Techquity in the Classroom: Designing to Include Equity and Social Justice Impacts in Computing Lessons

Abstract

Technology is ubiquitous in modern society. It affects our daily activities and exists in every household and on every street corner. Yet, research has shown that both the process of creating technologies and the technologies themselves are biased. New technologies are based on datasets, algorithms, and designs that encode developer and data biases. As youth increasingly use technologies in their daily lives, experience the effects of technologies and algorithms, and learn to be technology creators, it is important for them to critically explore and understand the ways that technology introduces and perpetuates inequities. In this three-article dissertation, I present a design study on the development and implementation of materials specifically designed to teach about Threats to Techquity. Threats to Techquity are aspects of computing and technologies that cause or could cause inequalities, especially inequalities based on marginalized identities (e.g., inequalities due to race, immigration status, gender, sexual orientation, ability). To understand how to bring Techquity into the classroom, I partnered with youth and teachers using participatory design to develop the “Talking Techquity” curriculum for middle grades (5th through 8th grade) students. Findings from this work revealed: (1) youth initially named and identified examples of visible Threats to Techquity, but as they learned more about these threats, they uncovered and discussed invisible Threats to Techquity more frequently and identified these threats as topics to be taught to peers; (2) youth and teacher designers had similar instructional priorities and utilized similar pedagogical strategies when designing and critiquing learning experiences about online data collection and data use, but had contrasting ways of discussing examples and different learning goals; and (3) when implementing “Talking Techquity,” teachers who helped co-design the curriculum made adaptations to content and project requirements to provide more scaffolding and ensure students experienced success based on teachers’ perceptions of student needs and other factors. This research encourages researchers, curriculum designers, educators, and students themselves to consider how to teach and learn about the Threats to Techquity affecting youth’s daily lives and demonstrates how participatory design methods can help uncover key conceptualizations and instructional priorities that make this possible.