UCLA

The purpose of this study was to explore how elementary school teachers think about equity in relation to their goals in their computer science instruction, and to explore the strategies they articulated to make their practice more equitable. States are mandating computer science standards and instruction and requiring schools to teach the content (2020 State of CS). Parents want students to be taught the content, and students in affluent and predominantly white communities have greater access to computer science opportunities than their low-SES and minority counterparts (Margolis, 2020). In addition, teachers are not formally trained or prepared to teach computer science (2020 State of CS). This study adds to the limited body of research that focuses on computer science instruction at the elementary school level. The current study used documents and interviews of 20 respondents. These respondents self-identified as elementary school teachers that teach computer science in some capacity. This sample of 20 teachers included teachers across the United States, as they self-selected to participate in the study through snowball sampling. The focus of this study was to explore computer science education at the elementary school level. The study explored the two questions:1. How do elementary CS teachers think about equity in relation to their goals for their computer science instruction? 2. What strategies do elementary computer science teachers articulate to make their practice equitable? This study found that elementary computer science teachers think about equity in two ways: opportunity and differentiation, and listed their goals as: providing access to opportunity, promoting positive identification with computer science, empowering students to use computer science for social change, as well as increasing academic achievement, and provided strategies for making their practices more equitable. This study added to the growing body of research on the topic of elementary computer science education, and supported and extended extant research. From these conclusions, recommendations for current implementation and practice and future research were shared. These recommendations included providing teachers training in integrating ideas around who holds the power in technology, expanding teachers's views on what constitutes equity in computer science education, and supporting teachers in leveraging computer science instruction to promote academic achievement. Teachers in this study expressed their interest in supporting students to acquire computer science skills and create equitable computer science educational pathways.