Broadening STEAM education through cross-curricular collaboration: the case of argumentation in science and religious education

Abstract

Although there has been increasing research and development efforts in the integration of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) as well as the integration of STEM with the arts (i.e. STEAM), little attention has been placed on how other school subjects such as religious education (RE) can be integrated. In some countries like England, RE is a subject taught in secondary schools. It is a subject that aims to provide students with an overview of world religions and worldviews from a range of perspectives including philosophy and ethics. While RE and STEAM may seem mutually exclusive, there are common features addressed in both. For example, the articulation of arguments—or justification of claims with reasons and evidence—is widespread not only in science but also in RE. As such, it involves deep exploration of justification of why particular people hold the beliefs that they do. Furthermore, both RE and STEAM are, by definition, interdisciplinary and lend themselves to synthesis of new perspectives. Argumentation defined as the justification of knowledge claims with evidence and reasons, has emerged as a significant educational goal, advocated in international curricula and investigated through school-based research. Surprisingly, however, the contrast of argumentation in science and RE has been under-investigated although educators have been concerned with the manifestation of science-religion debates in schools, particularly in relation to topics such as evolution and intelligent design for numerous years. Considering the importance of worldviews in education, it is worthwhile to explore how RE might be related to STEAM education. The purpose of this chapter is to investigate how the scope of STEAM education can be broadened by focusing on school subjects conventionally not considered in relation to STEAM, such as RE. Considering RE itself is a vast domain, we focus on argumentation as an overarching theme where cross-subject integration and collaboration can be explored. Examples from the funded 3-year OARS Project from England are used to illustrate how cross-curricular collaboration between teachers can be enhanced.

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ORCID for Wonyong Park: orcid.org/0000-0002-8911-5968

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