Understanding the nature of science (NOS) has emerged as a core curricular goal since at least the 1960s. While science education reforms around the world have shed light on various epistemic and social underpinnings of science, how science curriculum documents portray the nature of other related disciplines such as mathematics and engineering has drawn little attention. Such lack of attention is surprising, given the growing interest among educators in the integrated approach to science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education and the frequent emphasis on STEM in recent curriculum policy. The study reported in this paper aimed to understand how recent science education reform documents from the USA, Korea and Taiwan compare with regard to their representation of the nature of STEM disciplines. Using the framework of the family resemblance approach (FRA), we present a comparative analysis of three recent science education standards documents to examine their coverage of the epistemic underpinnings of STEM disciplines, particularly with regard to the disciplinary aims, values and practices. The results indicate that the features specific to science and shared by science and engineering were most frequently addressed in the standards documents, whereas mathematics-related features were rarely mentioned. Furthermore, there was variation in the coverage in terms of the nature of STEM disciplines. Based on the findings, we discuss the contributions of the FRA framework in analysing STEM curricula in an interdisciplinary manner and make suggestions for integrating the nature of STEM disciplines in science curriculum documents.

An Xlox homologue gene (AtXlox) was identified in the starfish Archaster typicus. The gene consists of two exons, and encodes a polypeptide containing 228 amino acids. Although AtXlox shared 54.6 and 50.3% global amino acid sequence similarity with sea urchin SpXlox and Xenopus XlHhox8, respectively, the homeodomain of AtXlox was highly conserved. Amino acid sequence identity as high as 85 to 100% was identified between the AtXlox homeodomain and its homologues from various vertebrate and invertebrate organisms. In addition, a conserved histidine residue located at position 44 of the homeodomain of all known Xlox homologues was also identified. Results of a phylogenetic analysis based on the 60 amino acid sequence of the homeodomain indicated that AtXlox was closely related to sea urchin SpXlox. Temporal developmental mRNA expression pattern analyzed by reverse transcription (RT)-polymerase chain reaction (PCR) showed that AtXlox mRNA was mainly expressed in the early gastrula stage embryos. Whole-mount in situ hybridization revealed a ubiquitous mRNA expression pattern in archenterons as well as in ectodermal cells near the vegetal region of early and mid-gastrula stage embryos. This spatial expression pattern is very different from those of Xlox homologues in the leech, amphioxus, and in various vertebrate organisms with spatially restricted mRNA expression patterns in endodermal cells.

In this paper, we use the “Family Resemblance Approach” (FRA) as a framework to characterize how scientists view the nature of science (NOS). FRA presents NOS as a “system” that includes clusters or categories of ideas about the cognitive-epistemic and social-institutional aspects of science. For example, the cognitive-epistemic aspects include aims and values such as objectivity and scientific methods such as hypothesis testing. Social-institutional aspects refer to a range of components including social values such as honesty about evidence and institutional contexts of science such as research institutions. Characterized as such, NOS is thus a system of interacting components. The initial account of FRA was proposed by philosophers of science and subsequently adapted and extended for science education including through empirical studies. Yet, there is little understanding of the extent to which FRA coheres with scientists’ own depictions about NOS. Hence, an empirical study was conducted with scientists to investigate their views about FRA as well as their views of NOS using the FRA framework. In so doing, the research sought to explore the utility of FRA from scientists’ point of view. Qualitative and quantitative analysis of 17 Taiwanese scientists’ responses to a set of written questions indicates that scientists are in agreement with the FRA account of NOS, and they detail all aspects in their reference to NOS, although the social-institutional aspects are underrepresented in their depiction. Implications for further studies and science education are discussed.

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STEM disciplines might strive to achieve objectivity in their respective fields, but not all STEM disciplines share the same characterisations of what counts as a theory. What an engineer mean by a theory may not necessarily correspond to what a biologist might mean by the same term.In this chapter, we use the framework of the Family Resemblance Approach (Erduran & Dagher, 2014a; Irzik & Nola, 2011) as a basis for highlighting the epistemic similarities and differences between the constituent STEM disciplines as represented in key science curriculum documents. FRA presents the possibility to consider STEM as a cognitive, epistemic and social-institutional system whereby each constituent discipline is contrasted relative to aims, values, practices, norms, knowledge, methods and social context. Drawing on Wittgenstein's linguistic philosophy, FRA allows for comparing and contrasting constituent disciplines of STEM as members of a "family" that share particular features but also highlights domain specificity where particular knowledge and practices are specific to the respective discipline. We focus on the epistemic components of each disciplinary system, highlighting the theoretical framework on the aims and values, practices, methods and knowledge with respect to science, technology, engineering and mathematics. The aim is to help curriculum-makers and teachers to recognise epistemic underpinnings of STEM disciplines and their importance in integrating STEM in both curriculum and pedagogy.After laying out the background and main ideas of FRA, we present an analysis of two curriculum policy documents, Science for All Americans (SfAA) (AAAS, 1989) and Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) (NGSS Lead States, 2013), to examine their respective coverage of epistemic aspects of STEM. As a vision document, SfAA identifies what is important for the next generation to be scientifically literate and highlights the connections among the natural and social sciences, mathematics and technology. On the contrary, NGSS is a standards document and comprises performance expectations which incorporate all three dimensions from the science and engineering practices, core disciplinary ideas and crosscutting concepts. We selected these two documents to illustrate from the standpoint of science education how the epistemic aspects of STEM in different formats of curriculum documents could be analysed and to draw implications for curriculum policy with regard to integrated STEM education. Although we focus on the science curriculum documents in this chapter, similar analyses can be made to the curriculum documents in the other disciplines to draw implications for improving the representation of epistemic aspects of STEM in the respective subjects. The analysis was guided by our research question: What epistemic natures of STEM disciplines are addressed in the two key science curriculum reform documents? W. Park et al.