Interdisciplinarity in STEM education: A category-theoretical model from the viewpoint of Mathematics

Interdisciplinarity, especially within STEM and STEAM education, has been emphasized to foster the technical and creative skills required in an innovative, technological world. Despite various models addressing interdisciplinarity, a theoretical framework that explicitly articulates the structure of interactions between disciplines from the perspective of Mathematics remains lacking. This paper proposes such a framework by leveraging fundamental concepts from category theory to provide a structure interpretable across specific contexts. The model employs category-theoretical concepts metaphorically and symbolically rather than formally, intertwining them with the notions of semiosphere and border. The paper introduces and interprets the diagram representing the model and exemplifies its functionality by analysing interdisciplinary interactions in a classroom experiment, highlighting how Mathematics retains its identity through these interactions.