Study abroad and for-credit internships are both high-impact educational practices. Yet even before the downturn in students studying abroad in the COVID-19 era, the Institute for International Education's "Open Doors" reports indicated that in recent pre-pandemic years only about 7% of study abroad programs included for-credit…

This article describes the use of mapping strategies in an interdisciplinary course using "Interdisciplinary Research: Process and Theory" (Repko & Szostak, 2021). The use of interdisciplinary mapping took place in a 300-level undergraduate course and focused on maps presented in the textbook, including the system map (and systems…

We are living through a very difficult moment in human history where we are having to make almost daily decisions about our health, occupations, environment, economics, and democracy, while being bombarded with disinformation, misinformation, and "alternative facts" relative to those decisions. A highly developed information literacy…

Immediately after its appearance, we at the University of Amsterdam's Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies enthusiastically adopted Allen Repko's "Interdisciplinary Research: Process and Theory" (Repko, 2008) as it was the first textbook that offered systematic explanation of and guidance through the complexities of an…

Interdisciplinarity involves the integration of insights from different disciplines, which is made possible by a number of variables that are unique to each example of integration. The challenge for an instructor introducing undergraduates to interdisciplinarity is to help them learn what is transferable and relevant beyond a singular example of…

It is well known that it is harder to integrate conflicting insights across disparate disciplines than similar ones. In this article, I focus on the relation between economics, which is dominated by views that one could characterize as "pro-capitalist," and English, which is dominated by views that one could characterize as…

Interdisciplinary learning does not just happen. One of the great challenges facing interdisciplinary programs is figuring out how to gain collective clarity around program identity (values, principles, and purpose) and make connections between mission-based curricular and co-curricular activities that support interdisciplinary learning for…

Metaphors are prominent across a wide range of research literatures, serving as imaginative sparks for innovative approaches to complex problems and provocative questions. Research metaphors are very often interdisciplinary in nature, with scholars drawing insight and inspiration from disciplines outside of their own. Yet, research metaphors are…

To confront the major challenges of the 21st century, doctoral students need to be able to think and work across disciplinary boundaries. I have been inspired by the "Interdisciplinary Research: Process and Theory" (2017) textbook, by Allen Repko and Rick Szostak, to reform an interdisciplinary doctoral curriculum in Singapore. For…

In this article, we seek to apply Julie Thompson Klein's supple understanding of typology as both category-making and category-defying to one aspect of her own body of work: her participation in a range of organizations with permeable boundaries. Specifically, we review her contributions to theories of boundary work in interdisciplinary studies…

When introduced around 1925, interdisciplinarity, grounded in the notion of the unity of knowledge, was meant to reconnect the fragmented and specialized disciplines of academia. However, interdisciplinary research became more and more challenging as the plurality and heterogeneity of disciplinary perspectives and insights increased. Insisting on…

Integration is crucial to interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary work and it therefore deserves perennial attention by scholars and practitioners of such work. Few have thought so carefully, deeply, and tenaciously about integration as Julie Thompson Klein. In this article, we recount the development of Klein's thinking on integration, from her…

In this article, Allison Upshaw presents an interdisciplinary arts-based inquiry, an inquiry she undertook as part of the work for her PhD, focused on the instruction she offered her preservice teacher (PST) students in the integration of dance/movement with literacy practices. In this class, the movement was based explorations on the reading of…

Color has been considered as a special problem in several disciplines, notably art and music, but also philosophy and literature. Given that color is also a central feature of some scientific thought (think of Newton and the color spectrum, for example), the question "What color is the interdisciplinary?" seems to be a golden opportunity…

This article examines the main ideas presented in Newell's groundbreaking article, published in "Issues in Integrative Studies" in 2001, "A Theory of Interdisciplinary Studies": that complexity is a precondition for interdisciplinary research, that interdisciplinary research utilizes disciplinary perspectives, and that…