Towards Decolonial Computing Education: Surfacing Patterns from Makerspace Practice

Computing education spaces, from university labs to community makerspaces, are not neutral containers for technical instruction. They shape whose knowledge counts, who participates, and what kinds of professionals students become. This working group report examines how these spaces perpetuate or resist colonial knowledge structures through Template Analysis of ten interviews with makerspace coordinators and facilitators across four countries (UK, South Africa, China, Botswana), alongside pilot survey data from 25 computing students.

Our central finding is that colonial logics in computing education operate most effectively through what appears neutral: locations that seem practical, booking systems that seem fair, English-only documentation that seems universal, digital-first hierarchies that seem progressive. Each encodes specific values and excludes specific people. We also document resistance, from equity overlays on access systems to student-led governance that redistributes institutional power.

From these findings we propose ten Design Patterns for decolonial makerspace practice: contextual starting points requiring local adaptation. Our analysis surfaces dispositions that makerspaces cultivate but that standard graduate attributes frameworks do not adequately capture. The work is necessarily incomplete. Making these colonial logics visible is where our work begins.