From problem-solving, innovation and creativity to empathy, connection and care? Troubling the use of STEAM buzzwords in early childhood education research

Bibliographic Data

ID21718463
AuthorsAnna Günther-Hanssen (0000-0001-5417-7432, Stockholm University, corresponding author), Sofie Areljung (0000-0001-7273-5442, Umeå University), Lena Magnusson (0000-0003-3412-8486, Department of Educational Science, Gävle University, Sweden), Anna Lindqvist (0000-0002-0468-2622, Umeå University)
Year2026
Volume27
Issue1
Pages130-135
Publication date2026-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueContemporary Issues in Early Childhood (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1463-9491 • E-ISSN: 1463-9491
PublisherSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/14639491251330301
OpenAlexW4409721959
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited24

There is a growing trend of addressing the benefits of STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics) in literature on Early Childhood Education (ECE). The literature often assumes that adding Arts 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 STEAM buzzwords since they are listed in a recurrent way throughout the literature and are seldom critically assessed 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 gendered and unjust history, associated with white men, progress, economic growth and conquest. We argue that 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 organisms and 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 apt for all children, and for the world

Creativity · Developmental psychology · Early childhood · Early childhood education · Empathy · Pedagogy · Sociology · Child Development and Digital Technology · Creativity in Education and Neuroscience · Educational Games and Gamification · Engineering · Psychology · Social Psychology

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