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In the U.S. there are steady efforts by governmental and philanthropic organizations to increase the representation of students of colour in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). After years of mixed results, researchers and educators have started to question one size fits all notions of broadening participation. An increasing number of projects are challenging universalist assumptions by enrolling the expertise of culturally situated communities of practice in STEM lessons and the educational technologies that support them. While this research shows promising results for improving young people's interest and performance in STEM, there has been little research on how these lessons and technologies might also benefit the communities whose expertise were originally enrolled. This paper details the design of educational technologies that bridge STEM and African American cosmetology. We report on a mixed-methods research project, conducted with a group of predominantly African American cosmetologists. Qualitative and quantitative data were collected to study their attitudes toward STEM before and after working with the technologies. Our results suggest positive changes in the cosmetologists' attitudes. We end with a critical discussion about respecting the knowledge systems of underrepresented communities of practice in educational technology research and development.

Students' lives, both in and out of school, are full of different forms of value. Wealthy students enjoy value in the form of financial capital; their fit to hegemonic social practices; excellent health care and so on. Low-income students, especially those from African American, Native American, and Latinx communities, often lack access to those resources. But there are other forms of value that low-income students do possess. Most examples of what we will call Counter-Hegemonic Practice (CHP) in the African American community involve some mixture of Indigenous African heritage, contemporary innovation in the Black community, and other influences. Moving between these value forms and the computing classroom is a non-trivial task, especially if we are to avoid merely using the appearance of culture to attract students. Our objective in this paper is to provide a framework for deeper investigations into the computational potentials for CHP; its potential as a link between education and community development; and a more dignified role for its utilization in the CS classroom. We report on a series of collaborative engagements with CHP, largely focused on African American communities.

Despite the value that cultural experts bring to efforts to broaden the participation of racially minoritized youth in US computer science, there has been little research on supporting their knowledge of computing. This is a missed opportunity to explore the diffusion of computing knowledge across local community contexts where underrepresented youth of color spend time. To address this gap, we present one strategy for promoting cultural experts' early engagement with code, "culturally responsive debugging": using culturally situated expertise and knowledge to debug code. We analyzed qualitative data from a professional development workshop for cultural experts to evaluate this strategy. Our findings have implications for broadening participation efforts and supporting non-programmers' knowledge of code.

Culturally responsive computing (CRC) frames the localized knowledges and practices of Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities as assets for working toward racial justice in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). A key part of CRC is the role that local communities play in designing and/or implementing curricula and technologies. Yet, there is a dearth of research on collaborating with local knowledge experts and what they think about CRC. In response, this paper details a two-year long research project on the design and implementation of one CRC program called pH Empowered. pH Empowered uses computing to bridge Black hairstyling, chemistry, and entrepreneurship. Through a mixed-methods study of one pH Empowered professional development workshop, we show how cosmetologists, urban farmers, and librarians had diverse perspectives about how to be culturally responsive with STEM and the racial justice goal of broadening participation in STEM education.

Recent scholarship in computer science (CS) education shifts from a focus on the technical-cognitive skills of "computational thinking" to the socio-cultural goal of "computational participation," often illustrated as remixing popular media (e.g. music, photos, etc.) in online communities. These activities do enhance the participatory dimensions of CS, but whether they also support broadening the participation of underrepresented youth remains unclear. While online communities that are dedicated to computational participation have existed in the U.S. for over a decade, many communities of color remain underrepresented in CS disciplines. How might CS educators, researchers, and technologists promote culturally responsive forms of computational participation? To answer this question, we propose a culturally responsive framework for computational participation called "generative computing." Generative computing approaches CS as a means for strengthening relationships between learning environments and local communities, leveraging culturally relevant sources of wealth generation in technology design and implementation. To explore this concept, we conducted a mixed-methods study with a cosmetology high school program that predominantly serves young African-American women. Through a series of computationally and culturally rich cosmetology projects, we tested our hypothesis that generative computing can enhance connections between Black heritage, CS, and cosmetology while supporting students' academic interests and knowledge.

This paper describes a decolonial perspective on material agency in the context of STEM education and application. Using the framework of generative STEM, we engaged in case studies with African, African American, South American, and Native American educational communities. This research shows that understanding material agency based on Indigenous knowledge systems can open a rich source of research and education content. Using a suite of simulations, Culturally Situated Design Tools, we apply this body of research to the classroom. One important theoretical conclusion is the contrast to a "content agnostic" position. A generative framework instead offers a robust blend of user agency and instructional guidance. The outcomes indicate statistically significant and notable improvement for STEM skills and interests. We conclude with a contrast to the quantum epistemology approach to posthumanism. We show that the Indigenous material agency framework in generative STEM is a better fit to decolonial aspirations, and that it offers a more transformative vision for the potential role of STEM in transitioning from an extractive to a generative economy.

This paper introduces a generative framework in which translations of Indigenous knowledge systems can expand student agency in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Students move from computer simulations to physical renderings, to repurposing STEM innovation and discovery in the service of Indigenous community development. We begin with the math and computing ideas in traditional Anishinaabe arcs; describe their translation into software and physical rendering techniques, and finally their workshop implementation with a mix of Native and non-Native students. Quantitative and qualitative analyses of pre-survey and post-survey data indicate increases in students' understanding of Indigenous knowledge, their creative ability to utilize it in moving from algorithmic to physical designs, and their visions for new hybrid forms of Indigenous futurity. We use these findings to argue that culture-based education needs to shift from a vindicationist mode of admiring ancient achievements, to one that highlights students' agency in a generative relationship with cultural knowledge.

This paper analyzes interviews with African American women cosmetologists who collaborated in designing and implementing a series of community-centered science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education programs to support broadening the participation of Black children in those fields. These collaborations used technologies and media as bridges between STEM knowledge as it appears in schools and STEM knowledge as it has been and is communicated, produced, and used by Black hair care experts. We discuss how acknowledging these experts as knowledge producers who have unique pedagogical expertise not only provides new ways for reimagining STEM fields for Black children, but also helps to acknowledge STEM's existing and generative presence in Black communities. Our findings reveal three ways that this group of African American cosmetologists helped reimagine STEM education: 1) STEM as personal and situated; 2) STEM as a blend of public and community institutions and 3) STEM as community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We introduce a new approach to coherent lidar range-Doppler sensing by utilizing random-noise illuminating waveforms and a quantum-optical, parallel sensor based on spatial-spectral holography (SSH) in a cryogenically cooled inhomogeneously broadened absorber (IBA) crystal. Interference between a reference signal and the lidar return in the spectrally selective absorption band of the IBA is used to sense the lidar returns and perform the front-end range-correlation signal processing. Modulating the reference by an array of Doppler compensating frequency shills enables multichannel Doppler filtering. This SSH sensor performs much of the postdetection signal processing, increases the lidar system sensitivity through range-correlation gain before detection, and is capable of not only Doppler processing but also parallel multibeam reception using the high-spatial resolution of the IBA crystals. This approach permits the use of ultrawideband, high-power, random-noise, cw lasers as ranging waveforms in lidar systems instead of highly stabilized, injection-seeded, and amplified pulsed or modulated laser sources as required by most conventional coherent lidar systems. The capabilities of the IBA media for many tens of gigahertz bandwidth and resolution in the 30-300 kHz regime, while using either a pseudo-noise-coded waveform or just a high-power, noisy laser with a broad linewidth (e.g., a truly random noise lidar) may enable a new generation of improved lidar sensors and processors. Preliminary experimental demonstrations of lidar ranging and simulation on range-Doppler processing are presented. OCIS codes: 070.4340, 120.0280, 200.4740, 280.3640.

Recent scholarship in computer science (CS) education shifts from a focus on the technical-cognitive skills of computational thinking to the socio-cultural goal of computational participation, often illustrated as remixing popular media (e.g. music, photos, etc.) in online communities. These activities do enhance the participatory dimensions of CS, but whether they also support broadening the participation of underrepresented youth remains unclear. While online communities that are dedicated to computational participation have existed in the U.S. for over a decade, many communities of color remain underrepresented in CS disciplines. How might CS educators, researchers, and technologists promote culturally responsive forms of computational participation? To answer this question, we propose a culturally responsive framework for computational participation called generative computing. Generative computing approaches CS as a means for strengthening relationships between learning environments and local communities, leveraging culturally relevant sources of wealth generation in technology design and implementation. To explore this concept, we conducted a mixed-methods study with a cosmetology high school program that predominantly serves young African-American women. Through a series of computationally and culturally rich cosmetology projects, we tested our hypothesis that generative computing can enhance connections between Black heritage, CS, and cosmetology while supporting students' academic interests and knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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