1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910782115203321

Autore

Margolis Jane

Titolo

Stuck in the shallow end : education, race, and computing / / Jane Margolis ; Rachel Estrella ... [et al.]

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Cambridge, Massachusetts : , : MIT Press, , c2008

[Piscataqay, New Jersey] : , : IEEE Xplore, , [2010]

ISBN

0-262-26096-4

0-262-27910-X

1-4356-6563-5

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (216 p.)

Disciplina

004.071

Soggetti

Children of minorities - Education (Secondary) - United States

Computer science - Study and teaching (Secondary) - United States

Digital divide - United States

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

""Contents ""; ""Foreword""; ""Acknowledgments""; ""Introduction: The Myth of Technology as the “Great Equalizer�""; ""1 An Unlikely Metaphor: The Color Line in Swimming and Computer Science""; ""2 Technology Rich, But Curriculum Poor""; ""3 Normalizing the Racial Divide in High School Computer Science""; ""4 Claimed Spaces: “Preparatory Privilege� and High School Computer Science""; ""5 Teachers as Potential Change Agents: Balancing Equity Reform and Systemic Change""; ""6 Technology Policy Illusions""; ""Conclusion: “The Best and the Brightest�?""; ""Afterword""

""Appendix A: Methodology: Process and Reflections""""Notes""; ""References""; ""About the Authors""; ""Index""

Sommario/riassunto

The number of African Americans and Latino/as receiving undergraduate and advanced degrees in computer science is disproportionately low, according to recent surveys. And relatively few African American and Latino/a high school students receive the kind of institutional encouragement, educational opportunities, and preparation needed for them to choose computer science as a field of study and profession. In Stuck in the Shallow End, Jane Margolis looks



at the daily experiences of students and teachers in three Los Angeles public high schools: an overcrowded urban high school, a math and science magnet school, and a well-funded school in an affluent neighborhood. She finds an insidious "virtual segregation" that maintains inequality. Two of the three schools studied offer only low-level, how-to (keyboarding, cutting and pasting) introductory computing classes. The third and wealthiest school offers advanced courses, but very few students of color enroll in them. The race gap in computer science, Margolis finds, is one example of the way students of color are denied a wide range of occupational and educational futures. Margolis traces the interplay of school structures (such factors as course offerings and student-to-counselor ratios) and belief systems -- including teachers' assumptions about their students and students' assumptions about themselves. Stuck in the Shallow End is a story of how inequality is reproduced in America -- and how students and teachers, given the necessary tools, can change the system.