STS Education and STEM Education: A Comparative Analysis

In recent years the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) approaches have been disseminated throughout the world, and have also reached Brazil, where they are disseminated at events, published in periodicals and on educational websites, articles, dissertations and theses. The...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Andrade, Iasmim Santana; Teixeira, Paulo Marcelo Marini
Format: Article
Status:Published version
Publication date:2025
Country:Brasil
Institution:ABRAPEC
Repository:Revista Brasileira de Pesquisa em Educação em Ciências (Online)
Language:Portuguese
OAI Identifier:oai:periodicos.ufmg.br:article/54379
Online Access:https://periodicos.ufmg.br/index.php/rbpec/article/view/54379
Access Level:Open access
Keyword:STEM
STS Education
Historical-Critical Pedagogy
abordagens STEM
CTS
Pedagogia Histórico-Crítica
Educación CTS
Pedagogía Histórico-Crítica
Description
Summary:In recent years the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) approaches have been disseminated throughout the world, and have also reached Brazil, where they are disseminated at events, published in periodicals and on educational websites, articles, dissertations and theses. The objective of this study was to analyze STEM considering the premises established by the STS Movement and Historical-Critical Pedagogy. The research was based on qualitative approaches and data collection was carried out through a survey of articles, dissertations, theses, books and book chapters. To analyze the data, we adopted the analytical cycle proposed by Robert Yin. In the results, we present characteristics that demarcate STEM and identify differences in relation to STS Education. We argue that one of the main differences between these currents is the critical perspective assumed by STS Education, at least in the Latin American context, corresponding to a curricular proposal that envisions the full exercise of citizenship, mainly with regard to social participation and interests linked to social transformation, contrasted with the pragmatic, economistic and market-oriented perspective typical of STEM projects, signaling an education that directs students primarily towards their professional choices, in the sense of meeting the specific demands established by the economy and the labor market.