Student Leadership, Systems Change: Opportunities and Tensions for Youth Impact on District-Wide Computer Science Initiatives

Computer Science education (CSed) often aims to position youth as designers, creators, and those with a voice in their world. But do youth have opportunities to design, create, and have voice around the shape of their CSed learning experiences? In this study, we explore ways that school districts engage youth to contribute to the shaping and enactment of their CS instructional systems, efforts districts make to have these leadership roles create impact within these systems, and the tensions associated with these processes. Through in depth analysis of five district case studies, our findings highlight variance around the nature of leadership roles , how access to leadership roles is structured, student autonomy within and ownership over leadership roles, how roles reach into and index differential power over instructional systems , and how district processes of scaffolding and infrastructuring mediate the ultimate impact that students in these roles are able to have on CS instructional systems. Findings also surfaced ways that district actors dealt with a number of tensions associated with student leadership within CS instructional systems. This study provides educators, administrators, and researchers with an expansive view of the potential for students to play legitimate roles within the context of system-wide instructional efforts around CS, and aims to expand conceptions of ‘equitable computer science’—up to this point largely conceived of through the lenses of access to, participation in, and experiences of CS learning—to focus on equity as also being about who has ‘a seat at the table’ when it comes to CS.