A Girl's Play With Programmable Robots as Gendered Engagement With Educational Technology

• In Event: Technology, STEM Learning, and Contexts

Abstract

In this qualitative case study, we explored a 4-year-old girl’s play with programmable robots from the perspective of gender. Drawing on Bakhtin’s (1981) dialogism, we illustrated the ways in which the girl made sense of the new educational technology and performed her gender subjectivity. Findings of this study showed that the girl 1) designated the programmable robots as masculinized technology by adopting social and cultural views of the robots and 2) performed as an accommodator and a rescuer to maintain her control over the masculinized robots with her scientific, mathematic, and technological competence. This study emphasizes that young children’s playful engagement with programmable robots can be technological and material practices to express and perform their gender subjectivity.

Authors

• Sung Eun Jung, University of Arizona

• Kyung Hwa Lee, University of Georgia