with concepts and applications. I have an intellectual relationship with them. I have personal relationships with people.
It's wrong but it's easier to understand what is meant without having to mention "with the dot not the feather".
Ethnicity overloading can be a bitch.
lucm, indeed.
I don't know how much of girls liking dolls, and boys liking building blocks is due to genes or culture, but your blanket statement that demonlapin's statement is false, is itself false. We known it isn't entirely cultural because primate studies show that our closest non-human relatives also display this tendency. However it seems less that females like certain things, and males like certain things, but that males tend to like certain things to the exclusion of others, and females don't have as much exclusive preference.
Primate Study
Additionally, in girls with with a disorder that increases androgen production to be more like boys, toy preference also shifts, despite social pressures.
Androgen Study
Is Computer Science Education Racist and Sexist?
Well, no. Unless there are roaming gangs of white nerdy kids beating up anyone with the wrong color that I haven't heard of.
Yesterday a roving gang of white nerdy kids pummeled me for a half hour. I think I broke a nail.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
IT/Software Development is one of the rare, if not unique, fields where people can be very paid well, the job market is currently hot, and one can learn everything from inexpensive books(or even free online courses) combined with motivation. It's positively egalitarian. If the premise had to do with medicine and law, where there's required expensive schooling and potential for a "good ol' boys" club atmosphere, then I'd find it more believable.
When I've interviewed for development positions where the person went to school was of little importance. In fact, our CTO(who has his BS and MS in CS from Stanford) even jokes that it's the people straight from academia that sometimes seem the most incompetent. The only things we care about are if you know your stuff and have some body of previous work you can point to and talk about. But then I work in Silicon Valley where a competent developer can pretty much write his own ticket right now.
My experience in commercial development the last 13 years had me working with females. They were almost always foreign born, often with English as a second language. Yes, it's mostly males, but a large part of them are East Asians and Indians, not all white males.
In short, the bar of entry in my experience is low as long as you're motivated and competent. Why aren't there more women? Look at practically every engineering and scientific accomplishment in human history. Are you going to tell it's just culture that has kept those accomplishments relegated almost entirely to men?
Racist and Sexist?
The labels "Racist" and "Sexist" are like ketchup . . . you can put them on anything.
Even where it is neither appropriate nor warranted.
University CS programs will now be required to include these "culturally relevant instructional materials" . . . otherwise, they will be judged "substandard" by the government, and the university will lose any government funding.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
My dad tried with my sister.
When she was 16 she could change an alternator herself, admittedly only to prove her little brother wrong.
Then she learned how to stand on tip toes and then drop her heals to the ground, causing her boobs to bounce...it was over in six months. Learned helplessness.
BTW once you notice the, tip toes, drop heals to make boobs bounce thing, you see it everywhere. Anybody got any alternative explanations for this body language? It's always related to a girl wanting to get her way.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
While I entirely agree with you on that one (I've been in more 'some sort of technical group/club/class' contexts than I can remember where having the temerity to join while female was treated as an implicit invitation for every optimist in the place to hit on you(well beyond the bounds of taste, being asked to fuck off, etc. so spare me the 'feminism is killing fun!!!') until you gave up in disgust and left.
What concerns me is that the assorted 'multicultural' bullshit described in TFA sounds more like some kind of racist farce than like an actual inclusion strategy: "Hey, black kid, you 'urban' types like skatesboards and graffiti, right? How about some programming with skateboards and graffiti?" and will do absolutely nothing to address the 'entire class looks you up and down, because you are not one of us and/or we are interested only in fucking you' school of dissuading people from taking up technical subjects.
It's not as though pasty white guys take up comp sci because it "expresses their anglo-saxon heritage".
Here's a classic, often-cited study. To summarize it, some boys are born with an abdominal defect that leaves their bladder or genital organs exposed and malformed. Years ago, surgeons weren't able to reconstruct male organs, so they "converted" the infants at birth to females. They told the parents to keep this secret from the child, and bring them up as girls. So this was a scientific experiment of bring up boys as girls, to the greatest extent imaginable.
As it turned out, most of the boys rebelled against being brought up as girls, and followed male rather than female behavior. Even as infants of a few months of age, they preferred male toys, such as weapons, and male playing, such as aggression and fighting. As they got older, the preference for male behavior, such as fighting and construction toys, was even more noticeable. Boys played with toy guns. They didn't play with tea sets. And they had strong preferences for male clothing.
Any reasonable person would have to admit that this is strong evidence that sexual behavior is largely innate, not environmental.
If you can surgically change a boy to a girl, bring him up as a girl, and have him insist on following male behavior instead, then you could expect the same results from a similar experiment with bringing up girls as boys. If girls have an inherent preference for (or against) certain careers, you'll find more (or fewer) women in those careers, even without discrimination against women, and even despite all the affirmative action and encouragement in the world.
I don't object to women studying engineering; I encourage it. But I would expect that even with the best gender-free STEM education in the world, you're not going to have equal results of as many women in every discipline of engineering as men. It seems to max out at 10%.
Science magazine has also published a lot of work on gender in science and science education. There are some efforts that succeeded and other efforts that failed. Women in biology and medicine, success. Women in engineering, relatively rare.
The evidence goes against somebody suing an employer and saying, "There are more male than female engineers, therefore you're discriminating, and not giving us opportunities, and you should pay us hundreds of thousands of dollars." Which happened in many industries in the 1970s.
********************
Discordant Sexual Identity in Some Genetic Males with Cloacal Exstrophy Assigned to Female Sex at Birth
William G. Reiner, M.D., and John P. Gearhart, M.D.
N Engl J Med 2004; 350:333-341
January 22, 2004
DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa022236
Background
Cloacal exstrophy is a rare, complex defect of the entire pelvis and its contents that occurs during embryogenesis and is associated with severe phallic inadequacy or phallic absence in genetic males. For about 25 years, neonatal assignment to female sex has been advocated for affected males to overcome the issue of phallic inadequacy, but data on outcome remain sparse.
Methods
We assessed all 16 genetic males in our cloacal-exstrophy clinic at the ages of 5 to 16 years. Fourteen underwent neonatal assignment to female sex socially, legally, and surgically; the parents of the remaining two refused to do so. Detailed questionnaires extensively evaluated the development of sexual role and identity, as defined by the subjects' persistent declarations of their sex.
Results
Eight of the 14 subjects assigned to female sex declared themselves male during the course of this study, whereas the 2 raised as males remained male. Subjects could be grouped according to their stated sexual identity. Five subjects were living as females; three were living with unclear sexual identity, although two of the three had declared themselves male; and eight were living as males, six of whom had reassigned themselves to m
When I started learning programming, back in the early 1970's, there were 3 main races that I could see - Indians (from India), Caucasians (from Europe/America) and East Asians (Japanese, Koreans, Chinese, Vietnamese)
As the years gone by, more races were added, from the African continent and from South America (mainly Argentine, Brazil, Chile and Peru)
As for those "hyphenated-Americans" such as "Latino-Americans" or "African-Americans", yes, I saw them too, but their number is small.
Their number is small not because of racism - as far as I know, we in the tech field treasure people with skills, not people with a particular skin-hue - the main cause of their number is because of their culture do not care for people with brains.
I have had co-workers from the Latino-American and African-American communities and they told me of their struggle to "survive" the daily gauntlet from their own people - taunts, bully, threats and physical assaults.
It's okay to be a nerd if you are a white, an Indian, a Japanese, but if you happen to be an African American, a nerd is someone to be stepped on, to be pushed around, to be beaten.
If there is "racism" related to computer-science, the "racism" came not from the nerds, but from those who want to kick the nerds around.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
This is liberal political correctness run amok. It is a bunch of meaningless politically correct, victimization complex garbage. If the aformentioned groups fail to avail themselves of college education for these IT subjects, there is only one group for them to blame, themselves. No one is stopping them from doing so. The article is basically full of a nonsense, meaningless drivel and window dressing. The idea that they cannot learn what a b-tree is without a dicussion of graffiti and gang identification is absurd. The constant obsessive compulsive drive to find sexism and racism in everything is nauseating. Nowhere in computer science textbooks do I find anything that suggests that this field is off limits to the aforementioned groups. This is an example of someone inventing a controversy to both falsely accuse someone of non-existant infractions and create a scapegoating of people for whom are not responsible for whatever they are complaining about. I believe in personal responsibility, of group X or group Y feels they need a computer science education, do it, the fact computer textbooks do not have a discussion of hip hop music is not an excuse for them not being motivated to do so. Some wish to shift blame to others for these groups not doing X or Y, when these groups only have themselves to blame for not being motivated.
Less than 100 years ago, the obvious-accepted colors were reversed:
"In 1918, an article in Ladies Home Journal advised: 'The generally accepted rule is pink for the boys, and blue for the girls. The reason is that pink, being a more decided and stronger color, is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl.' ... In 1927, department stores like Filenes and Marshall Field were still suggesting pink for boys. The current fashion didn’t get established until the 1940s."
http://brooks.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/22/pink-and-blue/
Now think about how many other behaviors which are "obviously" biological may not be.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes