INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDIES IN THE HUMANITIES (IRANIAN JOURNAL OF CULTURAL RESEARCH)
Year:2009 | Volume:1 | Issue:3|Papers Count:9

The goal of this paper is to offer explanations with respect to some of the less evident aspects of this policy intent. The higher education systems, it is argued are experiencing a challenging period where the felt need in this regard does not match the level of wisdom and the extent of insight required. The paper proceeds with a review of the literature in the curriculum field which aims at providing better understanding of different genres of curriculum integration concluding that this source although vital for policy makers at the higher education, will need to be further developed in order to match the complexities peculiar to higher education. The author, then, addresses the rationale for curriculum integration at higher education which he regards as manipulation of the current knowledge and technology map to address the emergent needs.This, he contends, requires concentration on a knowledge production system to meet the standard of a new knowledge domain. Without due attention to this prerequisite, the resulting product cannot be regarded as a genuine interdisciplinary science and it will rather be looked upon as a mere addition or juxtaposition of two or more extant knowledge fields. In the final section of the paper, five policy options are discussed.

Interdisciplinarity, interdisciplinary education and interdisciplinary curricula are increasingly used in Higher Education field. These terms are used with or interchangeably with similar terms such as multi-disciplinarity, Stud pluridisciplinarity crossdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity. Although interdisciplinary approach to curriculum lost its significance in last decades and disciplinary approached was focused for about two decades, but the ideas of interdisciplinary and integrated curricula are not new ones and are rooted in the thoughts of the previous scholars who were famous for their concerns about unity of knowledge, forming coherence, general and all-inclusive knowledge.In this paper while offering theoric and historical views on interdaisciplinarity, interdisciplinary approach to curriculum, academic disciplines, a variety of possible combinations of disciplines across curricula, a sociological criticism about disciplinary curriculum, a biological explanation for interdisciplinary curriculum, models, strategies, advantages, and pitfalls of interdisciplinary curriculum are discussed.

Availability of capital, manpower and substantial materials were, in the past, taken into account as the main factor for development programs in the many societies in all over the world. But since the dawn of new millennium, knowledge, spreading and usage of the knowledge has a high efficacious position on the destiny of countries. Hence, the value and position of higher education is inevitable and those kinds of the curriculum and educational planning that are compatible with the diverse and variable needs in societies, would be in priority. In the beginning of paper, first, the aim of evaluation in curriculum would be discussed. Then the evaluation criteria would be reviewed and finally four stages of evaluation of curriculum will be explained.

The "Virtual Global University (VGU)" is a new academic concept in literature of higher education. Basically Virtual Global University has been formed and developed to meet needs and challenges of word community in different ways. Having considered as a new scenario or even a substitution of traditional university, it is based on the following components: 1. International approach Virtual Global University is internationally aligned, while simultaneously responsive to the particular context of local and national higher education policy. 2. Technological approach Virtual Global University is technological solution for internationalization of higher education It is online education using ICT and networking and access to world higher education markets is its main goal. 3. Interdisciplinary approach. Through studying the interdisciplinary curricula, Virtual Global University graduates are expected to have the capacity to confront unfamiliar problems and to emerge from their university experience with a set of flexible and transferable skills for different types of employment in world community. In this paper with respect to the above-mentioned approaches, Virtual Global University strategy for Iranian higher education society has been discussed.

This paper includes discussions on the concept of interdisciplinary curriculum, interdisciplinary curriculum at different educational levels, interdisciplinary curriculum and structuralist philosophy, advantages and disadvantages of such curricula, interdisciplinary curriculum based on knowledge and process, interdisciplinary curriculum based on themes, an example of interdisciplinary curriculum, conclusion and proposals.

In general, it seems that functions of educational systems are more important to people than functions of research systems. A reason for this is more efficiency of educational systems in terms of their explicit impact on people's lives issue-based research studies develop; it becomes possible for research bodies to achieve a similar degree of credibility as educational systems.Development of issue-based researches requires review of research projects and methods used to plan and implement them, thus preventing research process to avoid of prediction and imitation and to seriously seek cooperation from different specialists. Therefore, it should be noted that development of issue-based researches requires interdisciplinary teams to be formed and new management styles and structures to be developed in research process.

Far more long before the "interdisciplinarity" as a concept, become a prominent issue in scientific and philosophical developments, many thinkers and philosophers have investigated interdisciplinary. Erich Fromm is one of the distinguished contemporary intellectuals who have applied interdisciplinarity as the way of investigation. Here, we attempt to follow interdisciplinarity and border-crossing in his works. Studying social and political crisis of the modem society, Fromm realized that it is rooted in human's psycho-existential characteristics on the one hand, and the socio-political status of, the modern society on the other; which only "love" and "creative work" can treat. In Fromm's view, neither political nor psychological analysis can offer a comprehensive understanding of what is going on in the society; rather a combination of the two. Thus, he believes in the necessity of border-crossing. "Love" as the "psycho-political" is the core of Fromm's interdisciplinary study of the modem society.