Critically Conscious Computing

Methods for Secondary Education

Computer science (CS) is often taught as a utopian discipline, full of powerful abstractions that can transform lives and society for the better. However, as computing has reshaped every part of society in both highly visible and highly invisible ways, it has become clear that the foundational ideas in CS carry explicit values: ones of automation, replacement, standardization, centralization, and amplification. These values have positioned it as a discipline of power, and due to the ignorance with which it is often applied, often one of oppression. In this book, we reconsider the technical and pedagogical foundations of CS and CS education from this lens, and offer teaching methods for secondary education that foster students’ critical consciousness of computing, with the hope of fostering a more equitable, culturally sustaining, and just future of computing.

This second edition (2026) updates the book’s learning standards to the 2026 CSTA PK–12 Computer Science Standards, replacing the 2017 standards. We also propose critically conscious revision of many of these standards.

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All of this book’s text, images, and content was edited, curated, and written by us, and none of it by generative AI. We also do not use generative AI to support any of these activities. The book’s text should make it self-evident why we we don’t.