What does it mean to conduct computer science education research in a manner that ensures that the evidence produced is high quality and benefits a wide variety of students? One can pour over various guides from institutions like What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) and the American Psychology Association (APA). However, what many standards fail to include is a holistic perspective of conducting education research, including guidelines for ensuring that the aggregated data presented represents the student population that the research will ultimately serve. In this panel, we tackle both and explore approaches that have been used in other education research fields as well as those appropriate to CS education research that can be leveraged to ensure that all students' needs, experiences, cultures, identities, and voices are captured and presented in our research.

Although it is well known that Black women are underrepresented in computing, less is known about their pre-college experiences. We hypothesize that inequities at the K-12 level result in Black women's underrepresentation in computing, because Black women have accumulated less social capital and are less embedded in courses and organizations related to computing prior to college. This paper reports the initial findings from the first round of a survey designed to gather the pre-college computing experiences of Black women and their peers. Black women in our sample were less likely to report participating in formal computer science (CS) education in school, slightly more likely to report participation in outside-of-school computing programs, about equally as likely to pursue computing experiences independently, and more likely to have had no pre-college computing experiences at all. We found that Black women were less likely to report that they were told they would be a good computer scientist, especially by friends, teachers, and guidance counselors, thus reflecting weaker social connections and lower levels of social capital. These findings suggest that organizational embeddedness or social ties from pre-college computing experiences may indeed be a factor in Black women's underrepresentation in computing and that access to these experiences outside of the formal classroom may be particularly important. The survey is one part of a study that will feature a second round of data collection in another state, analysis of state-level longitudinal data, and interviews with Black women.

In the United States (US), the value Black women bring to their classrooms is critical, yet research examining their experiences as computer science (CS) teachers has been underexplored. Using a theoretical framework grounded in Black feminist thought, this paper highlights the important role of this subgroup of the teaching population by illuminating the unique intersectional experiences and perspectives of four Black, women, high school, CS (BWHSCS) teachers in the southern US. We center the voices of BWHSCS teachers to better understand their unique experiences and assets as Black women, allowing us to examine the extent to which historical context and issues of race and gender inform their pedagogical practice.

Enhanced participation of Black women in CS education research is of ethical imperative, and empowering individuals who would otherwise not be able to fully engage in this community improves the quality of research and increases our national potential to solve real-world problems. We posit that the lack of participation of Black women in CS education research is not due to a lack of interest or expertise, but instead is another example of the continued marginalization of Black women that exists throughout our society. This panel of Black women scholars will share (1) their unique experiences and perspectives as Black women in the field of CS education, (2) the barriers Black women encounter in CS education research, and (3) existing and potential support mechanisms that enable Black women to more fully engage in the CS education research community.

The lack of diversity in computing professions has continuously persisted in the tech industry, with racial minorities experiencing less representation than broader marginalized groups. The issue of continuous under-representation for Black/African Americans is especially telling of a pressing digital divide issue. Members of this group comprise roughly 13% of the U.S. population, but disproportionately hold only 5% and 8% of computer engineering and computer science bachelor?s degrees. Studies suggest that computing culture and stereotypes associated with the discipline and its practitioners are among the varied contributors to sociocultural rifts between Black students and computing. This disconnect impacts students' computational and technological identities, which may result in these students deciding to "disidentify" with computing, and to pursue academic disciplines in which they experience higher self-efficacy. Despite comprising only 4% of U.S. universities, Historically Black Colleges & Universities (HBCUs) produce 31% of the Black STEM bachelor's degrees. Still, HBCU computing departments face unique retention issues that impact student matriculation through computer science (CS) degrees. As there are few course-based efforts geared toward cultivating students' computing identities, this position paper highlights the need for formal attention to the fostering of these identities. It presents HBCU computing departments as key centers for beginning to address traditional computing culture and identity-related attrition issues for Black students. By tackling notions of computing and technology identity in these settings, students are given space to critique and develop their computational identities in ways that support retention in the CS major and degree completion.