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“I am My CSister’s Keeper” Community Cultural Wealth and persistence among CUNY’s Black, Indigenous, Women of Color (BIWOC) in Computer Science

Barnes-Watson, Constance D. (2024) “I am My CSister’s Keeper” Community Cultural Wealth and persistence among CUNY’s Black, Indigenous, Women of Color (BIWOC) in Computer Science. Doctoral Dissertation, University of Pittsburgh. (Unpublished)

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Abstract

There is a purported shortage of employable labor in the tech workforce, yet Black, Indigenous, Women of Color (BIWOC) in urban centers struggle to find and sustain roles in “high-tech.” The tech ecosystem is a CIS-gendered, white male heterosexual space that perpetuates and “ideal worker norm” (Kachchaf et al., 2015), which further excludes BIWOC from roles in tech. Given this social construct, fostering persistence among undergraduates who identify as BIWOC is imperative to disrupt this inequitable structure.
According to Blaney and Stout (2017), persistence is fostered by a few key factors: sense of belonging, self-efficacy, and overall satisfaction with the undergraduate experience, which is inclusive of faculty and coursework. This dissertation in practice (DiP) posits the Community Cultural Wealth (CCW) (Yosso, 2005) framework as a viable tool to enhance these factors for BIWOC in the City University of New York’s (CUNY) Computer Science programs of study.
Employing the tenets of Improvement Science, the “Sister Circles” Methodology (Johnson, 2015) served as an intervention by creating “counterspaces” for undergraduate BIWOC to build their cultural capital. The Transformative Mixed Method was utilized to gather both qualitative and quantitative, or “QuantCrit” (Johnson, 2015) data that acknowledges the value of quantitative data in studies associated with components of Critical Race Theory (Crenshaw et al., 1995). Transformative methods give space for a Black Feminist Thought (P. H. Collins, 1989) lens to be applied to the research process.
The key findings of the study indicate that Community Cultural Wealth is an underutilized, invaluable resource for fostering persistence in CUNY’s BIWOC to persist to careers in high-tech


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Details

Item Type: University of Pittsburgh ETD
Status: Unpublished
Creators/Authors:
CreatorsEmailPitt UsernameORCID
Barnes-Watson, Constance D.cdb100@pitt.educdb100@pitt.edu0009-0003-7475-1894
ETD Committee:
TitleMemberEmail AddressPitt UsernameORCID
Committee MemberBoulder, TinukwaTBOULDER@pitt.eduTBOULDER0000-0002-3154-6060
Committee ChairDelale O'Connor, LoriLORIDOC@pitt.edu0000-0001-8742-6431
Committee MemberMills, Pamelapamela.mills@lehman.cuny.edu
Date: 28 August 2024
Date Type: Publication
Defense Date: 5 April 2024
Approval Date: 28 August 2024
Submission Date: 16 July 2024
Access Restriction: No restriction; Release the ETD for access worldwide immediately.
Number of Pages: 130
Institution: University of Pittsburgh
Schools and Programs: School of Education > Administrative and Policy Studies
Degree: EdD - Doctor of Education
Thesis Type: Doctoral Dissertation
Refereed: Yes
Uncontrolled Keywords: Urban Education, Black Feminist Thought, Community Cultural Wealth, STEM,undergraduate persistence
Date Deposited: 28 Aug 2024 14:53
Last Modified: 28 Aug 2024 14:53
URI: http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/id/eprint/46690

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