Child-Robot Relations: Locating a Technological Ethic of Care in Kindergarten Coding

• In Event: Expansion(s): Critical and Relational Pedagogies in Classrooms

Abstract

Early learning environments are increasingly host to technologies like coding robots, which are used to develop children’s computational thinking and problem-solving skills. This sociotechnical shift introduces questions about how children are learning to relate to technologies, including when devices breakdown or malfunction. Through the lens of a feminist ethic of care, this paper examines how a group of Kindergarteners learning to code with a robot were also learning to care for it. Drawing on video data in a design-based research study, findings suggest how child-robot interactions reconfigure both the human capable of caring and the object of care. We then suggest ecological implications of young children developing a caring regard for technologies used for learning.

Authors

• Deborah Silvis, Utah State University

• Selendra Lewis, Utah State University

• Jody E. Clarke-Midura, Utah State University

• Victor R. Lee, Stanford University

• Jessica F. Shumway, Utah State University