Technobiographies and Futures Selves

RUNNING HEAD: Technobiographies and Futures Selves 1

Technobiographies and Futures Selves

Jeremy Dietmeier

University of Wisconsin – Madison

Technobiographies and Futures Selves 2

Abstract

There is a shortage of female computer scientists in the

workforce. Researchers have been working on this problem for over

twenty years, but the disparity remains. This piece explores

using life histories to create technobiographies as a way to

think about future selves. Content Analysis (Hsieh & Shannon,

2005) and future selves (Markus & Nurius, 1986) are used as

analytical lenses to understand the students’ technobiographies.

Three case studies of students participating in an after school

programming club are used to look at how their individual

technobiographies help explain why or why not the intervention

helped the student think of computer programming as a possible

future career. Two variables played the largest roles:

identifying as a person that does computer programming and seeing

computer scientist as a possible future self. Implications for


future computer science interventions, especially those aimed at

girls, are discussed.

Technobiographies and Future Selves

“I’ve built my computer, like, with the parts. So I probably could repair it if it was an inside [problem]…like if it’s some problem in the circuit board, or likesome software issue, I might be able to get it”

Jace, 12 years old


“It’s fun, but I don’t really use computers a lot. Like, I don’t, I don’t use the computers because there’s no like games on it that I really get into.”

Annie, 12 years old

Jace and Annie1 are both members of the Green Town

Codelearning Club, a club designed to give students access to

technology, introduce them to computer programming, and encourage

them to think about possible future careers as computer

programmers. This club was formed to help combat the falling

numbers of students studying computer science and to try and help

students become interested in the topic at a young age

(CollegeBoard, 2014). As we can see from these two examples, the

students that form the club bring with them a variety of skills

and experiences. This paper will explore the life histories of

three of the students in the Green Town Codelearning Club, the

club’s effects on who they want to be when they grow up, and how

looking at life histories can help after school programs, such as

this one, impact the way students think about their future

selves.

1 All names and locations have been changed.


It has been suggested by Lachuk and Gomez (2011) that

educators can use narrative inquiry to better understand their

students, their goals, and how to develop more supportive

classroom communities. I suggest that this line of inquiry can

also be used when thinking about interventions that are aimed at

impacting students’ future goals. In this instance, I looked

specifically at the ways in which students experienced technology

in their lives and crafted “technobiographies” (Goode, 2010). I

asked the question:

How can we use students’ technobiographies to designinterventions that will have a strong impact on theirfuture selves?

In doing so my goal was not to devise a new intervention,

but to see the ways in which students with different technology

identities (Goode, 2010) interacted with the Codelearning Club

and how it impacted their ideas concerning their future selves

(Markus and Nurius, 1986). As I spoke with the students, I

started to realize two things: there was only one regular female

attendee and the girls tended to interact with fewer students

than the boys. This prompted me to ask new questions:


How have the experiences of girls and boys inCodelearning Club differed? How can we improve theirexperiences to have a greater impact on their futureselves and help increase the number of female computerscientists?

As I began examining the trajectories different students’

life stories were taking, I started to see that the intervention

had different impacts based on students’ past experiences, their

abilities, and their motivation to learn. By understanding the

diverse ways in which an intervention can intersect a student’s

technobiography, we can better adapt the intervention to the

individual. In doing so, educators will be able to help girls see

computer programmer as a possible self, potentially leading to

more females in the computer science industry.

Conceptual Framework

Identity

For the purposes of this paper, I will be looking at one’s

self concept as the amalgamation of multiple, potentially

competing, aspects of one’s past, present, and future identities

(Oyserman, 2001). Although identities may feel stable, they are


ever-changing and malleable, created dynamically in context.

One’s identity is affected by past experiences, motivations, and

action tendencies, all of which are affected by social contexts

(James, 1890). Erikson (1968) argues that one’s personality is

related to what is possible for one’s self in relation to a

particular historical, cultural, and sociological time period.

People construct their identities through a collection of

experiences and achievements as well as to which groups they do

and do not belong (Lave and Wanger, 1991; Gee, 2005, Howe and

Strauss, 2000). By thinking about identity in such a way, we are

able to acknowledge the separate pieces of identity, past,

present, and future, that make up a person and affect the ways in

which one thinks about herself: who she is now and who she wants

to be in the future (Howard, 2000; Neisser, 1988, 1997; Oyserman,

2001). Focusing on the students’ different identities will help

illuminate the ways in which different students experience an

intervention, and, in turn, how the intervention makes them think

about their future.


Possible Selves

“Possible selves are important, first, because theyfunction as incentives for future behavior (i.e., theyare selves to be approached or avoided) and second,because they provide an evaluative and interpretivecontext for the current view of self.”

Markus and Nurius, 1986,p. 955

Possible selves are an individual’s thoughts on who they

might become (Markus and Nurius, 1986). This includes both

positive and negative outlooks on life. They are one’s specific

goals, aspirations, fears and threats (Markus and Nurius, 1986).

Papert (1993) argues that people define themselves based on their

aptitudes and ineptitudes. These identities limit the ways

students think about their futures as their education is now

“beset by insecurities and self-imposed restrictions.” (Papert,

1993, p. 8) These views about who one is going to be affects who

they are now. It is not only one’s past that needs to be

considered when looking at one’s identity, but also where they

see themselves in the future (Yowell, 2000). Students that see

themselves as “not mathematical” or “dumb” will start to define

themselves by these attributes, limiting who they will want to be


in the future. Oyserman and Destin (2010) found that, “when

action feels identity congruent, experienced difficulty

highlights that the behavior is important and meaningful. When

action feels identity incongruent, the same difficulty suggests

that the behavior is pointless and ‘not for people like me’”

(p.1002). Depending on which future identity is salient in

schools, students respond differently to challenges. Recognizing

one’s actions as belonging to “people like me” help people to

solidify their identities (Gee, 2000). Mimi Ito (2010) similarly

found in her work with middle school students that “young people

engage in activities that they see as serious or productive work,

or that have a role in preparing them for jobs in the future” (p.

295). Through looking at what actions students recognize as

identity congruent, we can gain insights into who they are, their

future selves, and how we can target interventions to best reach

individuals. Schools can open new identities to students, giving

them a breadth of options to choose from.

Technology Identity


One specific type of identity that can play a role in

assessing one’s future identity is one’s technology identity.

Drawing on Martin’s (2000) work on mathematics identity, Joanna

Goode (2010) developed the technology identity framework as a

means to explore how formative experiences and social contexts

influence skills and attitudes towards computing. It consists of

four pieces: beliefs about one’s technology skills, beliefs about

opportunities and constraints to use technology, beliefs about

the importance of technology, and beliefs about one’s own

motivation to learn more about technology. By looking at these

four pieces and the ways in which they interact to form one’s

technology identity, researchers are able to look beyond simply

skill and access to better understand and measure technological

inequities (Goode, 2010). Additionally, the framework can help

shed light on the ways in which one’s technology identity

interacts with one’s future identities. With this framework as a

guide, Goode (2010) constructed technobiographies of college

students. Through surveys and interviews, Goode classified

students based on the four aspects of their technology identity


and looked at the ways in which their technology identities not

only affected their current identities, but also their future

identities. She was able to analyze the ways in which their

future identities were either facilitated or hindered by their

technology identity. This work highlights not only how one’s

technology identity impacts their lived experiences, but also how

the differences between students’ technology identities shaped

their future opportunities.

By looking at identity as a complex combination of the past,

present, and future selves, it is possible to look at one’s life

trajectory. One’s technology identity gives a framework for

looking at past events to understand the ways in which a person

has come to their current relationship with technology. It gives

insight into what the students have brought with them to

Codelearning Club. Then, looking at the ways in which the

students present themselves, both to me as researcher and to

their peers, sheds light on who they are in the present. Finally,

by looking at their future possible selves, we can better

understand not only their current actions and motivations, but


also the ways in which the intervention has changed what they

thought was possible for the future.

Literature Review

Current Interventions

As technology continues to become more integrated into our

everyday lives, through smartphones, tablets, laptops, and other

computational devices, it becomes more important to ensure that

today’s youth become proficient with their use in order to

successfully participate and innovate in society (Anton, et al.,

2013). This goes beyond simply knowing how to use particular

devices and operating systems to how to program, code, and think

computationally (Wing, 2006). This is a difficult task and many

middle school and high school students either do not have access

to computer science courses or the courses only use abstract

ideas (CollegeBoard, 2014; Camp, 1997). From 2001 to 2007, the

number of students taking the AP Computer Science test has

decreased over 15% and the number of entering college freshman

planning to study computer science has fallen 70% (CollegeBoard,


2014). In response to this, researchers have formed different

programs to try and both teach and generate interest in computer

science.

One of the first programs to attempt to generate more

interest in technology was the Computer Clubhouse (Resnick, Ruck

& Cooke, 1998; Kafai, Peppler & Chapman, 2009). This program

reached out to inner city youth, those that would otherwise not

have access to computer, in order to generate interest. The goal

was not to teach computer skills, but to teach computer fluency.

Instead of focusing on typing, the program encouraged students to

create personally meaningful artifacts (Papert, 1980). The

Computer Clubhouse changed the way people thought about teaching

computer science. It no longer focused on the tool, such as Logo

(Papert, 1980), but focused on creating a community in which all

participants could be valued and succeed (Resnick, Rusk & Cooke,

1998).

Technology programs have built upon this idea, recognizing

that simply having a tool is not enough to build interest and

that it is necessary to also create a supportive environment.


Other environments have been created alongside the Computer

Clubhouse, including Toontalk (Kahn, 1996), AgentSheets (Repenning,

1993), Scratch (Maloney et al., 2010), and IPRO (Berland et al.,

2011), and Studio K (Berger et al., 2013). These programs and

design environments have helped show the importance of having a

large library of user created content to deconstruct and build

upon, enabling peers to help one another, and creating safe

spaces to learn new skills without the fear of judgment (Anton et

al., 2013). While these programs have all had success, there is

concern that programs that focus on game design alienate girls

and continue to enforce the digital divide and that girls would

be better served through programs that reach out to their

interests in design (Flanagan & Niseenbaum, 2008), storytelling

(Denner & Campe, 2008), and creating personally relevant objects

(Brunner, 2008).

Interventions for Girls

There have been two separate approaches to increasing

the number of girls in computer programming. One is the deficit

model in which girls are seen as having started behind boys and


need help catching up. This is the model taken up by Margolis and

Fisher (2003). As early as kindergarten we see both boys and

girls eagerly and skillfully using computers, but boys race to

the computers for free time and play while the girls do not

(Margolis and Fisher, 2003). This differing attachment to

computers leads parents, teachers, and the children themselves,

to label computers a “boy object” and think the boys, and not

girls, will excel in and enjoy computing (Margolis and Fisher,

2003). The girls that enjoy computers, even stating that they

like to mess around and tinker with them, will qualify their

sentiments by stating that their enjoyment is different, and

often times less than, the enjoyment and attachment of the boys

around them (Margolis and Fisher, 2003) These perceived gender

discrepancies do not begin at school, but instead start at home.

In the home, even the most thoughtful parents may be

unintentionally marking the computer as a male object. Kagan

(1964) found that children make gender associations with many

everyday objects. Seemingly neutral objects, such as books or

school desks, are marked as female, presumably because of their


predominately female teachers. In the home, the desktop computer

becomes marked as male as children see their dads and brothers

tinkering with it and playing games (Kagan, 1964; Cassell &

Jenkins, 1998). This comes not only from children, but from

adults as well. Parents often place their gender expectations on

their children and buy them toys based on their preconceived

notion of what is a girl’s toy and what is a boy’s toy

(Goldstein, 1994). Over half of the families in one study placed

the computer in a room that made it more easily accessible to the

son or father than to the daughter or mother (Giaquinta, Bauer,

and Levin, 1993). This treatment of the computer sets up a

barrier for women as they must cross gender lines to be able to

claim the computer as their own. These barriers set girls behind

their male counterparts and thus they need remedial and slower

classes in order to catch up.

The second model focuses on interest and identity. Instead

of seeing girls as behind their male counterparts, they see girls

as being on a different track all together. Instead of focusing

on computer programming, these interventions focus on reaching


out to a wider variety of participants. For example, some

researchers have moved away from games toward e-textiles. Instead

of creating a community from nothing, e-textiles reach out to a

community that already has a number of female participants

(Buechley et al., 2008). Kits, such as the Arduino Lilypad (Buechley

et al., 2008), provide students with the technology needed to

design and wear their own e-textiles. These programs have been

finding success reaching out to girls through e-textiles at the

college (Lee & Fields, 2013), high school (Kafai et al., 2014)

and middle school (Fields, Kafai & Searle, 2012) level.

It is not only through e-textiles that educators are

reaching out to more students, especially girls. Some groups are

using storytelling. Instead of the focus being on writing code,

the focus is on using Alice as a computer programming tool in

order to tell stories (Keller, Pausch, & Kiesler, 2007). Others

have focus on computers as a means for communication instead of

computation. A course at the Georgia Institute for Technology

taught students skills such as photo manipulation through coding

as a way to introduce students to computer programming (Forte &


Guzdial, 2004). This course had an increased number of female

participants (Guzdial & Forte, 2005). While some may argue that

courses like these are pandering to women and do not lead to a

rigorous understanding of computer programming and the computer

science field, those that took this course were well prepared to

succeed to more advanced courses in computer science, comparable

to their counterparts in the traditional introduction to computer

science courses (Guzdial & Forte, 2005). Instead of seeing them

as pandering, they should be seen as a way to create a meaningful

context in which learning can occur and be transferred to other

relevant domains (Althoff, 2001).

The Codelearning Club takes the latter approach to learning

about computer programming. The participants are encouraged to

use the space in whatever way interests them most. Instead of

seeing some of the participants as more advanced and the other

participants as needing to catch up, they were encouraged to work

on their own projects at their own pace. While some of the more

advanced students were making a webpage in Java, others were

making games in Kodu or music videos in Scratch. It was not that


everyone needed to be at the same level making webpages, but that

each student should pursue their interests and grow their skills

as needed to accomplish their personal goals.

Women in the Information Technology Industry

A graduate student at M.I.T., Ellen Spertus, wondered why

less than 20% of her computer science cohort was female. This led

her to write a 124-page paper titled “Why are there so few female

computer scientists?” This was in 1991 (Spertus, 1991). Since

then, the numbers haven’t changed. From 1994 to 2007, the number

of bachelor’s degrees in computer science awarded to women has

remained between twelve and eighteen percent, with only fourteen

percent awarded to women in 2006 and twelve percent in 2007

(Vesgo, 2008). Instead of seeing improvements in the number of

women enrolled in computer science courses, the numbers reflect a

decline in participation. The number of women taking the AP

computer science exam in high school reflects this trend (Goode,

2008; CollegeBoard, 2014). Referred to as the “shrinking

pipeline” (Camp, 1997), the number of women interested in

computer science shrinks from high school to college and from


college to the job market. At each level of education fewer and

fewer women are remaining interested in computer science. One

potential reason for the shrinking pipeline is the digital

divide. Beginning in the 1980’s and 90’s, the digital divide

emerged as a political term used to describe the discrepancies in

access to and use of digital technology (Selwyn, 2004). While the

phrase was first used only to discuss access, in recent years it

has become more focused on the ways in which different groups,

such as women, use computers and why their use differs from white

males (Baron, 2004). Studies continue to show that gender is a

contributing factor to the digital divide (Baron et al., 2009;

Sonnert, Fox & Adkins, 2007). While these surveys reflect the

shrinking number of women participating in computer science, they

fail to demonstrate the adverse effects these numbers have on the

technology field.

Computing jobs are plentiful (Levy & Murnane, 2012),

salaries are high and growing (Adams, 2013), and there are

endless opportunities for entrepreneurship (Margolis & Fisher,

2003). The job market for information technology workers is


projected to grow at a rate of 26% a year, resulting in over 7

million jobs by 2015 (McKendrick, 2012). And yet this is a field

that cannot fill the job market demand. Margolis and Fisher

(2003) estimated that over 900,000 information technology jobs

went unfilled. In 2012, this number was estimated to be closer to

1.7 million (McKendrick, 2012). This resulted in the cancelation

of an estimated 35 percent of projects and another 40 percent

falling behind schedule due to a lack of skilled workers. This

has cost over $4 billion dollars a year in Silicon Valley alone

(Margolis & Fisher, 2003). Despite the number of great

opportunities available, women are still leaving the computer

science field. Every day talented and capable women and girls are

being discouraged or disaffected from pursuing these careers.

The lack of women in computer science careers has

consequences beyond financial losses. When women are not included

in the design process, their ideas and concerns are left unheard.

Margolis and Fisher (2003) present an especially poignant

example: all-male teams developed early voice-recognition systems

and calibrated them to be able to pick up the sounds of male


voices, leaving women’s voices literally unheard. This

demonstrates how the creation of products without the input of

its representative user base can result in unforeseen

consequences. As put by Margolis and Fisher (2003) “Women must be

part of the design teams who are reshaping the world, if the

reshaped world is to t women as well as men” (p. 3). Few women fi

are learning how to invent, create, or design computer

technology. To become part of the conversation in the computing

world, women must be more than consumers. They must become

designers, inventers, and creators.

These are two separate goals. On one hand we have people

interested in filling the gap in the job market. On the other

hand, we have people wanting to empower women through coding and

related activities. The Codelearning Club focuses on the latter

while making a space where the former is possible. The goal of

the club is to provide a space for students of all skill levels

to come together and learn about computing. The students are able

to do this at their own pace and through their own interests. The

students are given little instruction and encouraged to explore


and learn on their own. If the goal were to fill the gap in the

job market, more explicit instruction would be needed. At the

same time, the hope is that their interest may be fostered so

that when the opportunity arises, the students will be more

likely to participate in computer science classes and potentially

move into the computer science job market. So while the focus is

on making coding available, the hope is that it may help be a

part of the job gap solution.

Context

To understand these students’ stories, it is important to

put them in context. Mrs. Wilson, Green Town Middle School’s

librarian, started the Codelearning Club in the summer of 2013.

She had run such a club at her previous school and was looking

forward to introducing it to a new group of students. During the

summer, Mrs. Wilson held a week long course on programming. The

students met for four hours a day learning how to make their own

games in Kodu (MacLaurin, 2009) and Scratch (Resnick, et al.,

2009).


The program was met with such success that Mrs. Wilson

decided to continue the club throughout the school year. The club

met once a week on Friday afternoons from 3:30, when school ends,

until 5:30. Similar to other after school technology clubs, such

as Computer Clubhouse (Resnick, Ruck, & Cooke, 1998),

Codelearning Club hoped to help students move beyond basic

computer skills to helping them design and create with technology

(Maloney, et al., 2004). During these two hours the students are

given unstructured access to the library’s computers. Some

students use this time to find and play new flash games, to

revisit games they have tried in the past, or to introduce their

friends to the new games they found at home over the past week.

Others use this time to work on their own games, continuing games

they have been working on for weeks or to build and test a new

game all within the span of two hours. Still others use the time

to hone their coding skills, learning new programming languages,

such as Java and Python, making web pages, or discussing the

modifications they want to make to their Minecraft server. Most

students will do a combination of all three activities over their


time within the club and sometimes even within a single day. The

students aren’t asked to perform any specific tasks, are not

chastised for playing games, talking, or moving about, and are

given the opportunity to use the computer in ways they may not

have the opportunity to in class or at home.

Although the students’ time is unstructured, a group of

older students and adults are present to facilitate the group.

Mrs. Wilson is on hand to provide access to the library and

supervision. To assist her, she has invited four high school

students to serve as aides. These students fulfill a variety of

roles. Primarily, they are on hand to help solve technical issues

with the computers. Due to the unconventional set up of the

computers as well as their age, the computers will often freeze

up or shut down. Additionally, the aides serve as the local

experts for the coding programs. While the students are quite

competent in using the programs, when they have questions, the

aides are there to help. They offer advice, show students how to

use different programs and programming languages, and help

troubleshoot and debug programs. Finally, they provide some


structure to the afternoon for interested students. The aides

give demos on different games the students may want to try,

provide coding challenges to the students, and help the students

show off their work by conducting presentations. While the aides

offer these options, the students only need to participate in the

ones that interest them.

Codelearning Club is made up of about fifteen students every

week. Because attendance is not mandatory, the number of students

vary between ten and twenty five students. Only one of the

regular attendees was a girl, and only four other females

attended, three of whom only attended once. The students were all

friendly to one another, but divided into two groups: the coders

and the gamers. The coders spent most of their time learning java

and python, building webpages, and working on advancing their

programming skills. The gamers would make simple games and Kodu

and Scratch, play each other’s games, and play web games. The

girls that attended were not a part of either group.

Methodology


Like Goode (2010), I chose life history as a method in order

to better understand the students’ identities and the impact of

the intervention on the ways they think about their future

selves. One’s identity is hard to measure, especially when one

accounts for the dynamic nature of identity. Sfard and Prusak

(2005) also encountered this problem and worked to operationalize

identity for use as an analytic tool. They used story-telling as

a way to identify and observe identity-building. Additionally,

life histories allow researchers to see patterns in people’s

lives (Bertaux and Bertaux-Wiame, 1981; Shaw, 1966; Mishler,

1999; Gomez, 2010). It is through telling stories that people are

able to share not only who they are, but who they were in the

past, placing their current stories in conversation with past

experiences (Capps and Ochs, 1995).

Using life histories, I was able to start to understand the

students’ technology identities. To this end, I crafted techno-

biographies (Stepulevage, 1999; Goode, 2010), a life history as

it revolves around the participants’ experiences and the emotions

they attach to their interactions with technology. I asked the


students to share stories of their experiences with technology

and share the attitudes and beliefs they have toward technology.

I aimed to understand the patterns of their stories and to see

the ways in which their different experiences lead to different

possible selves. In this piece, I explore the life histories of

three students in the Codelearning Club – Annie, Jace, and Eve. I

chose these three students to serve as case studies (Stake,

1978). The goal of these case studies is not to present the

typical or representative experience, but to present the careful

description of their experiences (Stake, 1978; Gomez, 2014).

These three students provide a wide spectrum of both technology

identities and possible selves. Their experiences provide an

opportunity to look at the ways in which their technology

identities interacted with the Codelearning Club and how this

affected their possible selves.

Life history interviews aim to provide opportunities for

participants to share stories from their lives and to understand

the meanings behind the stories. Technobiographies, more

specifically, look to elicit stories around a person’s


interaction with technology. To obtain a complete

technobiography, it is important to learn about a participant’s

past, present, and predicted future interactions with technology

(Goode, 2010). I tried to illicit stories from my participants as

telling stories is a particularly apt way to learn about one’s

identity. The act of telling stories is a way for participants to

perform their identities (Mishler, 1999).

Life histories serve not only as a data collection method,

but also work as an intervention. Through having students reflect

upon their past experiences, it makes them think about who they

are, who they have been, and who they will be. These interviews

provided an opportunity to not only learn more about the

students, but to ratify who they are in this space and let their

story be heard. While my goal was to learn about their

experience, I also took advantage of the interviews as a space to

let them be heard, to listen closely, and engage in relationship

building.

One’s future self is not a contract of who one is going to

be in the future, but is related to what one sees as possible in


the future. This means that when students declare that they can

or will be a computer scientist or programmer in the future, it

does not mean that will undoubtedly be their profession in ten

years’ time, but rather that it is seen as a possibility.

Children as young as four have mental images of who they will be

in the future (Atance, 2008). It does not mean they know what the

future holds for them, but rather suggests who they may or may

not want to be in the future. When approaching this data, it is

important to remember that when the students speak about who they

want to be when they grow up and if they believe it is possible

for them to work in the computer science or computer programming

industries, they are speaking not about what will happen, but

rather about what could happen. Even the students that declared

with certainty that they would be a computer scientist cannot

know for certain what the future holds.

With that in mind, these data still provide an important

lens for thinking about interventions and a student’s sense of

self. First, what one believes about one’s future plays an

important role in self-regard. Simply thinking about one’s future


selves can improve how a student feels about himself and can

increase levels of self-esteem (Oyserman, et al. 2004; Knox, et

al., 1998). More salient to this piece, though, is how one’s

future selves play an important role in motivation. Thinking

about who one can be in the future helps create goals for the

present, impacting current decision making (Brown, 1998; Fiske;

2008). As people relate their future self to their current self,

they are more likely to take action, either to avoid or achieve

that future self (Destin & Oyserman, 2010; Peetz, Wilson, &

Strahan, 2009). By thinking about the journey from a student’s

current self to a perceived future self, we can help tailor

interventions to help students achieve their goals.

I found potential participants through the Green Town

Codelearning Club. The club’s size would vary from week to week

as attendance was not mandatory. All of the students were

enrolled in Green Town Middle School. I interviewed twelve

participants, 5 females and 7 males. All of the students were

between 11 and 14 years old when interviewed. The interviews took

place in the school library, the same room in which the students


met for the Codelearning Club. Each student participated in one

formal interview that lasted between 30 and 60 minutes.

Additional informal conversations took place over the course of

five months during the Codelearning Club meetings.

Data Analysis

I used a directed approach to content analysis (Hsieh &

Shannon, 2005) to best understand the students’ life

stories. With this method, I started with Goode’s (2010)

technology identity framework and looked for experiences

that related to their technology identity. I looked

specifically for landmark events (Linde, 1993). These are

notable events that are worthy of being retold over many

years. I used these landmark events in order to both create

and understand the participants’ stories. Following this, I

reread the transcripts and notes searching for times the

students talked about their future selves (Markus & Nurius,

1986). I looked for any speech that included the future


tense to see what plans they were making for themselves

about their futures.

Following this, I preformed inductive analyses. I read

through each of the participants’ transcripts and field

notes looking for notable themes. After reading through all

of the transcripts once, I read them again, looking for

which themes were present in multiple transcripts. The most

salient themes that emerged were the ways in which the

students expressed their identities through whom they

collaborated with to make games. These provided insights

into the students’ ideas about their technology identities

and future selves.

Technobiographies

Annie

“I would like to make up my own games, because, like,no games really fit me. So I would just make up a gamethat like maybe if someone like me comes along thenthere would be a game for them”

Annie is the lone girl that comes to Codelearning Club each

week. While other girls came once or twice, Annie is there every


week working on her games in Scratch. She is an academically

successful student, likes school and computers, and has big plans

for her future.

Annie has been using the computer since a young age.

Although she has had a computer in her house “for as long as

[she] can remember,” her computer stories are all set in the

school. For her, computers have always been a source of

curiosity. She has never taken apart a computer or tinkered with

its internal components, but she likes to explore computers by

clicking on different icons and seeing what will happen. She

recalled her first use of a computer to be in kindergarten. The

class was using the computer for an online reading program and

were supposed to inform the teacher when they were done. Instead,

Annie finished quickly and started to explore the computer’s

interface. She started to click on different things and opened

another program. She started to play with the new program until a

teacher saw what she was doing, chastised her, and brought her

back to the reading assignment. This was the start of her


curiosity with computers. She wanted to know what they could do

and how she could use them.

As Annie grew up, she started to see the computer as a toy.

When she wanted a horse, her parents got a family computer

instead. It was not her own, but she used it all the time. She

would use it to play games and watch videos, but her favorite

thing to do on computers is the “artsy-fartsy stuff.” She played

with digital coloring books, made her own images, and created

backgrounds. Her interests in art blended with her interests in

computers. She does not identify as an artist or a computer geek,

but combines her interest in the two topics to create.

Codelearning Club has helped her further these interests and make

not only backgrounds and images, but games as well.

When I first met Annie, she was designing a car racing game

and challenged me to a race. I lost handedly and Annie took the

opportunity to fix her game design and we played again. This time

it was much closer, but I still lost. Since this first meeting,

Annie has developed a variety of games about racing, nature,

puzzles, and art, mostly by herself. Each week, Annie sits at the


computer in the back corner and gets to work. If there is another

girl there that week, Annie will sit by her, but the majority of

the time, when she is the only girl, she uses the computer in the

corner. None of the boys sit next to her and they rarely interact

with her. Annie told me that it does not bother her and that she

does not care that she is the only girl there. She makes her

games and that is what she cares about. When she needs help, she

turns to the internet. If the internet does not have the answer,

she asks a TA. She never asks the other students for help, even

though some of them have more experience.

Before Codelearning Club, Annie had never made a computer

game, thought she had many ideas for games. She loves video

games, but “there’s no games on it that [she] really [gets]

into.” Being able to design her own games introduced her to the

idea that she could make games for people like her, people that

“don’t entirely like the boys games” and “hate the girly girl

games.” Annie told me that she tries to balance her games so they

are not too violent, but are still interesting. She likes games

that both give the player a chance to design their avatar as well


as have interesting mechanics and storylines. For Annie,

designing games for people like her is an important part of

Codelearning Club and has created a new possible career path.

Although Annie is only in fifth grade, she is ambitious

about her future and computers play a vital role. She would like

to work in schools, like her mom, or be an educational video game

designer. When talking about the type of teacher she would be,

Annie emphasized how she would use technology in her classroom,

giving students access to computers, and playing educational

games. She likes school more when she gets to use computers and

thinks her students will, too. As an educational game designer,

Annie wants to make games that students would like and would

learn something from, too. In her experience, teachers often have

their students go to “educational websites that aren’t very

educational” and she’d like to change that. She sees computer

programmer as a career she could excel in, but is careful to

distinguish herself from the “typical” computer programmer.

Annie described the typical computer programmer as “obsessed

video game players and some people who are really good at math …


and just like go on the internet all the time or just like watch

TV.” Annie had previously described herself as someone that likes

math and uses the computer a lot, but after talking about

computer programmers informed me that she only likes math because

she is good at it and does not really use the computer very much,

especially compared to the boys. She described them as being

nerds and the type of people that typically become computer

programmers. She would be the exception, and that was important

to her. Right now computer programmers only know how to make

“girly girl” games and “boy” games, and she would be the one to

help fix that. For Annie, too many female computer programmers

would only make games like “hairstyle salon,” but if there are

only male computer programmers, there will not be any games she

likes. Her solution is to be the atypical computer programmer and

help make new games that more people will enjoy.

Jace

“I like working on computers and coding, and I likeengineering, like electrical engineering andmechanical. And I work on circuits a lot at my house.”


Mrs. Wilson introduced Jace to me as the most advanced

student in the Codelearning Club. He comes once or twice a month

when he can, but is usually at sports practice. Although not as

academically successful as Annie, he has an exceptional

background in computers and plans on being an engineer like his

dad.

Jace grew up with multiple computers in his house. His dad

works as an electrical engineer and likes to build computers in

his spare time. Jace does not remember exactly when he started

using computers, but notes that he was “probably really little.”

They have always been a part of his life at home. He remembers

that his dad would let him play on old computers. As he grew up,

his dad started to show him how computers worked and invited Jace

to help him build computers. He currently can build a computer by

himself and has his own computer, which he built, in his bedroom.

He likes to upgrade and tinker with his computer, sometimes with

his dad’s help, but more often on his own.

Jace’s skills with computers have become a part of his

social life as well. When talking about what he likes to do for


fun, Jace’s interests can be placed into two categories:

computers and sports. While Jace admittedly spends a lot of time

with computers, he spends just as much time playing sports. He

plays a different sport each season and often has to miss

Codelearning Club because he is playing organized sports. Many of

the friends that he has made through sports he has brought to

Codelearning Club or plays computer games with them. Jace has set

up his own Minecraft server with his friends where they have

designed the world, established rules, and generated in game

activities through coding. Zak, another student in the

Codelearning Club, told me about how while they all play

Minecraft together on their server, most of the work is either

done or double checked by Jace. Zak said that he and many of his

friends became interested in computer programming through Jace.

During Codelearning Club, many of the boys will seek out Jace to

help them with their code. While most of the students are using

visual coding languages like Kodu and Scratch, Jace is teaching his

friends how to program in Java and Python, much more complex


coding languages. For Jace and his peer group, computer

programming is the cool thing to do.

While many students talk about computer science and

programming being things that nerds do, Jace and his friends see

it as social capital. For these students, coding is cool and

being able to make your own web page brings with it social

capital, not ridicule. Jace talks about computer programming and

playing hockey in the same breath. In traditional school

hierarchies the jocks play sports and the nerds use computers

(Eckert, 1989). For Jace, this model breaks down and he excels at

both. When the opportunity arose to make a website for the

Codelearning Club, Jace and his friends leapt at the chance to

show off their skills. Zak, who is less skilled at computer

programming than Jace, told me about hoping he could make his own

website the same way that Jace can. Their peer group often looks

up to Jace because of his technical knowledge. They also seem to

organize themselves by their skill level, with Victor, their

second most skilled programmer, taking the leadership role when

Jace is not around. When Jace is around, they often work on their


coding skills and knowledge, but when he is not around, they

default to playing or making games.

Being the most skilled with coding, Jace spends a majority

of his time helping his friends. They turn to him with questions

about coding and take his advice eagerly. Jace does not see this

as a burden, but enjoys helping them. Coding is something they

can all do together and “it’s more fun than coding alone.” The

few times I have seen Jace face a problem he did not know the

answer to, he quickly looked it up in a book about computer

programming or found the answer online. When he is home, Jace is

able to turn to his dad for help, but says that he doesn’t need

to do that often. He feels he has been working with computers for

so long that if he doesn’t know the answer he can either figure

it out or knows how to quickly find the solution.

Jace sees computer programming as a tool to be used to solve

problems. He elaborates that computer programmers not only make

games, but they also make websites, computer software, and

“basically make the computer run.” He does not think of the

visual languages as computer programming, but rather as a


computer program that is like computer programming. For Jace,

programming is like using another language that the computer

understands to get the computer to do things. Typing commands in

Java is very different than dragging around blocks in Scratch. It

also allows him to do more things than just make games. He writes

programs for his computer at home and makes websites. He thinks

knowing computer programming has helped him in math and science

in ways that knowing Scratch would not. He also sees computer

programming as a way to help him in his future.

Jace hopes to follow in his father’s footsteps and become an

engineer. He likes the idea of building things to help people and

really enjoys doing work with his hands. While he says he could

be a computer programmer if he wanted to, he simply does not find

that type of work as fun or rewarding. Instead, he sees it as a

hobby and something that he can do for fun or to help with

whatever job he ends up doing. He already knows of programs, such

as INV Inventor, that engineers use in their work from talking to

his dad. Like with school, he believes that knowing computer


programming will help him in his future career even if he is not

a computer programmer.

Eve

“Computer science is too hard. I’d rather do somethingmore fun, like be a vet…they use computers to keepnotes on pets, but that’s not hard.”

Eve took part in the summer Codelearning course, but rarely

comes to the after school club. When she is there, she makes

games in Scratch with her little sister. She likes school and

thinks computers are okay, but does not see herself working with

computers in the future.

Eve remembers having a computer in the house when she was

little, but does not recall using it often. Sometimes her dad

would show her a new game or program, but she never really got

into it and would rather play outside or with her other toys. It

is not that she did not enjoy playing on the computer, but she

liked her other toys more. As she got older, she would use the

computer more often, but only to play games and it has never been

her foremost pastime. Eve described her mom as “technologically


dumb” and her dad was good with computers, but does not know how

to program or how to fix the computer when it crashes “beyond

turning it off and on again.”

Her experience at school was similar. Once a week she would

go to the computer lab and type, but never to code or build a

computer. Her teachers did not seem any more competent than her

dad and if there were any problems with the computer, students

would just use a different one. Eve liked using the computers

more than sitting in the classroom because “it was easier to chat

with friends.” When I tried to get her to talk about the

different projects she had done on the computer, Eve could not

think of any in particular and said she mostly just used them to

type. The computers never truly captivated Eve. They were just

another machine for doing schoolwork and playing games.

During the summer Codelearning Club, Eve started to get more

interested in computers. She never realized that she could be the

one making the games instead of just playing them. Using Scratch

and Kodu opened up a new way to use computers and Eve loved it.

For Eve, it was fun to be the one deciding what the characters


and the background looked like. She always liked making art

projects and now had a new medium in which to create.

When asked about why she does not come to Codelearning Club

anymore if she liked coding during the summer, Eve told me that

she does not have the time, that her parents could not pick her

up after, and that she just is not into computers as much

anymore. She talks about it like a passing fad that was just fun

during the summer. She is not “one of the boys that just wants to

be on the computer all the time.” She said she did not have any

other friends in the club and would rather play with them than

make games. Eve also is not interested in learning how to

program, which she defined as making video games. She did not

know of any other uses for programming. She knows more than her

dad and teachers, and that is “good enough.”

This sense of being “good enough” carries over into her

coding. When Eve faces a problem she does not know the answer to,

she will change her game design instead of asking for help from

either the aides or the other students. In one of her games, she

wanted the protagonist to change colors and size while collecting


fruit. After trying to make the character change colors for five

minutes, Eve gave up and only made the character change size. She

is not interested in learning more about computer programming and

would rather make her game on her own with her own skills than

ask for help. She informed me that she knows the boys and the

aides could help her with her games, but does not want to ask

them for help. She makes her games for fun and does not want to

go out of her way to seek help. For Eve, the goal is not to get

better, but to have fun.

Eve recognizes that whatever job she ends up having she will

need to use a computer, but thinks her current skill level is

enough. Eve wants to be a teacher when she grows up. When she

looks around and sees the technology that her teachers are using,

she already knows how to use it, often times better than the

teachers. If she wanted to teach computer classes, she would need

to learn more, but since she wants to teach English, knowing how

to program is more of a luxury than a necessity. If she really

wanted to, she believes she could get better at computers, but


computer programming does not interest her and spending the time

to learn it is not appealing.

Discussion

All three students had different technobiographies leading

up to their participation in the Codelearning Club, greatly

affecting the ways in which they interacted within the club.

Annie had already spent a lot of time playing on computers both

at home and in school and was eager to learn more about them.

Jace came to the club with advanced computer skills that he

learned from his dad and spent much of his free time tinkering

with computers. Eve had some exposure to computers, but was not

interested in improving her skills. These differences become

apparent when looking at their technology identities, outlined in

table 1. Using their technology identities as a starting point,

it is possible to then look at how they interacted within the

Codelearning Club and how the club affected their perception of

their future selves.


Participant

Technology IdentitySkills Opportunit

iesImportan

ceMotivat

ionAnnie Compete

ntAvailable Highly

important

Eager

Jace HighlyFluent

Abundant Extremely

Important

Infatuated

Eve Competent

Available Unimportant

Unexcited

Table 1: Participants Technology Identities

Jace’s Affinity Space

Jace came to Codelearning Club well ahead of his peers. His

past experiences had already prepared him to work with computers

at a level much higher than the other students. Instead of

abandoning the group, however, he stayed and became a part of an

affinity space (Gee, 2004). Jace and his friends started to work

on projects together, sharing their knowledge and helping each

other get better at programming. While it started with just Jace

and his close friends, it soon grew to include about half of the


Codelearning Club. Even though Jace was the most experienced,

there were still times when he, too, did not know the correct

code and everyone would start looking for answers in books and

online. Codelearning Club served as a space for Jace and his

friends to develop and practice core programming skills in a

social environment as well as take on identities as computer

programmers (Black and Steinkuehler, 2009).

At the same time, it should be pointed out that Jace’s

computer skills did not see much improvement nor did his interest

in the subject grow during this time. It is possible that he

suffered from a classroom ceiling effect (Rifkin, 2005) where his

skills were too high at the start of the program and he did not

have much room to grow. Although Jace, himself, did not see

tremendous gains in those areas, his presence in the Codelearning

Club and being a part of the affinity space may have had a

tremendous impact on those around him. Jace still wants to work

in computer science as an electrical engineer and his enthusiasm

and expertise made many of his friends interested in having

similar careers as well. Jace’s technobiography highlighted his


skills and interest in the field. An affinity space naturally

formed in the Codelearning Club, but with his knowledge and

background, Jace was well prepared for the role peer mentor that

he found himself in. Knowing of his previous experience would

have allowed Mr. Wilson to create additional challenges or

provide more resources to him to help him improve his own skills

while still assisting those around him. Had an affinity space not

formed, it is possible that Jace would have found himself bored

and he may not have stayed a part of the group. Looking at his

technobiography could have helped Jace and his peers benefit more

from Codelearning Club.

Annie’s Apprenticeship

Annie knew how to use a computer, but wanted to learn more.

She wanted to make games, but could only do the basics. Unlike

Jace, Annie did not have friends in the Codelearning Club to

expedite the creation of an affinity space. Instead, she turned

to the aides and learned through apprenticeship (Steinkuehler,

2004; Gee, 1999). When Annie first started making games, she had


many questions and would turn to the aides for help. Through

their one-on-one interactions, the aides helped indoctrinate

Annie into the world of computer programming and game making,

helping her learn how to participate in the Discourse (Gee, 1999;

Steinkuehler, 2006). This worked well for Annie as she was able

to receive individual attention on her problems as they arose.

Her game making skills improved immensely over the course of the

semester and she started to believe that she could become a game

maker. For Annie, Codelearning Club helped transition her

interest in computers to developing an identity and future self

that makes video games.

Although Annie said she does not mind being the only girl in

Codelearning Club, her actions suggest that she would have liked

to program with other girls. Whenever there was another girl,

Annie would sit next to her and try to help her make games,

moving from the apprentice role to the master. On those days,

Annie would also spend more time at Codelearning Club, staying

later than on days when there were no other girls. Annie also

told me that she kept inviting her friends to come, but they did


not want to make video games. Annie’s personal motivation and

drive kept her coming back to Codelearning Club. It intersected

with her interests so even though there was no external

motivation to attend, Annie wanted to go every week and improve

her skills. Her motivation to learn made Codelearning Club a

successful intervention for her, but, as we will see when looking

at Eve’s story, without seeing computer programming as being

important for her future self, it would not have had the same

impact.

Eve’s Self Instruction

While Jace maintained his level of interest and Annie’s

interest grew, Eve never saw computer programming as a part of

her future self. When the others encountered problems with their

games, they would turn to their peers and the aides for help.

Eve, on the other hand, would perform a cursory search online or

change her game design. Even when she found solutions online, she

was not always familiar enough with the Discourse to understand

how to implement it. In these circumstances, she was not


motivated to seek out the help of others, and as a result, did

not learn much about programming or improve her skills. Looking

at her games from the summer and from the fall there is little

change in their complexity or in the coding. In the end, she

became uninterested in computer science and programming and

stopped coming to the Codelearning Club, even though she had

enjoyed it in the summer.

Eve’s technobiography shows what set her apart from Jace and

Annie. While Jace was growing up, he was surrounded by technology

and became an expert in using it. When he came to Codelearning

Club, he was starting at a high level of competence and knowledge

of the Discourse. Eve did not have this same history. While she

was familiar with computers, she did not have the same knowledge

as Jace. Whereas Jace could learn quickly from books and online

resources, Eve did not always have the technical abilities to

understand the Discourse, making self-instruction a challenge.

Annie started with the same deficits as Eve in those regards, but

came in with computer scientist as a potential future self. Annie

saw technology as an important part of her future and she wanted


to gain the skills. Eve was less interested in learning more.

When Annie had problems, she sought out others to help her gain

the necessary skills to make her future goals a possibility. Her

high level of interest motivated her to learn more (Edelson &

Joseph, 2004; Renninger, 1992; Gee, 2004). Without this

motivation, Eve quickly became uninterested in Codelearning club.

Knowing Eve’s technobiography lets one think of ways in

which Codelearning Club fell short and how it might have been

improved. First, Codelearning Club was an unstructured space

where learning took place voluntarily. While Jace and Annie both

had computer scientist as a potential future self, Eve did not

and needed more scaffolding in place to help her skills improve

(Vygotsky, 1980). In the summer, her interest was piqued, but her

skills were too undeveloped to accomplish her goals. Without

guidance, she did not know how to improve and her interest

subsequently waned. Jace and Annie also had future selves that

necessitate a knowledge of technology while Eve did not. Because

the actions did not have an important role in her future, Eve did

not see them it as productive work and chose to focus her


attentions elsewhere (Ito et al., 2010). Thinking of ways to

connect Eve’s interests to computer programming may help her find

a reason to think of programming as a worthwhile enterprise and

encourage her to keep learning (Steinkuehler, 2010).

Using Technobiographies

The different pieces of the students’ technology identities

highlight two important points for participating in an

intervention: having computer programmer as a part of their

identity and seeing computer scientist as a potential future

self. For all of the students, their computer skills and the

availability of technology played a role in how they identified

as a computer programmer and interacted with Codelearning Club.

Jace, who started with the highest abilities and identified

himself to me as a computer programmer, was ready to serve as a

peer mentor in an affinity space. While his own abilities did not

see a great increase, he made those around him better. Annie and

Eve had lower abilities, did not readily identify as computer

programmers, and were in a place to learn. Annie’s abilities were


able to improve through apprenticeship with the aides and Eve’s

abilities, while they stayed the same, had the potential to

increase through interacting with others in the Club.

Additionally, the future selves the students held reflect what

kind of assistance they would need. Jace and Annie, who both saw

computer scientist as a potential future self, were ready to find

the resources they needed to succeed. The looked for books,

websites, peers, and mentors that would help them learn more

about computer programming. Eve, who did not have computer

scientist as a future self, needed more assistance in finding

these resources. When the resources were not provided, she did

not seek them out on her own. As a result, her skills did not

improve and her interest did not grow. According to Oyserman and

Destin (2010) without a related future self, students fail to see

the importance of the skills they are learning and do not have

the drive to seek out information on their own. Barron (2006)

similarly found that interest played a key role in self-sustained

interest. Having the drive to learn more about a topic is

fundamental to maintaining learning and finding a way to spark an


individual’s interest should be a goal of any intervention hoping

to facilitate unstructured learning.

Knowledge of these different areas can help facilitators

determine what roles people in the intervention are ready to

take. Students that identify as computer programmers and have

computer scientist as a future self can serve best as peer

mentors, as Jace did. He took on the role informally, but he

could also have been recognized by the facilitator as a person

other students could seek out to ask questions. Students that do

not currently identify as computer programmers, but do have

computer scientist as a future self, will do well in informal

settings as they construct their knowledge through making

personally meaningful objects (Papert, 1980). At the same time,

it is important to make sure that they do not become overly

frustrated by attempting to tackle problems that are too hard for

them. In Annie’s case, the aides were able to guide her toward

game design decisions that were near her skill level, but still

challenging, scaffolding her to harder problems and keeping her

engaged. Students that neither identify as a computer programmer


nor have computer scientist as a future self need more guidance.

Eve needed a reason to keep coming to Codelearning Club. Having

knowledge of the different opportunities available through

computer science beyond making video games, such as website

design or e-textiles, could have raised her interest level and

helped her see computer scientist as a future self. Eve also

needed the scaffolding that Annie received from the aides.

Without it, her skills did not improve. Learning about students’

technology identities is a time consuming task, but one that is

worthwhile to make the most out of interventions.

Boys versus Girls

Computer programming played a different role in the life

histories of the boys and the girls. For the girls, it was a solo

activity; for the boys, it was a social activity. Jace told

stories of how he would tinker with the computer with his father

at home, learning how they worked and how to build them. He was

not the lonely hacker stereotype (Cheryan et al., 2013), but he

coded with others. This continued in how he interacted in the


Codelearning Club. When he was working on hard problems, he would

consult his affinity space for help. Jace and the other boys

sought to obtain more computer skills as a source of social

capital. Solving hard syntax issues was worthy of praise. This

was not the case for the girls.

Neither girl spoke of others when talking about using

computers. Whether they were at home or at school, using a

computer was a solitary act. Annie would sometimes ask for help,

but only from a TA, never from a peer. The girls did not have an

affinity space to participate in and instead tried to do their

best on their own. Goode, Estrella, and Margolis (2008) found

that more experienced programmers can intimidate those with less

skill, leaving them in a place where they are uncertain of

themselves and do not know where to get help. Without a cohort of

equally experienced peers, they did not have anyone with whom to

form an affinity group. This is not to say that they would not

have liked to have other girls to code with. Annie invited her

friends to come to Codelearning Club, but they never would.

Instead of seeing as something worth doing, her friends saw it as


something boys do. Annie did not lose social capital with her

friends for going to Codelearning Club, but it was not a source

of capital as it was for Jace.

Furthermore, both girls had the same technological deficits.

At home, neither girl had their own computer and instead it was

seen as a shared family device whereas Jace had his own computer

in his room. This is similar to the Margolis and Fisher (2003)

findings that suggest families do not see computers as a female

object and are not encouraged to explore the computer in the same

way boys are. Eve even shared “incompetent mother and competent

father” stories (Margolis & Fisher, 2003). Before starting

Codelearning Club, the girls had deficits to overcoming, perhaps

playing a role in why they did not assimilate as easily to the

community as the boys did.

Implications

Although Annie may be seen as a “success” story for

Codelearning Club as one more girl is now interested in computer

science, there is still a long road ahead. While she may be okay


with her skills now and coding alone, Margolis and Fisher (2002)

found in their conversations with female computer science majors

that some of the top reasons for switching majors was for feeling

less skilled than their male counterparts. Their participants

felt like computer science was the only thing the boys did, that

boys did it together, and that they would never be able to catch

up. Helping Annie and other girls, like Eve, build strong support

systems now may help ensure that they continue to be interested

in and learn about computers. This can be changed in two ways:

helping girls change their stories around computers to be social

ones and provide female role models to help them see what future

selves are possible.

Annie and Eve are not the only girls that start out at a

deficit when it comes to technology, but helping girls find a

community can help them overcome the challenges (Goode, Estrella,

& Margolis, 2008; Hayes & King, 2009). Part of the reason these

girls did not have a community to be a part of was the lack of

girls in the Codelearning Club. Goode (2008) suggests using

“social group recruitment” as a way to reach out to groups that


may not normally join computer science and programming programs.

This may help groups of people join together, such as a female

peer group that may otherwise not think about joining. Also,

inviting girls that are influential in their peer groups and

having them invite their friends may also help increase the

number of female participants (Margolis & Fisher, 2002; Barker,

Snow, Garvin-Doxas, & Weston, 2008). Another way to recruit more

girls into computer science and programming clubs is to branch

out from video games and make the content more socially relevant.

Many girls are interested in the more social aspects of

technology and are avid users of social networking sites

(Brunner, 1997; Rosser, 1990; Common Sense Media, 2012).

Connecting the content of the course with their interests will

help motivate the participants to learn and make the content

relevant to their lives outside of the course (Forte & Guzdial,

2004). These suggestions may help make computer programming more

appealing to a large group of girls who may then form their own

affinity space, providing support for one another and creating an

environment in which they want to learn.


It is also important to foster potential future selves as a

part of these programs as it makes their current activities more

identity congruent (Markus & Nurius, 1986; Gee, 2004; Ito, 2010).

To help girls see computer programing as something they could do

in the future, it is important to provide them with role models.

Creating profiles or documentaries about important female

computer scientists, such as Ada Lovelace, the first computer

programmer, or Marissa Mayer, the CEO of Yahoo!, can help girls

imagine themselves in those types of roles (Goode, 2008).

Challenging the stereotype of the lone, male programmer, can help

girls see how they can be a part of this field in the future and

that there are “people like me” in this field.

Conclusion

There is a shortage and lack of diversity among computer

programmers in the workforce. Researchers have recognized this

problem and have crafted afterschool programs and interventions

to try and reach out to more varied students and get them

interested in this growing field. Despite this, the numbers of

students, especially women and minorities, enrolling in computer


science courses continues to decline. One reason for this is

facilitators are treating all students equally instead of looking

at their technobiographies and thinking about what help each

student will need to succeed in a computer science program.

Depending on whether or not they identify as computer programmers

and if they hold computer scientist as a potential future self

changes how much and what types of instruction may best reach the

student. Ignoring the differences between students can lead to

many students that would otherwise show an interest in the topic

become disinterested. Through looking at their technology

identities, it is possible to see what support they need to

succeed.

This problem continues to be especially salient for girls.

The computer science industry would benefit from increasing the

numbers of female programmers, but this has been the same problem

for over twenty years. By looking at girls’ identities and future

selves, facilitators can start to tailor their interventions to

individual girls and help them build confidence and skills. By

making the tasks identity congruent and providing girls with


salient female role models, it is possible to help them see that

it is not only a career for boys, but one in which girls can

succeed, too.

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