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Abstract

I investigate how rural households with children ages three to six embed reasoning in everyday practices and how such reasoning is recognized or overlooked as STEM within India's public early childhood care and education system (Anganwadi). Drawing on Funds of Knowledge theory (González et al., 2005; Moll et al., 1992) and cultural capital theory (Bourdieu, 1986), I study households from historically marginalized caste and tribal communities in rural Rajasthan, including families from a community criminalized under British colonial rule. Using a case study methodology, I conducted ethnographic fieldwork in one Anganwadi center and ten households in Badgaon, Rajasthan. Data sources included interviews with one Anganwadi worker and 13 caregivers, household observations, field notes, and community photography. Through cross-case analysis (Khan & VanWynsberghe, 2007), I identified STEM-related practices with routines that supported household functioning. Practices were organized into four categories: survival mathematics (e.g., balance-scale reading), everyday science and ecology (e.g., cause and effect reasoning in plant growth), tools and technology (e.g., fire management), and domestic engineering. I understand these as funds of STEM knowledge, drawing on Khan and VanWynsberghe’s (2023, p. 1) definition of “funds of knowledge that are related to codified forms of science, technology, engineering, or math and largely gained through activities that are part of how the household or community functions.” Using critical Discourse analysis, I examined in what ways these practices appear to "count" and their levels of institutional recognition. The Anganwadi report card did not meaningfully capture reasoning observed in households, including reasoning involving estimation, classification, causal events, and spatial models. Recognition appeared to privilege recitation, counting, and English, while household STEM funds remained undocumented. I argue that the home-Anganwadi boundary functions as a selective filter through which practice-based reasoning associated with STEM does not readily traverse. I propose a pedagogy for Anganwadi contexts that addresses this filter and the constraints presented by the context and teacher education. By documenting reasoning in these households, I move away from deficit framing and argue that children's STEM funds can be better recognized and extended in early years education in ways more responsive to children's homes and communities.