In this article we explore how children’s opportunities for subject-related learning in Nordic early childhood education and care (ECEC) depend on intra-actions between the physical environment, gender norms, and the relevant learning content. We apply a socio-material perspective and draw on three Swedish ECEC studies, in which the learning content was related to physics, dance, and environmental sustainability, respectively. The analyses illustrate how socio-material intra-actions encouraged or impeded certain bodily encounters, thereby encouraging or impeding certain kinds of subject-related learning.

There is a growing trend of addressing the benefits of STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, andmathematics) in literature on Early Childhood Education (ECE). The literature often assumes that addingArts to STEM in ECE will help young children develop a number of skills such as critical thinking, innovation, creativity, problem-solving, communication and collaboration. We refer to these skills as STEAMbuzzwords since they are listed in a recurrent way throughout the literature and are seldom criticallyassessed or challenged. With this colloquium, we aspire to challenge the use of these buzzwords.The main reason is that three of them, innovation, creativity and problem-solving, carry a genderedand unjust history, associated with white men, progress, economic growth and conquest. We arguethat an unreflective use of these buzzwords may steer STEAM education in ECE towards fostering‘human capital’ rather than enabling children to develop close and empathic relations with organismsand other more than human actors and elements in their surrounding world. Therefore, we invite practitioners and researchers to join us in forming a new set of STEAM buzzwords, a set that is just and aptfor all children, and for the world.

Due to gender norms, it can be harder for some children (often girls) to occupy space and bodily engage with materials of importance for science learning (e.g., Günther-Hanssen, 2020; Stephenson et al., 2022). This presentation focuses on teaching events where preschool children’s embodied and aesthetic interplay with spaces, materials and scientific phenomena were a core part of the teaching. The aim of the presentation is to explore a) if and how gender norms related to science could be traversed through this embodied and material approach, as well as b) if and how the children’s opportunities for participation could expand. To explore the aim, a sociomaterial stance (e.g., Barad, 2007) is used, since this offers a way of understanding learning and gendering as created through both social relations and embodied interplay with spaces and materials. The presentation is built around a number of diffractive readings of agential cuts (Barad, 2014) made from video recordings and photographs generated during a practice-based research project on so called STEAM education and gender in Early Childhood Education (STEAM stands for STEM – science, technology, engineering, mathematics, combined with Arts – dance, drama, music, visual arts). For example, the findings show how the teaching and learning, as well as the children’s participation, show signs of traversing gendered norms in relation to both science and arts. They also show how joy and connection got created through the children and teachers playing and becoming (with) the scientific content, such as seeds, water molecules, air, storms and bodily organs.

This paper aims to (1) explore how notions about STEM in different contexts, times, scales and places affect STEM-practices in ECE and beyond, and (2) with this as a point of departure, highlight the need and potential of using feminist perspectives and a feminist pedagogy in STEM-related courses within ECTE (Early Childhood Teacher Education). To explore the aim, I experiment with diffractive readings of agential cuts made from the STEM-area; theoretical and empirical research papers, a popular-scientific book, reports, surveys and statistics and a field study in preschool. The findings highlight that feminist perspectives and a feminist pedagogy are important for all ECTE students, irrespective of earlier experiences of and feelings towards STEM (e.g. fun/difficult, insecure/confident). They are also of importance for all children since notions of what STEM is/is not and who is interested in STEM/not interested, risk to affect all children’s STEM-learning in narrowing ways irrespective of gender.

This presentation focuses on the expansion of so-called STEAM education within early childhood education (ECE). STEAM, which stands for STEM – science, technology, engineering, mathematics, combined with Arts – dance, drama, music, visual arts, is often promoted as an arena for transdisciplinary knowledge and crucial to foster innovative thinkers who can meet the demands of the future in sustainable ways. STEAM research and policy have until recently, mainly targeted higher levels of the education system, whereas less knowledge have existed about the purpose and effects of STEAM in ECE. In the growing body of literature that now target ECE, similar approaches and a shared purpose for implementing STEAM can be found. So far, most studies have applied (socio)constructivist and anthropocentric learning approaches that centre how STEAM-teaching will enable children to develop skills that are pointed out as essential for success in the 21st century, such as critical thinking, innovation, problem-solving and creativity skills. Meanwhile, studies that apply sociomaterial approaches and/or focus on children’s embodied relations and entanglements with their surrounding world are rare. In this still early phase of expansion and development of STEAM in ECE, this presentation aims to problematize the role of STEAM in young children’s lives. Drawing on a sociomaterial approach and agential cuts (Barad, 2014) from a research project on STEAM and gender in ECE, the presentation seeks to highlight and discuss alternative aspects and skills of importance that STEAM in ECE could contribute with, both for children today and for a sustainable future.

This presentation aims at exploring how notions about STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering,Mathematics) in different contexts, times, scales and places might affect STEM-practices inpreschool/ECE (Early Childhood Education) as well as preschool teacher education/ECTE (EarlyChildhood Teacher Education). For many years, studies have highlighted the urge to deal with genderednotions related to STEM within school and higher education. Latest years, researchers have also startedto point at preschool/ECE as a decisive arena when it comes to counteracting and reshaping genderednotions related to STEM (e.g. Campbell et al., 2020; Fleer 2021). While some (e.g. Hachey, 2020) statethat the work with fixing ‘the leaking STEM-pipeline’ (dropout in STEM education) must start inpreschool/ECE, I argue that it must start in ECTE.To explore the aim, the presentation is built on diffractive readings of agential cuts (Barad, 2014) madefrom the STEM area. The concept of agential cuts come from Barad’s theory of Agential realism anddiffractive methodology (Barad 2014). An agential cut can be a part or detail that is ‘cut out’ from theworld’s multiplicity, described by Barad as ‘cutting-together-apart’. The agential cuts for this presentation was made from conceptual and empirical research papers, apopular scientific book, reports, surveys and statistics, as well as a field study in preschool practice. The purpose with these agential cuts was to read them ‘through one another’ to look for what insights oraspects that could emerge within the ‘phenomenon of STEM in ECE as well as STEM in ECTE’ that arenot apparent in the same way as one confronts each agential cut separately. The findings show that knowledge about gendered notions related to STEM, as well as explorations ofalternative ways to know and act in relation to STEM, are as urgent to ECTE students as subject-specificknowledge (e.g. Gullberg et al., 2012). Even students that enter ECTE with positive feelings towardsSTEM can carry narrow views of what STEM is, which if not getting challenged, might be brought intotheir future STEM-teaching, risking to cause microaggressions towards children. This makes feministperspectives that encourages explorations and problematizations of what the STEM-subjects can be,how they can be done, with what and by whom, an important aspect within ECTE. At first, feministperspectives and a feminist pedagogy might seem especially crucial in relation to girls, so that futurepreschool/ECE teachers develop ways to not (unconsciously) interpret girls’ doings as ‘less STEM’.However, the diffractive readings show that this is of importance for all children. The findings includeexamples of how notions of what STEM is and is not, risk to affect all children’s STEM-learning andidentity formation in narrowing ways, irrespective of their gender. The presentation has relevance to Nordic educational research since gender norms affect both STEMeducation and the labour market also within the Nordic countries (e.g. Hussénius, 2020) and must assuch be dealt with from ECTE, ECE and beyond also in the Nordic context.

The concept of STEAM-education (STEAM = Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Mathematics) has lately become increasingly influential in many parts of the world. To date, (T) the research literature on STEAM has mainly addressed education for older students, while studies on STEAM in Early Childhood Education (ECE) are fewer. The majority of the (T) existing research on STEAM (in ECE) share a unified and often unproblematized idea about the benefits of STEAM education, describing that the addition of Arts to STEM (automatically) fosters problem-solving, innovation, agency, creativity, curiosity, critical thinking and communication skills in children. Another common assumption is that (T) STEAM-education (automatically) leads to inclusive teaching where all children, regardless of gender, social class, ethnicity etcetera can participate. However, explicit examples of how STEAM education can create inclusiveness are rare. Moreover, (T) many studies that do include examples from ECE practice described as STEAM-education, in many cases mostly concern STEM. (T) The aim of this presentation is therefore to both problematize ideas of STEAM in ECE and contribute with examples where the merging of Arts and STEM in preschool education can lead to inclusive teaching and learning. The presentation is built around a number of agential cuts (Barad, 2014) from a current Swedish research project on STEAM and gender in preschool. For example, the agential cuts show how the interplay of movement, embodiment, force, drawing and biology, as well as dance, sounds, mathematics, technology and visual arts enabled inquires that interfered with and transgressed traditional norms connected with both Arts and STEM.

This presentation elaborates on how different agents, human and nonhuman, enact participation in a practice-based research project about STEAM education in preschool. The project is carried out in two teams of four-six teachers and two researchers each. Researchers and teachers work in close collaboration with children (3-5-years old), spaces and materials in their preschools. Theoretically, the project employs a sociomaterial stance (eg. Barad, 2007), implying that the research process takes shape through collaboration between all the part-taking agents, both human and nonhuman. The presentation is built around a number of agential cuts (Barad, 2014) created at an early stage of a project. These cuts concern how different agents, such as teachers, researchers, children, materials and concepts, participate and how their participation affects the project. For example, we will elaborate on how the participation of a child, a lamp post, a researcher and physical phenomena (friction) affected the trajectory of the project. We will also discuss how different agents’ participation can increase or decrease the participation of other agents in the project.

In this workshop, we welcome researchers interested in transdisciplinary learning and questions oftraversing norms within education - from preschool to higher education. Together we will explore thepotentialities of merging STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) and Arts (dance,drama, music, visual arts) into STEAM.The concept of STEAM education has become increasingly influential in many parts of the world duringthe last years. STEAM education is promoted as an arena for developing transdisciplinary knowledgeand fostering innovative thinkers who can meet the demands of the future in sustainable ways (Ingold,2019). One additional argument behind STEAM education is to motivate underrepresented groups,particularly girls, to engage with STEM (European Committee of the Regions, 2019; Ng & Ferguson,2020). According to research, gender norms connected to STEM and to the arts, imply that somestudents, thinkings and doings are recognised by teachers and peers, whereas others are not. Forexample, girls and women have a more narrow space for participating and being recognised as learnersin STEM (e.g. Heeg & Avraamidou, 2021; Stephenson, Fleer & Fragkiadaki, 2022), while boys and menhave a more narrow space for participating and being recognised as learners in Arts (e.g. Hentschel,2018; Oliver & Risner, 2017). This implies that children and students face different kinds of normativeconstraints when they are expected to engage with the world through separate disciplines, that isscientifically, technologically, artistically, engineeringly or mathematically. As we see it, transdisciplinarySTEAM education harbours the potential to form new and norm-challenging ways of teaching andlearning (Areljung & Günther-Hanssen, 2022).The transdisciplinary explorations during the workshop will focus on verbs connected to STEM and Arts.You do not need any specific background in STEM or Arts to participate. Expected outcomes are thatthe workshop will open up to new ways of being and learning, beyond current gender norms connectedto different disciplines in education.