Where science ends, art begins? Critical perspectives on the development of STEAM in the new climactic regime

This contribution explores the origins of movement from STEM to STEAM, with a view to troubling the epistemological assumptions that underpin what at first glance appears to be a progressive and ameliorative project. STEAM appears to challenge traditional educational modalities (such as clear divisions between disciplines) in order to provide a broader canvas for human enquiry. In contemporary terms, we might even say that the movement from STEM to STEAM – that is to say adding “arts” to the study of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) – is perceived to “add value” to a pre-existing initiative. And yet the very notion of “value-added”, namely the amount by which the value of a commodity is increased by each stage in its production, encapsulates the economic imperative that pervades contemporary educational discourse. It is perhaps not surprising, then, that this same economic imperative also appears to have been a key driver of the movement from STEM to STEAM.