Inclusive STEAM Education

Dear Colleagues,

Today’s classrooms are more heterogenous then ever, with students representing a variety of cultural and socio-economic backgrounds and languages; questions of identity; the inclusion of children with special needs in regular schools; and the integration of refugees, who often have little or no formal education, might have experienced trauma, and usually lack language competencies in the country that they have migrated to. The same issues can occur among adults in secondary and tertiary education and professional settings, although this has received less attention.

While all this is true for every subject and professional field, we will specifically look at STEAM subjects in this Special Issue for three reasons: i) Natural sciences, math, and engineering are subjects often met with prejudices and stereotypes (e.g., “girls are good at reading; boys are good at physics” or “math is too difficult for me”), while, at the same time, these subjects allow learners to develop key competencies that can help in addressing urgent and complex issues, now and in the future (e.g., climate change, biodiversity loss, the consumption and production of electricity, antibiotic-resistant bacteria, and pollution with microplastics). ii) These subjects offer a specific opportunity to create inclusive settings, as they combine theoretical knowledge with practical approaches: for instance, using experiments in inquiry-based teaching. This may stimulate the interest of students even if their language capabilities are not yet well developed, or it may even directly relate to some children’s (e.g., autistic children’s) special interests. Furthermore, inquiry-based group work in indoor or outdoor settings may facilitate the social integration of students with specific requirements. iii) Art is included here (but understood in a wider context as also comprising music, design, etc.) since it may also relate to individual students’ interests and creative potential, could stimulate creativity and relatedness (e.g., making music in a group), and may open students’ and teachers’ eyes to new ideas that could benefit the scientific world.

Consequently, we want to address knowledge gaps and ideas in relation to creating inclusive, even interdisciplinary STEAM teaching on all levels. Thus, we are open to receiving a wide range of submissions, from stimulating theoretical concepts and visionary papers to reviews addressing specific inclusive STEAM education areas and from qualitative or quantitative research based around pilot studies to large-scale empirical work.

Possible topics for this Special Issue include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Inclusive STEAM education, from elementary school to life-long learning;
• Interdisciplinary inclusive STEAM education;
• Teacher training for inclusive STEAM education;
• Integrating inclusive STEAM education into curricula from the elementary to tertiary levels;
• Societal aspects of inclusive STEAM education;
• Architectural aspects of inclusive STEAM education;
• Language aspects of inclusive STEAM education;
• Identity aspects of inclusive STEAM education;
• Cultural and socio-economic aspects of inclusive STEAM education;
• Special needs in inclusive STEAM education;
• Assistant teachers in inclusive STEAM education.

……

Prof. Dr. Uwe Karsten Simon
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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• STEAM
• natural sciences
• inclusion education
• special needs
• school
• life-long learning
• teacher training