Talking Techquity: Teaching the Equity and Social Justice Impacts of Computing in Middle School Classrooms

We live in an increasingly computational world where youth are impacted by computing technologies and algorithms whether they are using them directly or not. The omnipresence of technology and the impacts it has on society lead to Threats to Techquity, or the aspects of computing and technologies that cause or could cause inequity, especially inequity based on marginalized identities. We partnered with youth and teachers to co-design the Talking Techquity curriculum, a middle school curriculum introducing Threats to Techquity alongside computer science skills. After co-designing the curriculum, the teacher partners taught it to sixth grade students. This paper introduces the Talking Techquity curriculum and explores the successes and challenges of teaching it using data from teacher interviews. This work expands efforts to teach students about the social justice and equity impacts of computing and offers an example of how Threats to Techquity can be brought into the classroom.