2021 Volume 45 Issue 2 Pages 103-111
The present study discusses the discipline-based epistemological approaches stipulated in the Japanese National Curriculum Standards and their relationship with the big ideas in STEM Education. First, it recapitulates what has been expected for STEM/STEAM education in cross-curricular learning in the context of Japan. The study then compares the discipline-based epistemological approaches of science, technology, and mathematics in lower secondary education and the big ideas of and about STEM (Chalmers et al., 2017). The results reveal that it would be beneficial to specify core content knowledge of each of the disciplines and consider inclusion of the nature of each discipline, such as NOS (Nature of Science), more explicitly in discipline-based epistemological approaches for better decision-making. This will help to develop civic literacy, which is one of the expected goals of cross-curricular learning in Japanese.
