Interdisciplinarity versus Anti-Intellectual and Anti-Democratic Impulses

Association for Interdisciplinary Studies. Oakland University, Macomb County, 44575 Garfield Road Building UC2 Suite 103, Clinton Township, MI 48038. Tel: 586-263-6098; Fax: 586-263-6261; e-mail: [email protected]; Web site: https://interdisciplinarystudies.org/issues/

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Interdisciplinary Approach; Democracy; Scholarship; Values; Student Attitudes; Teaching Methods; Elementary Secondary Education; Higher Education; Educational Change; Voting; Public Policy; Controversial Issues (Course Content); Values Education; Postmodernism; Expertise; Ethics; Political Attitudes; Decision Making; Discourse Modes; Access to Information

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The scholarship of interdisciplinarity provides a potentially powerful response to anti-intellectual and anti-democratic impulses. It recognizes that proof and disproof are generally impossible, and that scientists can be biased in their evaluation of the evidence. Yet it proposes a set of strategies for transcending scholarly disputes in order to achieve more comprehensive understandings. Interdisciplinary scholarship also guides individuals to understand the perspectives of those we disagree with, and suspect that there is some kernel of truth in widely-held beliefs. Interdisciplinarians can urge a reasoned skepticism of both expert advice and democratic processes. We can potentially integrate across differences in values. If we can educate students in interdisciplinary attitudes and strategies -- ideally in K-12 as well as in the university -- we can prepare future generations for constructive and respectful discourse. Much of this article will focus on what we should teach our students and how we might change the academy to do so. However, the literature on interdisciplinarity also suggests some important institutional changes in the wider world. Citizens' fora -- often recommended in the literature on transdisciplinarity -- would allow typical voters to evaluate the evidence relevant to particular public policy questions. The interdisciplinary literature asserts that one need not have disciplinary expertise to draw intelligently upon disciplinary insights, or to integrate across competing insights. Interdisciplinary online resources could attempt to synthesize competing points of view on contentious issues.

As Provided

2019

EJ1237434