The book, Engineering in Elementary STEM Education: Curriculum Design, Instruction, Learning, and Assessment, written by Cunningham (Engineering in elementary STEM education: curriculum design, instruction, learning, and assessment, Teachers College Press, New York, 2018), highlights examples of engineering curriculum and pedagogy that Cunningham and her team have developed for the last 15 years. Additionally, she contends that engineering education has the potential to provide underrepresented students with opportunities to experience authentic and relevant STEM education, as well as to help them understand their strengths and abilities as future scientists or engineers. Given the popularity of this book and of the Engineering is Elementary (EiE) curriculum on which it is based, we conducted a critical review essay to more closely examine Cunningham’s claims. Using sociotransformative constructivism, as a theoretical framework, we found Cunningham’s book and supporting EiE curriculum to be rich resources of well-intended concepts and activities for integrating engineering practices in the science classroom. However, the EiE curriculum—like many other curriculum materials in the field—fall short of meeting their equity and diversity goals. In this essay, we argue that some of the EiE curriculum highlighted in Cunningham’s book seem to unintentionally promote colonized thinking, romanticized notions of engineering as a pure human endeavor; and culturally and socially unauthentic scenarios. Our goal is to generate reflection and transformative discussions so that we can elevate this and similar types of popular curriculum. To this end, we also offer suggestions for making STEM curriculum more culturally and socially relevant.

这本书，工程小学STEM教育：课程设计，教学，学习和评估，坎宁安书面（工程在小学STEM教育：课程设计，教学，学习和评估，师范学院出版社，纽约，2018），亮点坎宁安和她的团队在过去15年间开发的工程课程和教学法的例子。此外，她认为工程教育有潜力为代表性不足的学生提供机会，使他们有机会体验真实和相关的STEM教育，并帮助他们了解自己作为未来科学家或工程师的优势和能力。鉴于本书和《工程学》很普及（EiE）课程的基础，我们进行了严格的评论文章，以更仔细地检查坎宁安的主张。使用社会转型建构主义作为一个理论框架，我们发现坎宁安（Cunningham）的书和支持的EiE课程是旨在将工程实践整合到科学课堂中的，具有良好意图和活动的丰富资源。但是，EiE课程与该领域的许多其他课程资料一样，也无法实现其公平性和多样性目标。在本文中，我们认为坎宁安书中强调的某些EiE课程似乎无意间促进了殖民化思维，将浪漫化的工程学概念纯属人类的努力；以及文化和社会真实情况。我们的目标是引起反思和变革性的讨论，以便我们可以提升这种和类似类型的流行课程。为此，我们还提供了一些建议，以提高STEM课程在文化和社会上的相关性。