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Early Childhood Education Commons

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Full-Text Articles in Early Childhood Education

Equitizing Engineering Education By Valuing Children’S Assets: Including Empathy And An Ethic Of Care When Considering Trade-Offs After Design Failures, Pamela S. Lottero-Perdue, John Settlage May 2021

Equitizing Engineering Education By Valuing Children’S Assets: Including Empathy And An Ethic Of Care When Considering Trade-Offs After Design Failures, Pamela S. Lottero-Perdue, John Settlage

Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research (J-PEER)

The broad case being made in this paper is that recognizing student assets—rather than focusing on deficits—is essential for making engineering education more equitable. The paper begins with our exploration of an epistemic practice of engineering, ‘‘making trade-offs,’’ as enacted by kindergartners after experiencing design failure and during redesign. We then acknowledge through a reexamination of data that our understanding of children’s grappling about a trade-off was incomplete without considering another asset that children brought to the design experience: ‘‘enacting empathy and an ethic of care.’’ We argue for the inclusion of this asset as an epistemic practice of engineering. …


Understanding Early Childhood Engineering Interest Development As A Family-Level Systems Phenomenon: Findings From The Head Start On Engineering Project, Scott Pattison, Gina Svarovsky, Smirla Ramos-MontañEz, Ivel Gontan, Shannon Weiss, VeróNika NúÑEz, Pam Corrie, Cynthia Smith, Marcie Benne May 2020

Understanding Early Childhood Engineering Interest Development As A Family-Level Systems Phenomenon: Findings From The Head Start On Engineering Project, Scott Pattison, Gina Svarovsky, Smirla Ramos-MontañEz, Ivel Gontan, Shannon Weiss, VeróNika NúÑEz, Pam Corrie, Cynthia Smith, Marcie Benne

Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research (J-PEER)

There is growing recognition that interest is critical for engaging and supporting learners from diverse communities in engineering and other science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) topics. Although interest research has historically focused on older children, studies demonstrate that preschool-age and younger children also develop persistent, individualized interests in different objects, activities, and topics and that these early interests have important implications for ongoing learning and development. Unfortunately, there is relatively little research on engineering learning in early childhood and almost no work specific to the concept of interest. To begin to address this need, we conducted in-depth case study …