International and interdisciplinary studies

International Studies programs have been in existence for quite some time, however with the world becoming more interdependent, their necessity is more important now than ever. The international education surge is possibly due to the fact that the 21st century requires vastly different skills from those of the past. Students entering the workforce are now confronted with the need for highly specialized skill sets that were once not necessary, but are now essential to stay competitive for jobs in the global economy. The purpose of this preliminary research is to gain a better understanding of the current level of student awareness regarding global perspective and whether pursuing international studies will prepare students to be more open to diverse attitudes than other majors at Texas State University-San Marcos. This research will use Robert G. Hanvey's, An Attainable Global Perspective, as the basis for what an international studies curriculum should include to foster student perspective change and willingness to understand global interdependence and its implications. This will be done by operationalizing Hanvey's article into a usable survey questionnaire. The questionnaire was created by taking each of Hanvey's five dimensions and breaking them down into measurable categories.

The results of the questionnaire show that both groups of students are often equal in their awareness of global perspectives. The questions that showed significant differences between the groups did favor the International Studies students as more cognizant of the topic discussed. However, this did not occur often enough to prove that International Studies premajors at Texas State University have a better grasp of global perspective than the other group of students.

Action COST A27 ‘Landmarks’ has been a successful attempt at establishing an effective transnational interdisciplinary project around the theme of landscapes. Running from 2004 to 2007, and coordinated from Madrid, A27 has proven extremely fruitful: 17 conferences and workshops, 13 edited publications. The best result, however, has been the establishment of working networks across fields and national borders.
In this chapter we revise the scientific environment in which this project was conceived and generated, as well as the internal organisation it adopted. Our intention, though, is not to congratulate ourselves for our good work. We want to go over the important challenges faced, how they were met, and what lessons can be learned for future collaborative European projects.
In order to achieve transnational and interdisciplinary integration, the internal structure of the project was organised around objectives and work packages which required side-by-side collaboration. Some problems, though, were encountered, particularly relating to the different degree of involvement of different partners, which tended to be self-defeating. Another problem is the lack of visibility of that research given the nature of COST publishing.
In conclusion, landscapes as a theme are a good way to push interdisciplinarity and transnationality forward in a field which is still being created and which requires these two to be in full swing.

Action COST A27 ‘Landmarks’ has been a successful attempt at establishing an effective transnational interdisciplinary project around the theme of landscapes. Running from 2004 to 2007, and coordinated from Madrid, A27 has proven extremely fruitful: 17 conferences and workshops, 13 edited publications. The best result, however, has been the establishment of working networks across fields and national borders. In this chapter we revise the scientific environment in which this project was conceived and generated, as well as the internal organisation it adopted. Our intention, though, is not to congratulate ourselves for our good work. We want to go over the important challenges faced, how they were met, and what lessons can be learned for future collaborative European projects. In order to achieve transnational and interdisciplinary integration, the internal structure of the project was organised around objectives and work packages which required side-by-side collaboration. Some probl...

Abstract

Communication is fundamental in scientific practice and an integral part of academic work. The practice of communication cannot be neglected by those who are trying to advance scientific research. Effective means should continuously be identified in order to open channels of communication within and among disciplines, among scientists and between scientists and the general public. The increasing importance of interdisciplinary communication has been pointed out by an increasing number of researchers and scholars, as well as in conferences and roundtables on the subject. Some authors even estimate that “interdisciplinary study represents the future of the university.”  Since interdisciplinary study is “the most underthought critical, pedagogical and institutional concept in modern academy”  it is important to think and reflect, and even do some research, on this concept or notion. Research and practice based reflections with regards to this issue are important especially because the increasing complexity and proliferation of scientific research is generating countless specialties, sub-specialties and sub-sub-specialties, with their respective special languages; which were “created for discrete local areas of research based upon the disconnected branches of science.”  On the other hand, scientific, technical and societal problems are requiring multi- or inter-disciplinary consideration. Consequently, interdisciplinary communication channels are being needed with urgency, and scientific research should be integrated, not just in the context of its discipline, but also in the context of related disciplines. Much more reflection and research should be done on this issue. Research on adequate research integration and communication is urgently required, i.e. meta-research efforts should be done in order to relate research results in an adequate and more useful way. This meta-research effort might be done in the context of each particular research, and/or in the more general context of research methodology or philosophy. The purpose of this initial draft is 1) to foster informal conversations and possibly formal research, and 2) to give a very modest first step in this general context, making some reflections on the subject, reviewing some related literature and providing a very initial framework for the generation of more reflections and research on this important subject. We will try to achieve this purpose by means of presenting the most important characteristics of inter-disciplinary communication and contrasting them with intra-disciplinary communication. This essay is a short version of a larger one which will be completed in the future. Consequently, we will present a scheme summarizing the characteristics and the contrasts identified in this version of the essay and those which details are being worked out for an expanded version of this essay to be released in the near future. Our purpose in this first short version is to give a modest step in the direction of exploring the importance and the ways of inter-disciplinary communication, in order to foster more similar steps by other researchers, scholars or practitioners. This is an evolving working essay, where the process of writing it is as much a part of the object as the object, itself.