A Framework for Epistemological Discussion on Integrated STEM Education

In primary and secondary schools, the disciplines encompassed in “STEM”—Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics—have usually been studied as separate subjects, with little effort directed towards non-anecdotal integration. “Integrated STEM education” is one of the most recent interdisciplinary proposals and, under its umbrella, school disciplines are beginning to be integrated in an educationally fruitful way. STEM as a renovated approach is gaining ground, despite the infancy of its philosophical analysis. Explicit epistemological discussion of integrated STEM proposals is either absent or blurred. The overall aim of this paper is therefore to establish an initial framework for philosophical discussion, to help analyse the aims and discourse of integrated STEM education, and consider the implications that adopting any particular epistemological view might have on the aims for general education, and on the construction of science curricula oriented towards citizenship and social justice. We envisage humanist values for integrated STEM education and, after revisiting the currently proposed relationships between the STEM knowledge areas, we adopt a model of a “seamless web” for such relationships that is coherent with humanist values. A few issues emerging from this model are addressed through the lens of the so-called “family resemblance approach”, a framework from the field of research on the nature of science, in order to identify some potential central features of “nature of STEM”.