Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) is a broad term used to group together these academic disciplines. This term is typically used to address an education policy or curriculum choices in schools. It has implications for workforce development, national security concerns (as a shortage of STEM-educated Americans can reduce effectiveness in this area) and immigration policy. The science in STEM typically refers to two out of the three major branches of science: natural sciences, including biology, physics, and chemistry; and formal sciences, of which mathematics is an example, along with logic and statistics. The third major branch of science, social science such as: psychology, sociology, and political science, are categorized separately from the other two branches of science, and are instead grouped together with humanities and arts to form another counterpart acronym named HASS (Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences), rebranded in the UK in 2020 as SHAPE.

 

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