Being Interdisciplinary

In Being Interdisciplinary, Alan Wilson draws on five decades as a leading figure in urban science to set out a systems approach to interdisciplinarity for those conducting research in this and other fields. He argues that most research is interdisciplinary at base, and that a systems perspective is particularly appropriate for collaboration because it fosters an outlook that sees beyond disciplines. There is a more subtle thread, too. A systems approach enables researchers to identify the game-changers of the past as a basis for thinking outside convention, for learning how to do something new and how to be ambitious, in a nutshell how to be creative. Ultimately, the ideas presented address how to do research. Building on this systems focus, the book first establishes the basics of interdisciplinarity. Then, by drawing on the author’s experience of doing interdisciplinary research, and working from his personal toolkit, it offers general principles and a framework from which researchers can build their own interdisciplinary toolkit, with elements ranging from explorations of game-changers in research to superconcepts. In the last section, the book tackles questions of managing and organising research from individual to institutional scales. Alan Wilson deploys his wide experience – researcher in urban science, university professor and vice-chancellor, civil servant and institute director – to build the narrative. While his experience in urban science provides the illustrations, the principles apply across many research fields.

This book highlights the importance of interdisciplinarity in the academic landscape, and examines how it is understood in the context of the modern university. While interdisciplinarity is encouraged by research funders, academics themselves receive mixed messages about how, when and whether to follow this route. Building upon a series of career history interviews with established interdisciplinary researchers, the author reveals fundamental misunderstandings about the nature of interdisciplinary knowledge, how this is shared, and the skills these researchers bring. The book addresses these issues on both a personal and systemic level, identifying how a resilient researcher can craft their own research trajectory to view interdisciplinarity as a truly embedded approach.

The Second Edition provides a comprehensive introduction to interdisciplinary studies with an approach that is succinct, conceptual, and practical. Completely updated to reflect advances in the literature on research, learning, and assessment, the book describes the role of both disciplines and interdisciplinarity within the academy, and how these have evolved. Authors Allen F. Repko, Rick Szostak, and Michelle Phillips Buchberger effectively show students how to think like interdisciplinarians in order to facilitate their working with topics, complex problems, or themes that span multiple disciplines.

"This edited volume explores conceptual and practical challenges in measuring well-being. Given the bewildering array of measures available, and ambiguity regarding when and how to measure particular aspects of well-being, knowledge in the field can be difficult to reconcile. Representing numerous disciplines including psychology, economics, sociology, statistics, public health, theology, and philosophy, contributors consider the philosophical and theological traditions on happiness, well-being and the good life, as well as recent empirical research on well-being and its measurement. Leveraging insights across diverse disciplines, they explore how research can help make sense of the proliferation of different measures and concepts, while also proposing new ideas to advance the field. Some chapters engage with philosophical and theological traditions on happiness, well-being and the good life, some evaluate recent empirical research on well-being and consider how measurement requirements may vary by context and purpose, and others more explicitly integrate methods and synthesize knowledge across disciplines. The final section offers a lively dialogue about a set of recommendations for measuring well-being derived from a consensus of the contributors. Collectively, the chapters provide insight into how scholars might engage beyond disciplinary boundaries and contribute to advances in conceptualizing and measuring well-being. Bringing together work from across often siloed disciplines will provide important insight regarding how people can transcend unhealthy patterns of both individual behavior and social organization in order to pursue the good life and build better societies"--

This book is founded on the idea that ‘becoming’ is the most useful defining concept for a new ‘professional’ class whose members understand that development in their working lives is an open-ended, lifelong process of refinement and learning. In a world where being a ‘professional’ is an increasingly indistinct notion and where better education and technology are challenging ‘professional’ norms, it is imperative that we no longer think in terms of an exclusive, ‘Anglo-American’, knowledge-rich class of workers. Exploring the implications of this insight for professions including nursing, teaching, social work, engineering and the clergy, this volume aims to encourage informed debate on what it means to be a ‘professional’ in this globalised 21st century. The book argues that ‘becoming’ a professional is a lifelong process in which individual professional identities are constructed through formal education, workplace interactions and popular culture. The book advocates the ‘ongoingness’ of developing a professional self throughout one’s professional life. What emerges is a concept of becoming a professional different from the isolated, rugged, individualistic approach to traditional professional practice as represented in popular culture. It is a book for the reflective professional.

Becoming Interdisciplinary

This collection of essays first highlights the popularity of interdisciplinary undergraduate studies and their recent gains in the world of higher education, and then addresses the paradoxical failure of these studies to achieve a permanent position in the curricula of individual universities and colleges. This question and its attendant issues are explored in three ways: (1) an overview of how these changes are affected by the political economy, (2) case studies from actual universities and colleges, and (3) a discussion of the sustainability of undergraduate interdisciplinary studies programs.

The Routledge Companion to Interdisciplinary Studies in Singing, Volume III: Wellbeing explores the connections between singing and health, promoting the power of singing—in public policy and in practice—in confronting health challenges across the lifespan. These chapters shape an interdisciplinary research agenda that advances singing’s theoretical, empirical, and applied contributions, providing methodologies that reflect individual and cultural diversities. Contributors assess the current state of knowledge and present opportunities for discovery in three parts: Singing and Health Singing and Cultural Understanding Singing and Intergenerational Understanding In 2009, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada funded a seven-year major collaborative research initiative known as Advancing Interdisciplinary Research in Singing (AIRS). Together, global researchers from a broad range of disciplines addressed three challenging questions: How does singing develop in every human being? How should singing be taught and used to teach? How does singing impact wellbeing? Across three volumes, The Routledge Companion to Interdisciplinary Studies in Singing consolidates the findings of each of these three questions, defining the current state of theory and research in the field. Volume III: Wellbeing focuses on this third question and the health benefits of singing, singing praises for its effects on wellbeing.

Conversations across academic disciplines are the future. This work delves into the dynamics, rewards, and challenges of such conversations.