Interrogating the Role of CSCL in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

The underlying aim of this chapter is to contribute to efforts to build and organize the design landscape and vocabulary for conversations about diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in CSCL. Anchoring our discussion is the position that DEI can only really be understood and achieved at scale. We have limited our scope to include the consideration of three critical issues—language, differentiation, and identity—that we believe serve to, however unintentionally, restrict or promote DEI in CSCL, perennial problems that often surface in complex software systems, which may prevent broad-based utility in applications, and how issues of DEI surface themselves in these designed tools and applications. We center this discussion in a few common CSCL applications: contexts like MOOCs, virtual high schools, and networked-based multiplayer games. We highlight three core DEI challenges present in the use of CSCL environments: language, differentiation, and identity as focal components that designers should be aware of as applications move to scale.