English isn't very good at expressing set logic, and I'm no mathematician :)
You can delete this sentence -- These students are more likely to be female or from underrepresented minority groups. -- and the meaning of the previous sentence remains unchanged. The key point is that CS0 is important for attracting people who didn't have prior background in computing and thus could have a latent interest in CS that would otherwise go unmet. Now, it turns out that a larger fraction of those students are from certain underrepresented groups, but even if that weren't true, it wouldn't make the case for CS0 any less important for the "group" that I think you're referring to, which is "students who have latent interest in CS but not enough prior exposure to know that they would love CS." (I wish I could've expressed that in an elegant mathematical equation!)
[Edit: when I wrote "even though this is a minority population", I didn't mean "minority" in the underrepresented minority sense ... I meant that this is a small population compared to all CS majors. Again, English != set logic]
My question was slightly different - would the helping the group of people taking CS0 be less important if that group was comprised entirely of asian males?
I couldn't tell if the sentence was meant to support your main argument ("we should help group X because lots of non-asian minorities") or if it was merely a curiosity that was irrelevant to the main argument ("ooh look, lots of non-asian minorities, statistically unlikely therefore interesting").
(argh can't reply to replies) -- @yummyfajitas -- no i don't think it would be fundamentally different, since the mission would still be to bring out the most of people's natural potential and interest in a subject, to kindle a spark that might have otherwise been unlit due to lack of early exposure.
[Edit: I'm not eloquent enough to make a convincing case at 2:20am, but I don't think that extra sentence was merely a curious non-sequitur, even if it could be cut without modifying the point of that paragraph. I can list out tons of points/counterpoints in my head ("what about redheaded people with thin left eyebrows? why not mention them? would that be a non-sequitur? what about the historical and socioeconomic implications behind this demographic group and its relationship to technological access? ..."), but I don't have enough expertise to give this topic a proper treatment. So I'll leave this thread by recommending the following two books:
Comments
English isn't very good at expressing set logic, and I'm no mathematician :)
You can delete this sentence -- These students are more likely to be female or from underrepresented minority groups. -- and the meaning of the previous sentence remains unchanged. The key point is that CS0 is important for attracting people who didn't have prior background in computing and thus could have a latent interest in CS that would otherwise go unmet. Now, it turns out that a larger fraction of those students are from certain underrepresented groups, but even if that weren't true, it wouldn't make the case for CS0 any less important for the "group" that I think you're referring to, which is "students who have latent interest in CS but not enough prior exposure to know that they would love CS." (I wish I could've expressed that in an elegant mathematical equation!)
[Edit: when I wrote "even though this is a minority population", I didn't mean "minority" in the underrepresented minority sense ... I meant that this is a small population compared to all CS majors. Again, English != set logic]
My question was slightly different - would the helping the group of people taking CS0 be less important if that group was comprised entirely of asian males?
I couldn't tell if the sentence was meant to support your main argument ("we should help group X because lots of non-asian minorities") or if it was merely a curiosity that was irrelevant to the main argument ("ooh look, lots of non-asian minorities, statistically unlikely therefore interesting").
I don't know, do Asian males typically have difficulty engaging in CS content?
(argh can't reply to replies) -- @yummyfajitas -- no i don't think it would be fundamentally different, since the mission would still be to bring out the most of people's natural potential and interest in a subject, to kindle a spark that might have otherwise been unlit due to lack of early exposure.
[Edit: I'm not eloquent enough to make a convincing case at 2:20am, but I don't think that extra sentence was merely a curious non-sequitur, even if it could be cut without modifying the point of that paragraph. I can list out tons of points/counterpoints in my head ("what about redheaded people with thin left eyebrows? why not mention them? would that be a non-sequitur? what about the historical and socioeconomic implications behind this demographic group and its relationship to technological access? ..."), but I don't have enough expertise to give this topic a proper treatment. So I'll leave this thread by recommending the following two books:
http://www.amazon.com/Unlocking-Clubhouse-Computing-Jane-Mar...
http://www.amazon.com/Stuck-Shallow-End-Education-Computing/...
]