INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDIES IN THE HUMANITIES (IRANIAN JOURNAL OF CULTURAL RESEARCH)
Year:2010 | Volume:2 | Issue:1 (5)|Papers Count:10

The present article endeavours to examine, through a descriptive and analytical methodology, the approach taken by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), regarding interdisciplinary studies in the field of Higher Education. The research explains the programmes and policies of this organization in the area of Higher Education and discusses the process of the evolution of interdisciplinary towards transdisciplinarity in the surveys and researches conducted by the organization. After reflecting on the reasons for its tendency towards transdisciplinary studies, the research analyses the criteria of the passage from structural interdisciplinarity to behavioural transdisciplinarity. The article concludes that OECD has adopted the passage from structural interdisciplinarity towards behavioural transdisciplinarity as a basis for policymaking and educational and research orientation in the field of Higher Education. This approach tends to promote the capabilities, innovations, skills and creativity of students and to increase their objective understanding of social and professional conditions and necessities, so that the context for their successful and constructive presence in technical markets, as well as their effective responsiveness to the needs of their society, is provided for.

It is almost three decades since the polemic challenges over the conceptualization, comprehension and the ways of implication of interdisciplinary education and studies have been faced. These challenges, taking root from epistemological and methodological deficiencies of disciplinary knowledge in explaining and resolving complex issues of the real life, still need to be taken up seriously. Regarding the short history of theorization in the field of Interdisciplinary Studies, the suitable methodology for this study could be a critical analysis of theories and common thoughts in the field. The research findings of this theoretical study focus on conceptual integration, alternative and critical thinking as the core issues which seem a prerequisite for the progress of Interdisciplinary Studies. Additionally, Interdisciplinary Studies are based on team interaction more than individual efforts. Factors like funding, professional orientation and institutional support, constitute the main contextual forces influencing interdisciplinarity. And also epistemological factors, team factors and problem solving are the important factors in conducting interdisciplinary researches.

In the past, philosophy of education and curriculum designing focused on specialization and single disciplinarity approach. But since the turn of the 20th century, by a vast literature of realizing real and new educational needs and competencies beyond a single discipline, and criticizing the limits of that narrow approach to the reality, defining integrated curriculum or non-disciplinarity approaches has been a topic of discussion. Over the last decades, theorists offered six basic categories for non-disciplinary works :Parallel Disciplinary Approach, Interdisciplinary Approach, Multi-Disciplinary Approach, Cross-Disciplinary Approach, Plural-Disciplinary Approach and Supra/Trans-Disciplinary Approach. Through these approaches, integration seemed to be a matter of degree and method from fundamentally different starting points.Economics also is essentially an integrated discipline from different social sciences, mathematics, economic subjects, knowledge and ideas, and even methodology of natural sciences, and inevitably, its curriculum, educational programs and courses can not be designed unless benefited from these literatures and approaches in the curriculum designing subject area.The present article briefly defines the non-disciplinarity approaches and shows their implications, applications and theoretical capacity in designing different possible curriculums and graduate educational courses in Economics.

The aim of this paper is to introduce Philosophy of Adult Education as an interdisciplinary field at a graduate level. Currently, the field of Philosophy of Education and Adult Education are offered as two independent fields at some universities. This paper strives to create a link between Adult Education and Philosophy of Education. In this paper, a hundredyear history of philosophical studies in adult education has been reviewed. Although the major topics in Philosophy of Adult Education can be divided into three sections, in this paper, mostly the first section is reviewed. The three sections include:A) Categories presented in Philosophy of Adult Education, such as Elias’ and Merriam’s classification and Hiemstra’s classification. B) Study of philosophical roots of adult literacy approaches, such as functional literacy, information literacy. C) Recognition of thinkers in the field of Philosophy of Adult Education, such as Gruntvig and Mezirow.Finally, seven decades of adult education and literacy in Iran are reviewed and efforts are made to show that the cause root of literacy failure in Iran is partially due to lack of philosophical foundations.  So this new field may help understand and reduce some problems of adult education and literacy we face in Iran.

The essence of this study, by paradigmatic consideration, represents that research in Humanities conducted based on one paradigm like positivism, interpretive, critical theory, feminism, post modernism and chaos theory may bias thinking. This study aims at presenting an inventive framework originating from the pluralistic standpoint to analyze paradigmatic inter-disciplinary studies in conjunction with three criteria such as “structure”,“pattern” and “process ” to reach a better understanding of these types of research.In this matter entrepreneurial marketing nascent concept as a subject of interdisciplinary, generated from the interface of marketing and entrepreneurship in managerial field, has been noted and illustrated in this inventive mapping.Results show that in new and inter-disciplinary researches, having simultaneously paid attention to different paradigms in different scopes can lead to better understanding of realties and freedom from context-depended thinking and prevent myopia.

The present research is intended to show that ethnic policies and multicultural discussions have not been paid enough attention to in Iran so far, therefore; higher education curriculum is not based on recognized multi-cultural patterns and approaches. On the other hand, multicultural studies undertaken so far have not been properly used to design a recommended model of multiculturalism and ethnic policy in Iran. These issues have deprived curriculum of qualities such as agility, variety and abundance. They have also created obstacles to Internationalisation of Curriculum (IOC) in higher education. Under these circumstances curriculum specialists have met some kinds of epistemological challenges and as a result, it has left higher education policy makers no choice but to enter into related discussions .In order for the problem to be solved and this perceived and social need to be responded to, and to avoid one-sidedness towards the concept of multiculturalism, an interdisciplinary approach has been applied to the research and different types of multicultural curriculum integration have been recommended for designing a multicultural curriculum.

In this complicated modern world, humans are in need of general views in order to solve their problems. It is only Interdisciplinary Studies which specially promotes the integrity of Academic Ground as well as researches conducted by specialists and therefore, leading tothe dynamism of educational system and the development and reforming of culture. In addition, interfering with content, research methodology, principles and approaches have removed common scientific borders. The fact is that progress in every field is highly in need of views by scientists in interdisciplinary studies, than the researches undertaken by the scientists in that field. The interdisciplinary scientistsdo not accept the realities and needs of the new world of the ultra fields which have one-sided, narrow, limited and specific structures. They find familiarity with interdisciplinary approaches and the need to know their roots necessary for curriculum specialists. They also consider interdisciplinary specialties quite essential for faculties and institutes on the lookout for reaching new borders and creating specific necessities in the scientific field, particularly the humanities. This paper is prepared in three sections: in the first section, the introduction, the necessity and importance of history of interdisciplinary approachesaredescribed. In the second section, interdiscipline and its types are discussed. In the third section, educational polices and their specialists and users are pointed out and the related challenges are taken on. Finally, some results and suggestions are presented which briefly follows: 1) simultaneous applying of disciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches in research domain; in other words, logic structure stands in parallel with the organization of various skills, both under equal focus. 2) Rationalization of philosophy of existing of interdiscipline among officials, and the internalization of these values in individuals. 3) Investment in this domain due to the necessity of proper education in all fields, conducting general and practicable researches and facilitating the developments in one field with the help of the other.