First-hand insights into the operations and successes of some of the world's foremost interdisciplinary research centres and the ways in which interdisciplinarity is researched, organized, and taught around the world.

This book examines the epistemological, social and political dimensions of practising interdisciplinary approaches to enhance knowledge, pedagogy, and methodological aspects of research in the South Asian context. The volume sets the context by bringing together a range of ideas, questions and reflections on the concept of interdisciplinarity, the numerous waves of interdisciplinarity in contemporary history of knowledge, which were radically different from each other in their epistemological and political orientations. The book revisits the concept of interdisciplinarity and takes into cognizance the importance of the mutual shaping of knowledge and politics in our search for inclusive and sustainable future(s). The book offers a blend of both conceptual and institutional discourses on interdisciplinarity and the personal experiences of leading practitioners, bringing together critical engagements from different vantage points on practising it. It will be of interest to researchers, scholars and practitioners of social sciences and humanities disciplines as well as interdisciplinary fields such as educational studies, development studies, women’s studies, media studies, cultural studies, urban studies, labour studies, legal studies, public health, disability studies, global/international studies and performing arts. It will also be useful for policy planners, development practitioners, activists and social organizers working in related fields.

This book addresses the relation between Problem-Based Learning (PBL) and interdisciplinarity and challenges the often implicit assumption that PBL leads to interdisciplinarity by default. The book examines theoretical and philosophical aspects of PBL and interdisciplinary learning. The first part of the book conceptualises the notions of problem-based learning and interdisciplinary learning, and highlights some key overlaps and ways of conceiving of their interrelatedness. It discusses the role of problem-based medical education in relation to interdisciplinary professionalism in medical education. Taking the reader into the realm of techno-anthropology, the book discusses the role of problems and projects in transgressing disciplines, and presents an analysis of three challenges facing new students when entering interdisciplinary and problem-based higher education. The second part of the book focuses on practicing interdisciplinarity in problem-based higher education. It explores how the construction of problems in interdisciplinary PBL projects can be seen from the perspectives of multicultural groups, and examines group processes in interdisciplinary PBL projects. It concludes by taking a closer look at student practices in interdisciplinary PBL, and at how students are positioned and position themselves in the complex transdisciplinary PBL project.

As universities increasingly offer courses that break the confines of a single subject area, more students are enrolling on interdisciplinary programmes within multidisciplinary departments. Teaching and learning within interdisciplinary study requires new approaches, including an understanding of the critical perspectives and frameworks and the rearranging of intellectual and professional boundaries. Interdisciplinary Learning and Teaching in Higher Education explores the issues and tensions provoked by interdisciplinary learning, offering helpful information for: Staff development Distance learning Mass communication courses Interdisciplinary science courses Grounded in thorough research, this collection is the first of its kind to provide practical advice and guidance from around the world, improving the quality of teaching and learning in interdisciplinary programmes.

This book represents a four-year research and development project. It presents a phenomenological examination and explanation of a functional design framework for games in education. It furnishes a rich description of the experiences and perceptions of performing interdisciplinary collaborative design among experts of very diverse fields, such as learning systems design, architectural design, assessment design, mathematics education, and scientific computing.

This book analyzes different figurations of childhood in contemporary culture and politics with a particular focus on interdisciplinary methodologies of critical childhood studies. It argues that while the figure of the child has been traditionally located at the peripheries of academic disciplines, perhaps most notably in history, sociology and literature, the proposed critical discussions of the ideological, symbolic and affective roles that children play in contemporary societies suggest that they are often the locus of larger societal crises, collective psychic tensions, and unspoken prohibitions and taboos. As such, this book brings into focus the prejudices against childhood embedded in our standard approaches to organizing knowledge, and asks: is there a natural disciplinary home for the study of childhood? Or is this field fundamentally interdisciplinary, peripheral or problematic to notions of disciplinary identity? In this respect, does childhood force innovation in thinking about disciplinarity? For instance, how does the analysis of childhood affect how we think about methodology? What role do understandings of childhood play in delimiting how we conceive of our society, our future, and ourselves? How does thinking about childhood affect how we think about culture, history, and politics? This book brings together researchers working broadly in critical child studies, but from various disciplines in the humanities and social sciences (including philosophy, literary studies, sociology, cultural studies and history), in order to stage a conversation between these diverse perspectives on the disciplinary or (interdisciplinary) character of ‘the child’ as an object of research. Such conversation builds on the assumption that childhood, far from being marginal, is a topic that is hidden in plain sight. That is to say, while the child is always a presence in culture, history, literature and philosophy—and is often even a highly charged figure within those fields—its operation and effects are rarely theoretically scrutinized, but rather are more likely drawn upon, surreptitiously, for another purpose.