Developing Culturally and Developmentally Appropriate Early STEM Learning Experiences

This book informs best practice for enhancing young children’s STEM learning experiences in formal settings such as preschool environments and less formal settings such as home environments. It is the first collection of multidisciplinary and multinational studies on early STEM programs worldwide and presents diverse, authentic, and current STEM-relevant scenarios that address two fundamental problems: where are we in early STEM education? and where shall we go?

The book explores factors that influence young learners’ abilities to make informed choices in authentic, problem-based, STEM-relevant scenarios and how those abilities have been identified, documented, and enhanced. Chapters address topics related to curriculum and pedagogy, teacher education and professional development, family environment, and inclusive education from a variety of international settings including Australia, Germany, Hong Kong, Mainland China, Singapore, and the United States. Each chapter is based around a research project and describes relevant background information from the research literature, details of how the study was designed, findings from the study, and discussion as to what the findings mean for practical implementation.

Developing Culturally and Developmentally Appropriate Early STEM Learning Experiences will be a key resource for researchers and practitioners of early childhood education and care, STEM education, educational psychology, educational research, and educational technology. This book was originally published as a special issue of the journal Early Education and Development.

Dr Philip Hui Li is the Chair Professor of Early Childhood Education at the Education University of Hong Kong. He obtained his PhD from the University of Hong Kong in 2000. He is the associate editor of Early Education and Development, Early Child Development and Care, and Frontiers in Psychology.

Dr Anne Forbes is Senior Lecturer in STEM Education in the Macquarie School of Education, Australia, where she teaches in a range of units in pre-service teacher education and conducts accredited in-service teacher professional learning to enthuse, inform and inspire learning and teaching through science education. Anne has been involved in writing textbooks including the award-winning text STEM Education in the primary School: A teacher's toolkit (2021) and Primary Science Education: A teacher's toolkit (2023).

Dr Weipeng Yang is Assistant Professor at the Education University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong. He specializes in early childhood curriculum, STEAM education and computational thinking. He is an Editor of the Journal of Research in Childhood Education and a Steering Group Member and SIG Convenor at BERA, UK.