The Interdisciplinary Process

ISSN： 1833-1882

Source： The International Journal of Interdisciplinary Social Sciences: Annual Review, Vol.4, Iss.9, 2009-01, pp. : 59-70

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Abstract

Interdisciplinary studies have an extensive and diverse trajectory, greatly focused in the attempt to theorize on the relationship between what is disciplinary and what is interdisciplinary in higher education. This research began by an interest in finding out how interdisciplinary processes and practices take place. As disciplines seem to work within and between frames, we are particularly interested in understanding how their borders are delimited and what definitions of interdisciplinary emerge or become evident by interdisciplinary practices. The present study explores four college courses with the interest of describing and interpreting the role that the disciplines play in an interdisciplinary process; the practices that were defines as interdisciplinary, and the definitions of interdisciplinary that become evidenced. The informant’s answers revealed a relation between their conceptions, the focus of their courses and their teaching approaches and expectations. In general, the study revealed that the professor’s notion of their disciplines holds up their interdisciplinary processes and practices.