Higher education, or more strictly higher education studies, is sometimes referred to as a discipline, though it is more often referred to as a field, sector or area for study. But what is a discipline and does higher education studies, at its current state of development, qualify as one? This article re-considers these matters and comes to some…

This chapter examines how the scholarship of practice is being used within applied disciplines and offers recommendations for colleges and universities regarding the implementation of the scholarship of practice for the discipline of higher education.

This paper calls into question the idea that we can simply think about higher education as a research field and explores different meanings of the term field. It asks whether there are related fields: research into higher education, academic development and disciplinary teaching research, rather than one. The approach of the paper is conceptual,…

The question whether the study of education and teacher education belong at a liberal arts college deserves careful consideration. In this essay Bruce Kimball analyzes and finds unpersuasive the three principled rationales that are most often advanced on behalf of excluding educational studies, teacher education, or both from a liberal arts…

This research identifies 22 fields that declined in absolute numbers and/or prevalence over a 35-year period. Most were basic fields in the arts and sciences. Steep declines were evident only in a few fields, notably European languages and literatures. Larger, higher status, and historically liberal arts oriented institutions were less likely to…

The aim of this article is to explore what the concept of interdisciplinarity can bring to our developing understanding of education as a field of enquiry. We shall draw upon some recent writing on the disciplines of education in order to explore the potentially negative consequences of the way in which the disciplines are institutionalised and…

The authors are both professional practitioners (law and social work, respectively) who entered the university as discipline-based scholars. Their respective interests in teaching and learning have led them both down a path where they have transitioned from a discipline-based orientation to organizational roles grounded primarily in teaching and…

The aim of this paper is to identify and analyse the ways educational policy is understood, taught and practiced as a training discipline at postgraduate level in the European context. We have validated its epistemological solvency through a quantitative, comparative and ethnographic study of its main features as a discipline--such as ideological…

In the English-speaking world educational research is often conceived as the interdisciplinary study of educational processes and practices. Hence research in education strongly relies on theoretical input from a range of different academic disciplines. What is virtually absent in this construction of the field is the idea of education as an…

The nature of academic development in contemporary universities has been a recent focus in the literature. Highlighting the diversity of practices that exist under its name, "academic development" has been described by some as an ambiguous project and a fragmented field, while others suggest a more coherent project, pointing out a near…

This paper reports on a qualitative study that explored the challenges experienced by nine emerging scholars of teaching at a research-intensive university in South Africa. It details three problem areas encountered during the process of becoming scholars of teaching: (1) negative perceptions about the work and related reward concerns, (2)…

As a discipline, sociology has produced a rich understanding of social processes, and yet the pedagogical implications of this scholarship remain largely untapped. In this paper, we employ a framework of sociology as pedagogy to show how sociology can enhance and inform teaching and learning. We select examples from a range of classical and…

Across the field of higher education and within the discipline of sociology, several important reconceptualizations of academic work have emerged. While not absolutely in sync, there is a striking overlap across three of the most visible of these: Boyer's Scholarship Reconsidered, Carnegie's Stewardship of the Discipline, and Burawoy's Public…

At the 2007 annual meetings of the American Sociological Association, we presented a workshop entitled "How to do the Scholarship of Teaching." The workshop had three main goals: to introduce participants to the literature on the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) and to various SoTL outlets, to guide participants in the process of doing…

General education is basic education and, in theory, is the general education that every citizen must undergo as well as the basic education that every type of specialization must have. It is undoubtedly fundamental and important to the entire educational system. However, specialized education is more directly related to, and plays a more…