The activities of a university are constituted through its disciplinary cultures. The individual disciplines mutually provide environments for one another but are largely autonomous in establishing their internal standards. Therefore, the university is only an institutional realization of its disciplinary parts in particular spatial locations.…

A study of the cultures of academic disciplines within the university suggests that each discipline is not a homogeneous entity but a constantly changing grouping of smaller components, all related to the process of specialization. The commonalities in these subdisciplines could contribute to greater interdisciplinary understanding, and they…

Despite variety in the culture of the sciences, certain processes of knowledge construction are common throughout. Examination of how disciplinary identities are produced through rhetoric and how assessments of certainty and uncertainty are made across disciplines suggests that disciplines should not be regarded as fixed structures but as flexible…

The role of the modern language discipline in higher education is examined, focusing on the role linguists play in the general academic culture and the position of the disciplinary culture of languages as performing an integrative function for other disciplinary cultures. (MSE)

Data from German universities suggest that considerable differences in the social composition of the student population by discipline, or group of disciplines, continue to exist, the result of self-selection. Implications are found for gender differences and the role of the academic labor market in students' choice of academic field. (MSE)

The theory that the rationality characteristic of the intellectual tasks performed by scientists is linked to the ways they organize their professional lives is extended to science teaching. It is proposed that the forms of rationality typical of scientists' thinking may be irrelevant or even invalid in the college classroom. (MSE)

The disciplinary hierarchy in which natural sciences take funding priority over the humanities, and the sometimes confrontational debate between academic cultures, are examined. It is concluded that no area of knowledge is more "useful" than another, and attempts to understand the universe must be broad, interactive, and cooperative, not…

The 11th conference of the society addressed these issues concerning multiculturalism in Europe and its effects on education: interdisciplinarity; policy and alternative strategies; national educational systems and ethnic or cultural minorities; problems related to immigrants, "guest workers," and refugees; relationships with the Third…