Drawing from our two-year ethnography, we juxtapose the experiences of two cohorts in one culturally responsive computing program, examining how the program fostered girls' emerging identities as technosocial change agents. In presenting this in-depth and up-close exploration, we simultaneously identify conditions that both facilitated and limited the program's potential. Ultimately, we illustrate how these findings can enhance anthropological research and practice in youth identity, culturally responsive pedagogies, and computing education.
This article investigates the motivations of African American and Latino girls (N = 41) who navigate urban Southwest school districts during the day, but voluntarily attend a 2-year, culturally responsive multimedia program after school and into the summer. Understanding that girls from economically disadvantaged settings are indeed motivated to become technological innovators but often do not have access to the necessary resources to follow their interest, our program-entitled COMPUGIRLS-assumes a culturally responsive computing approach. This research examines particular features of the program (e.g., asset building, reflections, and connectedness) that attracted and retained the Latina (74%) and African American (19%) adolescent (ages 13-18) participants as well as to what extent the culturally relevant aspects of the curriculum assist with program retention and/ or affect the students' vision of themselves as a future technologist. An evaluative approach gathered 2 years of data from the participants. Field notes from observations and interviews were transcribed and reviewed to extract themes and areas of convergence. As a standpoint theory project, the authors center the girls' voices as the primary data sources. Two primary themes emerged from the data to explain girls' sustained motivation. The
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