Interdisciplinary studies and studies of

interdisciplinarity
An initial distinction should be made between interdisciplinary studies,
which can be found spread across the academy today, and the study of
interdisciplinarity, which involves a much smaller group of researchers.
The former is instantiated in thousands of research centers across the US
and the world. The latter has one US organization, the Association for
Interdisciplinary Studies[7] (founded in 1979), two international
organizations, the International Network of Inter- and Transdisciplinarity [8]
(founded in 2010) and the Philosophy of/as Interdisciplinarity Network [9]
(founded in 2009), and one research institute devoted to the theory and
practice of interdisciplinarity, the Center for the Study of Interdisciplinarity
at the University of North Texas (founded in 2008).

An interdisciplinary study is an academic program or process seeking

to synthesize broad perspectives, knowledge, skills, interconnections, and
epistemology in an educational setting. Interdisciplinary programs may be
founded in order to facilitate the study of subjects which have some
coherence, but which cannot be adequately understood from a single
disciplinary perspective (for example, women's studies or medieval
studies). More rarely, and at a more advanced level, interdisciplinarity
may itself become the focus of study, in a critique of institutionalized
disciplines' ways of segmenting knowledge.

In contrast, studies of interdisciplinarity raise to self-consciousness

questions about how interdisciplinarity works, the nature and history of
disciplinarity, and the future of knowledge in post-industrial society.
Researchers at the Center for the Study of Interdisciplinarity have made
the distinction between philosophy 'of' and 'as' interdisciplinarity, the
former identifying a new, discrete area within philosophy that raises
epistemological and metaphysical questions about the status of
interdisciplinary thinking, with the latter pointing toward a philosophical
practice that is sometimes called 'field philosophy'.[10][11]

Perhaps the most common complaint regarding interdisciplinary

programs, by supporters and detractors alike, is the lack of synthesis
that is, students are provided with multiple disciplinary perspectives, but
are not given effective guidance in resolving the conflicts and achieving a
coherent view of the subject. Others have argued that the very idea of
synthesis or integration of disciplines presupposes questionable politico-
epistemic commitments.[12] Critics of interdisciplinary programs feel that
the ambition is simply unrealistic, given the knowledge and intellectual
maturity of all but the exceptional undergraduate; some defenders
concede the difficulty, but insist that cultivating interdisciplinarity as a
habit of mind, even at that level, is both possible and essential to the
education of informed and engaged citizens and leaders capable of
analyzing, evaluating, and synthesizing information from multiple sources
in order to render reasoned decisions.
While much has been written on the philosophy and promise of
interdisciplinarity in academic programs and professional practice, social
scientists are increasingly interrogating academic discourses on
interdisciplinarity, as well as how interdisciplinarity actually worksand
does notin practice.[13][14][15] Some have shown, for example, that some
interdisciplinary enterprises that aim to serve society can produce
deleterious outcomes for which no one can be held to account.[16]

Politics of interdisciplinary studies

Since 1998, there has been an ascendancy in the value of the concept and
practice of interdisciplinary research and teaching and a growth in the
number of bachelor's degrees awarded at U.S. universities classified as
multi- or interdisciplinary studies. The number of interdisciplinary
bachelor's degrees awarded annually rose from 7,000 in 1973 to 30,000 a
year by 2005 according to data from the National Center of Educational
Statistics (NECS). In addition, educational leaders from the Boyer
Commission to Carnegie's President Vartan Gregorian to Alan I. Leshner,
CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science have
advocated for interdisciplinary rather than disciplinary approaches to
problem solving in the 21st century. This has been echoed by federal
funding agencies, particularly the NIH under the Direction of Elias
Zerhouni, who have advocated that grant proposals be framed more as
interdisciplinary collaborative projects than single researcher, single
discipline ones. At the same time, many thriving longstanding bachelors in
interdisciplinary studies programs in existence for 30 or more years, have
been closed down, in spite of healthy enrollment. Examples include
Arizona International (formerly part of the University of Arizona), the
School of Interdisciplinary Studies at Miami University, and the
Department of Interdisciplinary Studies at Wayne State University; others
such as the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies at Appalachian State
University, and George Mason University's New Century College, have
been cut back. Stuart Henry has seen this trend as part of the hegemony
of the disciplines in their attempt to recolonize the experimental
knowledge production of otherwise marginalized fields of inquiry. This is
due to threat perceptions seemingly based on the ascendancy of
interdisciplinary studies against traditional academia.

Historical examples
There are many examples of when a particular idea, almost on the same
period, arises in different disciplines. One case is the shift from the
approach of focusing on "specialized segments of attention" (adopting one
particular perspective), to the idea of "instant sensory awareness of the
whole", an attention to the "total field", a "sense of the whole pattern, of
form and function as a unity", an "integral idea of structure and
configuration". This has happened in painting (with cubism), physics,
poetry, communication and educational theory. According to Marshall
McLuhan, this paradigm shift was due to the passage from an era shaped
by mechanization, which brought sequentiality, to the era shaped by the
instant speed of electricity, which brought simultaneity. [17]

Efforts to simplify and defend the concept

An article in the Social Science Journal[18] attempts to provide a simple,
common-sense, definition of interdisciplinarity, bypassing the difficulties
of defining that concept and obviating the need for such related concepts
as transdisciplinarity, pluridisciplinarity, and multidisciplinarity:

"To begin with, a discipline can be conveniently defined as any

comparatively self-contained and isolated domain of human experience
which possesses its own community of experts. Interdisciplinarity is best
seen as bringing together distinctive components of two or more
disciplines. In academic discourse, interdisciplinarity typically applies to
four realms: knowledge, research, education, and theory. Interdisciplinary
knowledge involves familiarity with components of two or more
disciplines. Interdisciplinary research combines components of two or
more disciplines in the search or creation of new knowledge, operations,
or artistic expressions. Interdisciplinary education merges components of
two or more disciplines in a single program of instruction. Interdisciplinary
theory takes interdisciplinary knowledge, research, or education as its
main objects of study."

In turn, interdisciplinary richness of any two instances of knowledge,

research, or education can be ranked by weighing four variables: number
of disciplines involved, the "distance" between them, the novelty of any
particular combination, and their extent of integration. [19]

Interdisciplinary knowledge and research are important because:

1. "Creativity often requires interdisciplinary knowledge.

2. Immigrants often make important contributions to their new field.
3. Disciplinarians often commit errors which can be best detected by
people familiar with two or more disciplines.
4. Some worthwhile topics of research fall in the interstices among the
traditional disciplines.
5. Many intellectual, social, and practical problems require interdisciplinary
approaches.
6. Interdisciplinary knowledge and research serve to remind us of the
unity-of-knowledge ideal.
7. Interdisciplinarians enjoy greater flexibility in their research.
8. More so than narrow disciplinarians, interdisciplinarians often treat
themselves to the intellectual equivalent of traveling in new lands.
9. Interdisciplinarians may help breach communication gaps in the modern
academy, thereby helping to mobilize its enormous intellectual
resources in the cause of greater social rationality and justice.
10. By bridging fragmented disciplines, interdisciplinarians might play a
role in the defense of academic freedom." [18]