Wanda Stuardo Troncoso
Background
Wanda Stuardo-Troncoso is a CRA-funded PhD Candidate at The University of Edinburgh. Her doctoral research explores how early childhood sexuality education can be re-imagined by attending to young children’s own understandings and experiences within Chilean early childhood education centres. Her work examines how these experiences are produced through children’s more-than-human relational landscapes, and how such relations can be transformed to ontologise other-possible and more-liveable worlds for children and everything living
Before starting her PhD, Wanda worked across different sectors in Chile. She worked as a freelance consultant for UNICEF Chile, contributing to the development of a Theory of Change for the implementation of comprehensive sexuality education. She also served as a Gender Professional in the Subsecretariat of Early Childhood Education, where her work included developing a gender-based violence prevention toolkit for early childhood education, as well as producing guidelines to promote gender equality in early years settings. In addition, she collaborated as a volunteer with Fundación Valientes, supporting non-sexist education in schools, and worked as a Research Assistant on diverse projects, including research on working-class migrant mothers’ experiences of the Chile Crece Contigo system and on the comprehensive wellbeing of children and young people.
Qualifications
MA in Social Justice and Education, with Distinction | University College London (UCL), Institute of Education | 2022 - 2023
BA and Professional Title in Psychology, with Honours | Universidad del Desarrollo, Facultad de Psicología | 2016 - 2021
Responsibilities & affiliations
Coordinator of the Gender and Sexuality in Childhood and Youth Reading Group
Research summary
My PhD research focuses on early childhood sexuality education as an opportunity for ontologising other-possible and more-liveable worlds for/with/through young children. I am particularly concerned with how early years sexuality education can be imagined by listening to and witnessing young children’s understandings and experiences of sexuality within Chilean early childhood centres. Furthermore, this research explores how these experiences are produced (and how they might be produced Otherwise) through children’s more-than-human relational landscapes within early childhood education.
I am curious about exploring the intersections between:
- Early childhood studies
- Critical Childhood Studies
- Feminist imaginations for/with/through young children
- Common worlding and ecological justice
- Decolonial/Critical Latin American theory
- Latin American / Decolonial / Southern Feminisms
Past research interests
MA Dissertation | Who is afraid of sexuality education? Early Childhood Educators' experiences discussing sexuality education in their nursery community, in the context of Nuestras Voces Hacen Ley workshopsAffiliated research centres
Current project grants
Feminist Childhood Studies Summer School 2026 (FCSSS), (Project Coordinator) | UoE Student Experience Grant (£5,000). Co-Coordinator: Minkyung Kwon. Staff Sponsor: Marlies Kustatscher
Conference details
- "Early childhood sexuality education “from below”: imagining the right to sexuality education with young children from a Chilean early childhood centre", III Conferencia Internacional SexAFIN, 7 November 2025
- "Remaginar el derecho a la ESI en la primera infancia: aportes feminsitas y críticos del Sur sobre los derechos de la niñez", 1er Congreso de Educación Sexual Integral: Pensando la Integralidad, 23-25 October 2025
- "Experiencias de educadoras de párvulos facilitando jornadas participativas sobre educación sexual integral en jardines infantiles", Sexto Congreso Interdisciplinario de Investigación en Educación, 22 - 24 October 2024
- “Analysis of Teacher Training programs for the educational inclusion in Early Childhood Education in Chile”, Teachers Initial Education Conference, Universidad de Los Lagos, Chile, October, 2021
- “Support networks construction and its psychosocial effects on beneficiary mothers of Chile Crece Contigo subsystem during the pandemic", Universidad del Desarrollo, Chile, October, 2021