The legacy of González Rey’s concept of subjectivity continues to inform and inspire: a study of imagination in STEM and imagination in play (El legado del concepto de subjetividad de González Rey continúa informando e inspirando: un estudio de imaginación en STEM y de imaginación en los juegos)

The study reported in this paper was concerned with how imagination in play and imagination in STEM create conditions for preschool children’s development. Drawing on cultural-historical concepts, notably Fernando González Rey’s concept of subjectivity, the study examined how children experienced contradiction during moments of play and learning in a common PlayWorld. Affectively charged dramatic moments appeared to support collective play and STEM engagement, thus leading to the proposition that affect and intellect act in unity during the process of imagining. The individual-collective dialectic of imagining concepts within collective play situations became the basis of the subjectively configured exchanges that created the dynamic conditions for the development of the children, who became increasingly oriented to learning within imaginary situations.