Digital Youth Divas: Exploring Narrative-Driven Curriculum to Spark Middle School Girls’ Interest in Computational Activities

Women use technology to mediate numerous aspects of their professional and personal lives. Yet, few design and create these technologies given that women, especially women of color, are grossly underrepresented in computer science and engineering courses. Decisions about participation in STEM are frequently made prior to high school, and these decisions are impacted by prior experience, interest, and sense of fit with community. Digital Youth Divas is an out-of-school program that uses narrative stories to launch the creation of digital artifacts and support non-dominant middle school girls’ STEM interests and identities through virtual and real-world community. In this article, we discuss the framework of the Digital Youth Divas environment, including our approach to blending narratives into project-based design challenges through on- and offline mechanisms. Results from our pilot year, including the co-design process with the middle school participants, suggest that our narrative-centered, blended learning program design sparks non-dominant girls’ interests in STEM activities and disciplinary identification, and has the potential to mediate girls’ sense of STEM agency, identities, and interests.     

Setting the record straight: the selection,subordination and silencing of Maata Patene,teacher

Maori women teachers in nineteenth‐century New Zealand have been little acknowledged in educational histories, and indeed, in some instances their contributions have been explicitly nullified. Those who have taken leadership roles have been no more visible. This article examines the silencing and exclusion from educational history of a young Maori woman who was both a teacher and a community leader during this period. It identifies the various points at which her role was silenced and suggests that such silencing is a reflection of her position as woman and as Maori, in a missionary/colonial context. In telling her story, this article (re)instates Maata Patene to a position of leadership and agency in the history of New Zealand education.     

Transitioning to higher education: journeying with Indigenous Maori teen mothers

Young women giving birth to children or teen mothers are often on the fringes of society. To facilitate the journeys of these young women towards higher education, a number of organisations have been established. Taking Indigenous knowledge as our theoretical lens, our qualitative data were based on interviews with Indigenous Māori teen mothers and teen parent organisations. Our empirical study investigated organisational practices which support teen mothers in their quest for higher education. We make a dual contribution, firstly by extending and enriching scholarship on teen mothers, specifically Indigenous teen mothers, to facilitate understandings of their journey; and secondly we develop a model representing the challenges and successes of their journey and present organisational practices to enhance transitioning to higher education. We suggest that the integration of Indigenous knowledge opens up new avenues for a more sophisticated understanding of organisational practices intertwined with the journeys of teen mothers.