Despite nearly ubiquitous general education requirements for students to take courses across disciplines, disciplinarity itself is often invisible to students and taken for granted by professors. We argue that surfacing these divisions and demystifying academic structures is, paradoxically, a key step in educating students toward the crossing of…

Purpose: This purpose of this study is to explore the integration of the sustainable development concept and goals into the curriculum of higher education studies using the example of three faculties of the University of Belgrade. Design/methodology/approach: A qualitative content analysis has been applied on two levels: the evaluation of the…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to first define the "jet principle" of (e-)learning as providing dynamically suitable framework conditions for enhanced learning procedures that combine views from multiple cultures of science. Second it applies this principle to the case of the "Global Studies" curriculum, a unique…

Communication-across-the-curriculum (CXC) programs provide assistance to other disciplines on the teaching and learning of communication--meeting an increasingly important need for students not only to be content specialists, but also coherent communicators. Research emerging from this initiative details programmatic challenges and emphases, but…

The "New Humanities" has called for new ways of engaging with Humanities texts; the European Science Foundation is just one major research funder to demand that the Humanities contribute to interdisciplinary collaborations. Meanwhile, traditionally trained disciplinary academics have resisted bringing traditional texts into…

Before 1950, history of science did not exist as an independent academic branch, but was instead pursued by practitioners across various humanities and scientific disciplines. After professionalization, traces of its prehistory as a cross-disciplinary area of interest bound to an interdisciplinary, educational philosophy have remained. This essay…

This discussion paper examines the trend toward increased interdisciplinarity in the academy. Part 1 provides an overview of current trends, with emphasis on three areas: disciplinary change, interdisciplinary fields, and general education. It addresses the question of why interdisiciplinarity is taking hold in the academy today. Part 2 presents…

For perspective on the interdisciplinary challenge in higher education, it is important to understand the concept and origins of the "discipline." Disciplines are convenient but artificial constructs, and while academia may be divided into them, the world is not. A sense of the balance and connection between them is vital. (MSE)

Leisure Studies, an emerging field of study in higher education struggling for academic legitimacy, is examined. An interdisciplinary and metaphysical approach is urged, and a commentary on the state of the field and its research in Canada is provided. (Author/MSE)

Environmental studies programs are goal oriented and depend upon strong disciplines in the university for their methodologies. Geographers contribute important methodologies to interdisciplinary environmental studies programs but should not lose their identity as members of a distinct discipline. (NH)

The programs that will become the chief medium for giving women's studies a permanent place in the academic world are those in which scholars with other intellectual affiliations and interests work simultaneously (1) to develop women's studies and (2) to integrate its materials into the long-established university department. (MLW)

Interdisciplinary work has an important role to play in undergraduate study, but only as part of a larger pattern in which the disciplines as such must occupy a central position, since they supply the forms and structures that support a heritage of learning. (Author)

Cognitive science has recently emerged as a new interdisciplinary field incorporating parts of psychology, computer science, philosophy, neuroscience, and linguistics. Its goal is to bring the theoretical and methodological resources of the contributing disciplines to bear on an integrated investigation of thought, meaning, language, perception,…

The renewed interest in interdisciplinary studies is producing different instructional approaches that are providing an important corrective to the limited and fragmented perspectives of the individual academic disciplines. Since they are in the curricular mainstream as requirements for all students, interdisciplinary offerings may have more…

Ethnic studies' interdisciplinary nature and attention to race, ethnicity, gender, and class offer the scholarship and teaching necessary to a field of study appropriate to the liberal arts curriculum. The discipline sheds light on the nature of Western and American experience, and its development can help transform liberal studies. (MSE)