The following table shows one version of the main academic disciplines and some of their branches.

Since the makeup of the different branches is always in flux and since the history of any institution of higher education is complicated, you will likely find some overlapping and varying arrangements of disciplines at your college.

Part of your transition into higher education involves being aware that each discipline is a distinct discourse community with specific vocabularies, styles, and modes of communication.

(Dickinson, n.d.)

Here is a short video (John Scott, 2014) about discourse communities.

Different disciplines tend to recommend collecting different types of evidence from research sources. For example, biologists are typically required to do laboratory research; art historians often use details from a mix of primary and secondary sources (works of art and art criticism, respectively); social scientists are likely to gather data from a variety of research study reports and direct ethnographic observation, interviews, and fieldwork; and a political scientist uses demographic data from government surveys and opinion polls along with direct quotations from political candidates and party platforms.

Consider the following circle of professors. They are all asking their students to conduct research in a variety of ways using a variety of sources.

Scholars also tend to ask discipline-related kinds of questions. For example, the question of “renewable energy” might be a research topic within different disciplines. The following list shows the types of questions that would accommodate the different disciplines:

• Business (economics): Which renewable resources offer economically feasible solutions to energy issues?
• Humanities (history): At what point did humans switch from the use of renewable resources to nonrenewable resources?
• Natural and applied sciences (engineering): How can algae be developed at a pace and in the quantities needed to be a viable main renewable resource?
• Social sciences (geography): Which US states are best suited to being key providers of renewable natural resources?

Key Takeaways

• “Disciplines build on themselves, applying past knowledge to new situations and phenomena in a constant effort to improve understanding of the specific field of study.”
• “Different disciplines often look at the same facts in different ways, leading to wholly different discoveries and insights.”
• “Disciplines derive their energy from persistent and open debate about the key questions and controversies that animate them.”

(Dickinson, n.d.)

Articulating Multiple Sides of an Issue

In this section, we will explore how to recognize opposing views in various disciplines. As stated previously, each discipline has its own perspective on how it views the world.

For example:

• Biology—study humans and look for physical explanations of behavior (such as genes and evolution) rather than the mental ones.
• Psychology—sees human behavior as reflecting the cognitive constructs individuals develop to organize their mental activity. Psychologists also study mental mechanisms, both genetic predisposition and individual differences (Repko et al., 2017, page 129).

Learning to recognize the long-standing binary oppositions in individual disciplines can help you make sense of the specific issues, themes, topics, and controversies you will encounter as a student and as a professional. Here are some very broadly stated examples of those binary oppositions (Dickinson, n.d.).

Discipline	Binary Oppositions (Binary A-Binary B)
Business	production-consumption
	labor-capital
Natural and applied sciences	empiricism-rationalism
	observer-subject
Social sciences	nature-nurture
	free will-determination
Humanitites	artist-culture
	text-context

Note. Reprinted from “Exploring Academic Disciplines” by Josh Dickinson, n.d., in College Writing Handbooks. CC by PDM 1.0.

 

Think about how the disciplines might view the problem of Occupational Sex Discrimination (OSD). For example, an economist might assume that OSD is caused by “caused by rational economic decision making on the part of males and females,” (Repko & Szostak, 2017, p. 186). On the other hand, a sociologist might assume that OSD is caused by a process of female socialization different from men which in turn is directly reflection in their occupational structures,” (Repko & Szostak, 2017, p. 186).

“Learning to think critically about disciplinary insights involves approaching the disciplinary work armed with appropriate critical attitudes and critical questions to ask of the work,” (Repko et al., 2017, p. 205).  Some of these critical attitudes are discussed below:

Awareness of the Limitations of Expertise

The more time you spend in college, the greater will be your awareness of the limitations of expertise. As you read and critically analyze the scores of books and articles that you are assigned, you will realize that these works contain information that is both good and important but that their authors are neither all-knowing nor free from bias. Instead of passively accepting what they say at face value, you can confidently approach their work and be on the lookout for its strengths and limitations (Repko et al., 2017, p. 206).

Self-Awareness

Interdisciplinary students are encouraged to be aware of authorial bias. But it is even more important for you to become aware of your own biases. It is common human practice to accept without much examination arguments that you like while seeking the slightest reason to discredit arguments that you dislike. Critical thinking involves treating all arguments with the same degree of informed skepticism. If you allow your biases to determine your opinion of every work that you read, then you are unable to learn, to grow, and to revise your opinions in the face if new information.

Intellectual Courage

You will often not know what to think about a particular issue, not through ignorance, but through careful examination of opposing arguments. And you will then need to dig deeper, learn more, and pursue further analysis (Repko et al., 2017, p. 208).

Respect for Different Viewpoints

This is the fourth attitude…that is especially relevant to our current subject of thinking critically about disciplinary insights: respect for different viewpoints. If you start out believing that those who agree with you are entirely correct and those who disagree with you are entirely incorrect, then you cannot engage in critical thinking. Interdisciplinary requires you to recognize that there is likely some kernel of truth in opposing viewpoints. By carefully analyzing competing arguments, you give yourself the chance to identify common ground between apparent opposites. Such common ground is invisible to those who automatically discredit opposing viewpoints in their entirety (Repko et al., 2017, p. 208).

References

Dickinson, J. (n.d.). Exploring academic disciplines. College Writing Handbooks. Retrieved March 25, 2024, from https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-jeffersoncc-styleguide/chapter/exploring-academic-disciplines/

John Scott. (2014, November 10). Gee: What is discourse [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEB4rAZanpM

Repko, A. F., & Szostak, R. (2017). Interdisciplinary research: Process and theory (3rd ed.). SAGE Publications, Inc.

Repko, A. F., & Szostak, R., & Buchberger, M. P. (2017). Introduction to interdisciplinary studies (2nd ed.). SAGE Publications, Inc.