Viewing Interdisciplinarity Through the Lens of Communities of Practice

• In Event: Hilton Roundtable Session 17
  In Roundtable Session: Roundtable 4: Graduate and Postdoctoral Education Across the Disciplines SIG

Abstract

his study provides a literature review on interdisciplinary graduate education framed within Wenger’s Communities of Practice. We argue that interdisciplinarity is the learning process in which graduate students (newcomers) broker their multimembership to disparate disciplinary communities of practice (old-timers) via identity formation and meaning negotiation. After reviewing 30 articles that report interdisciplinary curriculum, personal experiences, and institutional settings, we found cross-disciplinary Discourse and barrier reinforcement via delegitimization as two of various themes that influence interdisciplinary graduate students’ trajectories into multiple communities. By using this theoretical lens, we provide further insight on the implementation of interdisciplinarity within graduate education.

Authors

• Meng Yang Matthew Wu, Purdue University

• Minjung Ryu, Purdue University