Pequeñas Aventureras (Little Adventurers)

Fostering Girls' Early Childhood Sense of Belonging in STEM

Images are powerful, even mental images. If you cannot imagine yourself doing something, the odds that you will do it drops. In Afro-descendent early childhood centers in Cali, Colombia, Pequeñas Aventureras promotes diverse images of who can be a scientist and mathematician. The experimental evaluation shows that the approach decreases STEM-stereotypes of educators as well as preschoolers.

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Overview

Information on this page is provided by the innovator and has not been evaluated by HundrED.

Updated March 2023

Web presence

2021

Established

5.63K 2024

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Students early

Target group

The vision is for young children to grow up free of racial and gender sterotypes about STEM. The goal is to foster an increased sense of belonging in STEM, including an expanded vision of who can play with STEM toys and who can work in STEM professions. The hope is that these girls grow up to become women who make contributions to STEM fields, and that boys grow up to value and welcome them.

About the innovation

Why did you create this innovation?

Women, particiularly women of color, are underrepresented in STEM despite extensive efforts across Latin America and the Caribbean to increase their participation in these fields. Surveys point to a lack of sense of belonging in STEM as a driver of this gap. We find gender and racial STEM-stereotypes already in preschool. Afro-descendent girls believe that STEM-toys are for boys.

What does your innovation look like in practice?

Since gender STEM stereotypes start early, Pequeñas Aventureras, trains early childhood educators in parental engagement and the use of multi-media to foster girls’ enjoyment and sense of belonging in mathematics and science. Sesame workshop, one of the most evidence-based early childhood content developers in the World, developed eBooks, webisodes, and printed materials. The experimental evaluation in a sample of 5,629 preschoolers in Cali, Colombia, indicates that the approach decreases gender STEM-stereotypes of educators as well as preschoolers. Key effects compared with a control group include an increase in preschoolers’ interest in mathematics (0.08 s.d); and increased gender flexibility about who can play with different types of toys (0.11 sd), who can do different activities (0.10 sd), and who can play with math-oriented STEM toys (0.13 s.d.). Pequeñas Aventureras also reduced explicit stereotypes of preschool educators (0.26 sd) compared with their peers in the control group.

How has it been spreading?

The main achievement was the impact on children's gender stereotypes about who belongs in STEM. Based on the positive findings, the Colombian Institute for Family Wellbeing (ICBF) has scaled the approach across the country. Going forward, the goal is to impact parental stereotypes. Parents of white boys have the strongest preference for getting their child STEM-toys, and at the other end of the spectrum parents of Afro-descendent girls have the lowest preference (a 23-percentage point difference). Not surprisingly, the Afro-descendent girls in the study believe that STEM-toys are for boys. That is, the comparatively higher stereotypes of Afro-descendent parents are associated with lower STEM-preferences of the Afro-descendent girls. Adressing these stereotypes is a goal, going forward.

If I want to try it, what should I do?

The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) is committed to combatting gender and racial STEM stereotypes from an early age. Please contact us to make Pequeñas Aventureras available to young children in your country.

Implementation steps

Identify beneficiary preschools

The Pequeñas Aventureras is an evidence-based early childhood education model to reduce gender and racial stereotypes about who belongs in STEM. The first step is to identify benenficary preschools or early childhood development centers serving the 4-5 year age group. If you plan to conduct an impact evaluation, the sample should be large enough to measure minimum detectable effect sizes of 0.09 standard deviations.

Implementation partner

A local implementation partner was central to the success to Pequenas Aventureras. The non-governmental organization Fundacion Carvajal (FC), provided on-the-ground support to participating centers, including training and coaching of educators, sensitization of parents. Regular coordiantion meetings were implemented throughout the school-year with FC, the Colombian Institute for Family Welbeing (ICBF), Sesame Workshop, and the Inter-American Development Bano (IDB).

Training of Educators

The Pequeñas Aventureras learning materials are available online, requiring only 20 hours of coaching and training, which makes the project easily replicable. The training and coaching was provided by the non-governmental organization Fundacion Carvajal, which had long experience in providing support to the beneficairy centers on behalf of the government.