Leveraging the Social and Cultural Capital of Barbering to Support African American Boys’ and Young Men’s Interest in Computer Science was originally aired on April 20, 2022. This panel detailed the past, present, and future of an ongoing broadening participation in computing collaboration between the South Carolina Department of Education, the Barbering Department at the Fairfield Career and Technology Center, and the College of Education at Michigan State University. Titled Barbershop Computing, the collaboration aims to rethink uni-directional broadening participation strategies of only recruiting African American youth into computing classrooms by also designing and implementing computing education in settings where African American children are already spending time. Barbershop Computing centers on enrolling the communities, practices, and skills of barbers to make computing and technology education culturally and educationally meaningful. Indeed, Barbershop Computing builds on the long history of Black barbershops as not only sites for community building but also as conduits for community engagement with public health, mentorship, literacy, and pedagogy. Given the success of these areas, why not also broadening participation in computing? The goal is to expand the possibilities for what computing education can look and feel like by enrolling professional barbers in educators’ and researchers’ efforts to broaden participation. The presenters on this panel discuss their own experiences with the Barbershop Computing program, offering insights about its design, development, and implementation from administrative, research, and classroom levels.
