Spatial skills in early childhood education

Background: Spatial skills are a host of abilities that underpin processing of spatial information, such as shapes, locations, and inter-relations among entities and frames of reference (cf. Newcombe & Shipley, 2015). Spatial skills develop in early childhood and are malleable through pedagogical activities, which potentially makes them an important part of early educational curricula around the world. Aims: The present study aimed to chart out the curricular representation and scope of spatial skills in fifty-two countries across six continents. Sample: A total of 81 documents with curricular guidelines pertaining to early childhood education across fifty-two countries were collected and analyzed. Methods: This study involved mixed methods, as the data was coded with a deductive six-phase latent thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006; Clarke & Braun, 2015). Five themes with a total of sixteen indicators were identified based on previous literature. The proportions of occurrences for each indicator were calculated and compared across the country-specific curricula. Descriptive statistics and Kruskal-Wallis tests were employed to address hypotheses posed in the study. Results: The results showed that all countries but two mentioned diverse spatial skills, but the extent of such representation did not vary across curricula directed at infancy and toddlerhood, or the preschool years, or the entire early childhood. Although the development and the malleability of spatial skills was recognized, the sociodemographic diversity was not. Finally, most curricula included concrete pedagogical activities fostering spatial skills. Conclusions: The representation of spatial skills was diverse and widespread around the world, both in the Global North and in the Global South.