The question of being adds another dimension to interdisciplinary theory and practice. The interdisciplinary approach to complex problems requires engaging with multiple perspectives from various disciplines, schools of thought, ideologies, and belief systems. All of these perspectives possess underlying and often unacknowledged ontological…

Interdisciplines are specialties that connect ideas, methods, and findings from existing disciplines. Political psychology and psychohistory are interdisciplines which should have much in common, but even where they clearly intersect, their approaches usually diverge. Part of the reason for their dissimilarity lies in what each takes and rejects…

Interdisciplinary studies has positioned itself as an innovative approach to comprehending, navigating, and transforming knowledge. The emphasis in recent scholarship upon complex systems and integration of insights from disciplinary perspectives mark decisive progress toward the development of a cohesive theory of interdisciplinarity. Such a…

In our society in which communication is so wide-ranging and rapid we are witnessing a significant increase in the pace at which knowledge is produced and disseminated. Bodies of knowledge intersect as they cross borders between disciplines in the human and social sciences, and in the natural sciences, life sciences, and technological sciences.…

In the face of a myriad of complex water resource issues, traditional disciplinary separation is ineffective in developing approaches to promote a sustainable water future. As part of a new graduate program in water resources, faculty at the University of Idaho have developed a course on interdisciplinary methods designed to prepare students for…

The integrative thinking essential to interdisciplinary inquiry requires not only critical reflection concerning the points of convergence and dissonance between disciplinary insights, but also something more personal and less predictable that this paper describes as "holding in relationship difference ways of knowing." Using the process…

Having engaged in interdisciplinary team-teaching in both the two-course cluster format and the single course format, we intend to show how we helped students recognize and find their own integrative insights between the disciplines of history and economics. In the process we not only compare the advantages and disadvantages of each format but…

This article reports the findings from a study of undergraduate students in an academic program focused on integrative learning rather than interdisciplinarity. One aspect of this study included how students defined integrative learning. This participant-shaped understanding of integrative learning was broad and reflected a continuum of…

Interdisciplinarity has become a growing emphasis in the U.S. higher education and the prevalence of interdisciplinary doctoral programs is one indicator of such growth. Despite this growth, the experiences of individuals within interdisciplinary doctoral programs have been largely unexamined in the literature. This paper examines a self-designed…

In the course of developing and co-­teaching Social Research Methods (SRM), an interdisciplinary, upper-­division undergraduate course at the University of Illinois at Springfield (UIS), the authors discovered that this type of partnership is ripe ground for exploring integration of anthropology and sociology on epistemological and methodological…

Agricultural education very early on tested a generalized mandate of modular interdisciplinary education. In this regard, it constitutes an interesting medium for observing the conditions required for developing interdisciplinarity in an academic context. Based on a historical approach, this text shows how a series of experiments led to a…

This article is an outgrowth of the evaluation and assessment process in a large interdisciplinary studies (IDS) program at West Virginia University. We argue for the importance of collecting and assessing quantitative and qualitative data concerning learning outcomes, student satisfaction, career choice and development, and graduate education…

This article examines the historical evolution of the concepts of interdisciplinarity and integration in American education. We first focus on United States education in the 20th century to review the rationales for integrated and interdisciplinary primary and secondary education. We place such rationales in the context of the larger purposes…

In Canada, the province of Ontario has had a rather turbulent relationship with interdisciplinarity as it has tried to implement this practice into the public school system. Specifically, the provincial government has repeatedly attempted to introduce such reforms as integrated units, harmonized objectives, and open-concept, student-centered pods,…

Interdisciplinary processes are being developed for a better present and future in primary and secondary education teaching in France. Over the past few years, the education authorities have increased incentives to open the subjects for one another and created new teaching-learning programs for interdisciplinary purposes. In spite of the obvious…