Each of the authors discussed in this review essay deplores the attempts of scholars in the human sciences to ape their colleagues in the natural sciences and economics. Their criticisms are not dissimilar, nor are they without merit, but it is important to ask the following questions: What would they offer in its place? What kind of…

In this article, I elucidate the idea of a poetics of teaching and outline its value to scholars and teachers who seek a deeper understanding of the practice. A poetics of teaching draws together aesthetic, intellectual, and moral dimensions of the work that are often treated separately, if treated at all, in both research and in the classroom. In…

Thomas Kuhn's notion of a disciplinary matrix provides a useful framework for investigating the growth of research on family learning in and from museums over the last decade. To track the emergence of this disciplinary matrix we consider three issues. First are shifting theoretical perspectives that result in new shared language, beliefs, values,…

Descriptions of disciplinary practices can suggest visions of authentic classroom activities. Designing activities that are effective, however, requires an additional framework for identifying a discipline's generative resources -- that is, those learning targets that enable students to make disciplinary sense and progress in subsequent…

This national study of academic deans examined the social and cognitive dimensions underlying disciplinary variations in respondents' self reports of their administrative behavior. Discriminant analyses identified significant linear functions that distinguished behaviors of deans from hard/pure, hard/applied, soft/pure, and soft/applied discipline…

The history of social studies in the twentieth century is the story of a field of study not yet coming of age. As is true in most emerging fields, the first one hundred years of social studies has been marked by confusion, competing visions, inconsistency, incoherence, and intolerance. Many have considered the social studies' first century as…

With the emergence of gerontology as an academic discipline, the need for formalized training to address early career issues has increased. This paper offers personal experiences and advice regarding some of the challenges new faculty are likely to face when on the "tenure track." Some of the challenges include whether to pursue a career in…

After reviewing the debate about public sociologies in the American Sociological Association over the past few years, we offer a response to calls for "saving sociology" from the Burawoy approach as well as an analytic critique of the former ASA president's "For Public Sociology" address. While being sympathetic to the basic idea of public…

This article presents the authors' response to David Schweingruber's comments on their paper about sociology's disciplinary core being reflected in introductory sociology textbooks. In his comment, Schweingruber argues that introductory textbooks do not adequately reflect the disciplinary core because the authors of such texts employ terms that…

Personality psychology studies how psychological systems work together. Consequently, the field can act as a unifying resource for the broader discipline of psychology. Yet personality's current fieldwide organization promotes a fragmented view of the person, seen through such competing theories as the psychodynamic, trait, and humanistic. There…

In New South Wales Geography is frequently perceived in an outdated and inaccurate fashion. Geographers' perceptions of their discipline usually contrasts with those of fellow educators, parents, employers, politicians and even their own students. It is suggested that for the public and students to better understand what is required to become a…

Work-based learning (WBL) is predicated on a form of transdisciplinarity (Costley & Portwood, 2000; Garrick & Rhodes, 2000; Boud & Solomon, 2001) within the community of higher education academics over about the last 10 years. The broad area of WBL in higher education draws its academic focus from high-level practical knowledge and…

This article revisits the famous "two cultures" debate between F.R. Leavis and C.P. Snow, with a view to examining its relevance to the academic field of physical education. Snow, in his 1959 lecture, lamented the "gulf of mutual incomprehension" that had developed within the education system between the sciences and the humanities. In hostile…

Scholars who are drawn to qualitative research methodologies represent a diverse group of disciplines and fields. They also represent themselves as researchers and the theoretical frameworks in which they work quite differently. Indeed, it was this diversity in representation that initially motivated us to propose a New Directions feature on…

By virtue of their education, training, and experience, college and university faculty are a rich national resource. Opportunities abound for faculty scholars to apply their knowledge and expertise to pressing community and public issues and problems. Yet, narrow definitions of scholarship embedded in higher education practice act as disincentives…