Identity Fragmentation in Post-Secondary Computing Education

Abstract

Impending climate crises, profound wealth inequality and unprecedented vulnerability to global catastrophe at the hands of technology make working towards justice a necessity, and a desperate one at that. However, engaging in work towards justice requires deconstructing the dominant narratives and norms that restrict what actions are permissible and what futures are possible. While prior work has challenged dominant societal narratives within computing contexts (e.g. anti-blackness, ableism, sexism, and cis/het-normativity), dominant narratives specific to computing often remain implicit and unaddressed. Theoretically, even if dominant societal narratives are critiqued, students’ agency may still be bound up in these dominant disciplinary narratives, preventing critical engagements from occurring. My work has two objectives: surfacing dominant disciplinary narratives so that they may be critiqued and challenging student-held dominant narratives through pedagogical interventions. In this thesis, I describe work that surfaces dominant disciplinary narratives around students’ careers and neurotypes, as well as two interventions: a narrative-based intervention within post-secondary computing contexts, and a co-constructed seminar centering dominant disciplinary narratives within students’ disciplinary space. I make three contributions: 1) I explicate normative career practice and the conditions that make career norms self-reinforcing, 2) I describe neurotypic legitimacy in computing spaces and how these expectations contradict neuronormative expectations in society broadly, and 3) I reconceptualize identity work and identity fragmentation in computing, and offer conditions to resolve this fragmentation. My dissertation demonstrates the following thesis: Individuals who experience dissonance between computing culture and their identity frequently fragment their disciplinary identity from their positional identity. While this can occur when computing contexts reify societal marginalization, it can also occur through discipline-specific cultural norms that both mirror and contradict societal legitimization. This fragmentation can be resolved independently, but reconciliation can be accelerated and scaffolded through safe and vulnerable spaces that welcome individuals’ positional identity. Furthermore, when these communities develop around mutual fragmentation, they can be become intersectional coalitions that encourage students towards activism.