https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2127-8779
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ABSTRACT
The past five or so years have been marked by a proliferation of educational initiatives, programmes, and toys designed to introduce children to coding and to develop their skills and interest in computer science. This article takes a critical approach to this movement, focusing specifically on ways dominant discourse surrounding the coding movement constructs children, girls, and coding and puts pressure on parents to assist their children in becoming valuable to neoliberal economies. The first part of the article reviews research concerning children and coding, the STEM skills gap, and gender divides in computer science. This part concludes with a discussion of neoliberal ideologies which frame these areas of debate. The second part analyzes 71 news articles published in a six-month period in 2018 that report on coding initiatives and related toys, including Robotics Engineer Barbie™. This part of the article reveals ways these coding initiatives are framed as being essential to the future labour market, as solutions to gender parities in Computer Science fields, and as a way to create confident girls for the future workforce. The article concludes with connections to neoliberal ideologies which frame the role of parenting in the age of digital technologies.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes on contributors
Maureen Mauk is a Doctoral Candidate in Media and Cultural Studies at University of Wisconsin’s Communication department. Mauk studies cultural histories and the intertwined relationship between parents, policy, and industry as it relates to television history and the current platformized media landscape. She carries a decade of experience serving in Los Angeles as a Television Standards & Practices executive and environmental activist.
Dr. Rebekah Willett is an Associate Professor in the Information School at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She conducts research on children’s media cultures, focusing on issues of play, literacy, identity, and learning. Her publications include work on makerspaces, playground games, amateur camcorder cultures, online gaming, and screen media advice.
Natalie Coulter is an Associate Professor in Communication Studies at York University and is the Director of the Institute for Digital Literacies (IRDL). She is co-editor of Youth Mediations and Affective Relations (Palgrave Macmillian 2019), author of Tweening the Girl (Peter Lang, 2014) and co-author of Communication in Canada, 9th edition (Oxford UP 2020). She has published in the Journal of Consumer Culture, Canadian Journal of Communication, Journal of Children and Media, Popular Communication and Jeunesse. She is a founding member of the Association for Research on the Cultures of Young People (ARCYP).