Conference Program

Children have an innate interest in exploring and learning from their immediate environment (Dewey, 2004; Gopnick, 2012). However, the role of educators in their settings is fundamental to be able to channel their interests and help develop the children’s skills related to understanding their environments and to promote participation in the construction of meaning (Haldon et al. 2022). In this sense, educators have a fundamental role in adapting their settings to transform the innate curiosity of children into learning opportunities that promote their autonomous agency and understanding of surrounding phenomena. However, the didactic proposals and stations in free-choice pedagogical spaces, especially in the field of science/STEM, are not always appropriate or accessible to all children, given visible and invisible barriers and bias that may cause the dissafection of children in vulnerability risk situation in relation to their learning processes (Glockengiesser et al, 2023; Booth & Ainscow, 2002; Pedreira et al., 2025 ). Thus, offering free-choice accessible and inclusive science learning environments with a universal design (UD) perspective, free from prejudice and based on equity, are essential to avoid exclusion in the field of science for groups at risk of vulnerability and especially girls due to the gender gap in the STEM fields. Due to this and to cover a gap in this field the Impactlab project (PID2022-139472OA-I00 Generación del conocimiento, I+D) from the Faculty of Social Sciences of Manresa (Uvic-UCC) has designed an online self-assessment Toolkit so that educators and teachers can detect the degree of inclusive adequacy of their science spaces. One of the goals of the toolkit is to promote the teacher’s self-awareness and to encourage a more reflective adult perspective in supporting autonomous learning processes for all children despite the different needs, backgrounds and competences of children so to keep them engaged in the different pedagogical settings and stages in ECEC and afterwards. This study presents the preliminary results collected in Spanish and Catalan educational centers, at the early childhood education stage regarding the responses from this toolkit oriented to the design of inclusive science spaces in schools in ECEC. The preliminary results will be discussed and recommendations will be proposed to promote and improve this type of pedagogical spaces to reinforce the pedagogical engagement in science education to all children despite their social backgrounds, needs and capacities and reinforce their engagement with their schooling and learning processes.