University of Illinois Press COMPUGIRLS: How Girls of Color Find and Define Themselves in the Digital Age (Dissident Feminisms)

Product Description What does is it mean for girls of color to become techno\-social change agents\-\-individuals who fuse technological savvy with a deep understanding of society in order to analyze and confront inequality? Kimberly A. Scott explores this question and others as she details the National Science Foundation\-funded enrichment project COMPUGIRLS. This groundbreaking initiative teaches tech skills to adolescent girls of color but, as importantly, offers a setting that emphasizes empowerment, community advancement, and self\-discovery. Scott draws on her experience as an architect of COMPUGIRLS to detail the difficulties of translating participants\x27 lives into a digital context while tracing how the program evolved. The dramatic stories of the participants show them blending newly developed technical and communication skills in ways designed to spark effective action and bring about important change.A compelling merger of theory and storytelling, COMPUGIRLS provides a much\-needed roadmap for understanding how girls of color can find and define their selves in today\x27s digital age. Review " COMPUGIRLS is a compelling and thought-provoking study of girls' of color agency as they become social justice actors in the context of the new digital world. The author asks hard questions about barometers we should use in inclusion studies and projects a critical lens on many interventions focused on underrepresentation in the fields of computing. Brava for this work. The world needs more of these social justice actors!"--Jane Margolis, author of Stuck in the Shallow End: Education, Race, and Computing "Transformative pedagogies are needed in today's efforts to realize digital inclusion for all. COMPUGIRLS showcases compelling examples of how it can and should be done. Kimberly Scott succeeds in providing provocative portraits of girls that challenge dominant narratives around who and what computing is for."--Yasmin B. Kafai, Lori and Michael Milken President's Distinguished Professor, University of Pennsylvania About the Author Kimberly A. Scott is a professor in the Women and Gender Studies Department at Arizona State University and the Founder/Executive Director of ASUs Center for Gender Equity in Science and Technology. She is coauthor of Kids in Context: The Sociological Study of Children and Childhoods and coeditor of Women Education Scholars and their Childrens Schooling.