As opportunities in technology expand, more Native students are pursuing careers in computer science (CS). According to the NSF, Indigenous people, especially those who identify as Native women and two-spirit individuals, are currently underrepresented in the field. To understand what promotes — and what hinders — persistence in undergraduate CS programs, a team from AISES and TERC, a nonprofit focused on promoting equal access to STEM learning opportunities, conducted research. Their project included interviews with eight Native computer science students, seven women and one two-spirit man. Researchers from TERC were Dr. Nuria Jaumot-Pascual, Dr. Maria Ong, and Christina B. Silva; Dr. Kathy DeerInWater was the team member from AISES.
Between February 2019 and December 2020, the researchers collaborated on Native Women and Two-Spirit individuals in Computing Higher Education (NAWC2), a project funded by the Women of Color in Computing Collaborative, formed by the Kapor Center and the Center for Gender Equity in Science and Technology at Arizona State University.
The project utilized photo elicitation, a methodology where participants are asked to take photos in response to prompts like “Who or what has helped you persist or succeed in computing education as a Native woman or two-spirit individual?” The photos are later used as a guide for an interview conversation. According to Douglas Harper, Duquesne University professor emeritus and an expert in visual sociology, photo elicitation gleans more information, and different information, than simply asking questions. Writing in the journal Visual Studies, Harper pointed out that photo elicitation touches a deeper level of consciousness than words alone. Some photos in this article showcase how photo elicitation enriches an interview.
In analyzing the interviews, researchers found all eight students talked about the importance of giving back, even though they were never directly asked about this topic. The project also found a significant relationship between Native students’ persistence in their computing majors and the idea of giving back to their communities (Native and non-Native). As one student, Johanna (all names have been changed), eloquently and succinctly put it, “It is our responsibility as a community to build each other up.” This article focuses on how participants identified ways to give back to their Native communities as they meld their Native culture with computer science.
Bringing Native Culture into Computer Science
All eight students discussed how their Native culture and giving back play a significant role in their ability to persist in computing majors. Researchers found that many of the students engage in “culturally connected giving back,” which the team defined as helping acts that incorporate Native values. In one interview, student Leigh described how she used the Native Hawaiian concept of “aloha” when developing an educational video game about mental health. She explained her game in relation to her photo Rainbow Falls. “The entire idea of the video game was to have people reflect on their choices,” she said. “But overall, it was to give aloha, to recognize that people have differences, and it’s hard to ask for understanding. This video game can go the other way too, because it’s computer science that could potentially help Native Hawaiians. A lot of my influence comes from local culture and American culture, and how people talk, how people act. But at the end of the day, it’s to help these people that I’m getting influence from.”
David, who identifies as two-spirit, showed in Overtime how hard he works toward his CS degree. He discussed how he connects his Native identity with his scientist identity, as he wants to bring his Native culture into his future work as a computer scientist and engage in work involving solar energy to help others. “I would like to explore more of that field, and my culture also,” he said. “I’m thinking of trying to implement a way to create energy from the sun, using plants. Because a plant gets a lot of energy from the sun, especially those in this climate, that’s organic. And I do want to at least one day create something where it can benefit the world.”
Using Computer Science for Nation Building
As the students described specific ways they would like to contribute to their Native communities, the research team identified Nation building as a facet of culturally connected giving back. For half the students, Nation building was thought of as applying CS to promote their tribes’ technological sovereignty. A further example was the desire to teach Native community members about cybersecurity and how to secure their online identities from hackers. Another was to create and develop a database to manage the community’s housing discretionary funds.
Callie discussed how she would like to help her Native community transition from paper forms to electronic forms within their health care and school systems. “I’d like to help out by preserving books or different documents that haven’t been preserved electronically,” she explained. “In Native health clinics and schools there are also a lot of paper forms that should be electronic, so I’d like to help out in those ways too.”
Diana’s photo Collection of Art shows how she wants to combine her computing skills with her Native identity. She described how she wants to increase her tribe’s presence on the internet and transition from paper to an online platform, which she sees as an opportunity to share her computing skills with her Native community. “I would like to help my tribe become more fluent in the language of the internet,” said Diana. “We don’t have a very big presence on the internet, just a few government sites, so it would be beneficial or cool to put up some more information and help our tribe become more fluent in using the internet for things, instead of just paper.”
Additionally, three of the students described their desire to give back by converging their computing skills with their Native languages. Krista shared how she is assisting another Native woman with creating Diné words for technology terms based on Diné cultural knowledge. Diana described how she wants to work on language preservation and create an app to help other members of her Native community learn — or relearn — their language. Similarly, Callie was already developing a language app to not only help preserve her Native language, but also teach it to others for generations to come. She explained, “I’m creating an app that can help language learners speak the language better. I’m creating it using Alexa so that the language is preserved orally in the way it was created, and it’s mainly there for beginning language learners.”
A Future of Giving Back
All eight students were passionate about how they are giving back, or plan to give back, to their Native communities. They identified various ways to bring together their Native culture and computing, and they shared how they are inspired by their Native values and by how their computer skills could address a need within their communities. Additionally, they shared recommendations both for Native students considering a CS major and for university departments considering recruiting Native students.
For those looking at computing majors, NAWC2 participants had two recommendations: stick with it and remember you are not alone. There are other Native students going through similar experiences, even if you never meet them. Most participants recommended building a strong peer support network that you can count on and including people like mentors, faculty, and members of student groups who can provide resources, funding opportunities, and content knowledge. Several participants also advised going after opportunities without hesitation because the worst thing that can happen is being told “no.” Final recommendations were to remember where you come from, remember you are pursuing computer science for yourself and for your community, and remember to give back when you finish your education.
For CS departments interested in recruiting and retaining Native students, all eight participants recommended creating and sustaining solid support systems that might include recruiting Native faculty; providing mentors, advisors, counselors, and peer mentors with similar backgrounds students can look up to; and creating, supporting, and disseminating programs and groups for Native students. Participants also recommended that departments reach out to Native students as early as middle school for on- and off-campus activities.
