Specialized knowledge to develop interdisciplinary tasks in the context of STEM education

International audienceDespite increasing recommendations for implementing STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) education, the literature identifies difficulties about its implementation by teachers (English, 2017; European Schoolnet, 2018). Appointed reasons are related to the need for teachers to acquire a robust Content Knowledge about the subject matters to be integrated (English, 2017). Therefore, it is necessary to offer them with a Professional Development Programme (PDP) that provides them with knowledge and skills to implement this approach in class. Recently, several authors refer the need for highlighting the role of the M in STEM, which also brings added challenges to teachers (Beswick & Fraser, 2019; Stohlmann, 2018). Therefore, it is crucial to understand what knowledge promotes the development and implementation of mathematical interdisciplinary practices within the context of STEM education. Concerning teachers' professional knowledge, the literature presents several studies such as Shulman (1986) that distinguishes three categories of Content Knowledge (CK): Subject Matter Content Knowledge (SMCK), Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) and Curricular Knowledge (CuK). Other authors refer to the subject matters to teach such as mathematics (Ball, Thames and Phelps, 2008), science (Park & Oliver, 2008) and technology (Mishra & Koehler, 2006). However, there is a lack of research about the necessary knowledge for promoting STEM education, in particular by highlighting the role of the M. Therefore, our research question is: what knowledge is necessary for teachers to develop an integrated approach of STEM education with a focus on mathematics? Because the characterization of this knowledge is missing in the literature, this study is crucial for teachers, researchers, and also teacher educators who need to design PDP related to this approach