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‘Can boys do engineering too?’ Professor Collingwood’s four-year-old daughter asked. For the child it was a serious experience-driven enquiry about how the world worked. For the parent, it was a profound and unexpected question, that prompted much reflection. Perhaps it illustrated the extent to which a preschool child’s environment influences their perceptions, shaping what they believe is possible. It transpired that this child had, until that point, only met engineers who happened to be female. The resulting reflection was a catalyst for Professor Collingwood to found – a project enabled by American scientist and engineer Nick Donofrio – examining how engineering skills can be recognised in the preschool environment, with a focus on gender equity.

Do preschool children ‘engineer’?

Preschool children intuitively exhibit the behaviour of engineers, and this capability is independent of gender (Gold et al., 2015). They don’t need a degree qualification to grasp concepts like gravity or structural integrity; they explore this when they balance blocks into a tower or pour water to see where it flows. Recognising these innate skills early on is vital for the development of all children. In Pre-School Futures, we explore how the architects of a child’s environment – specifically, peers, families and early years practitioners – can recognise and/or influence these skills. We postulate that a gender-neutral approach to engineering skills recognition will help shape equitable learning environments, increasing opportunities for each child to reach their full potential, reducing the need for ‘girls into STEM’ initiatives later in life.

1. Peers: The playground police?

How influential are interactions between preschool children? Social pressure arises from peers acting as the ‘gender police’, and from peer pressure to enforce culturally normalised play expectations. Woodward (2003) observed that when the most socially conservative children were removed from a group, the remaining children were more likely to explore toys traditionally associated with the opposite gender. This suggests that many children aren’t choosing toys based on what they like but instead on what they judge their peers will allow, affecting engagement with play activities associated with engineering skills development.

2. Families: Thinking beyond ‘pink vs blue’

As primary influencers of a child’s early world, families often provide the first lens through which these innate engineering skills are viewed. Even family members who believe themselves gender-neutral introduce gendered expectations through social cues and play (Fine, 2010). This raises questions about how family influences steer skills development in the early years, impacting future science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) engagement.

3. Early years practitioners: Scaffolding perceptions

Early years practitioners support a child’s development by scaffolding their play. The preschool environment can reinforce existing gender biases or provide opportunities to actively challenge them, which can be explored in the context of engineering skills.

A compelling example is Fleer’s (2020) Conceptual Engineering PlayWorld, including a scenario derived from the legend of Robin Hood, where preschool children were helped to build a ‘time machine’ to transport themselves to Sherwood Forest and tackle engineering problems by generating engineering solutions.

‘The preschool environment can reinforce existing gender biases or provide opportunities to actively challenge them, which can be explored in the context of engineering skills.’

While not every preschool activity involves opening a drawbridge to rescue a dragon, this reminds us that every choice carries weight. Integrating such opportunities in a consciously gender-neutral context has scope to be transformative.

To the future: Engineering is everywhere

We can look beyond traditionally acknowledged preschool ‘engineering activities’, such as block building, to see that engineering skills are everywhere. When a child co-ordinates pans on the play-kitchen hob, experiments with ingredients, or describes how cushions will be transformed into a mountain, they are problem-solving, testing materials, imagining solutions and communicating plans.

Can formal recognition of these engineering skills increase gender equity in STEM? We are exploring frameworks to achieve this in practice. In future, if a child asks, ‘Who is allowed to be an engineer?’, we can show as a society that engineering isn’t a role that you’re granted – it’s a way of engaging with the world which belongs to everyone. This is how we are rethinking ‘girls into STEM’ initiatives.

References

Fine, C. (2010). Delusions of gender: The real science behind sex differences. Icon Books.

Fleer, M. (2020). Studying the relations between motives and motivation: How young children develop a motive orientation for collective engineering play. Learning, Culture and Social Interaction, 24, Article 100355.

Gold, Z. S., Elicker, J., Choi, J. Y., Anderson, T., & Brophy, S. P. (2015). Preschoolers’ engineering play behaviors: Differences in gender and play context. Children, Youth and Environments, 25(3), 1–21.

Woodward, D. (2003). The formation of gender perspectives among nursery class children. [Doctoral thesis, The Open University].