Comparative Education Bulletin - Faculty of Education - The ...

more than one discipline. … These organizations are not concerned,
as the disciplines are, to validate any one logically distinct form of
expression. They are not concerned with developing a particular
structuring of experience. They are held together simply by subject
matter , drawing on all forms of knowledge that can contribute to them.
[emphasis added]
Thus, the unifying epistemological element of an academic field
is its material object or phenomena of study, or its practical pursuit.
The approaches which a field uses to study that object are multiple
and are drawn from more than one discipline. Jantsch (1972) thus
distinguishes among the terms multidisciplinarity, pluridisciplinarity,
crossdisciplinarity, interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity. Of relevance
to Hirst’s definition of a field is the concept of interdisciplinarity,
which refers to the cooperation within a group of related disciplines
that pursue a common higher purpose. This higher purpose could be
synoptic or instrumental (Lynton, 1985, cited in Klein, 1990, p.41). A
synoptic justification for interdisciplinarity rests on arguments for
unity and synthesis in knowledge, on modern synthetic theories and
integrative concepts, and on the work of individual synthesizers, while
an instrumental justification arises from the need to solve problems
that may be either social or intellectual in origin, but usually practical.
Bailis (1986, cited in Klein, 1990, p.53) cautions that instrumental
interdisciplinarity divorced from philosophical contemplation
(synoptic quest for unity of knowledge) constitutes a threat to a
true interdisciplinarity that brings with it a broader understanding
of the world. These concepts of the field and interdisciplinarity are
particularly useful in examining the nature of comparative education,
which is often designated by scholars as an interdisciplinary field of
study.
In terms of their structural or sociological features, academic
fields and ‘interdisciplines’ are as difficult to delineate as are their
epistemological boundaries. According to Klein (1990), a field’s presence
and importance are largely determined by its relative visibility, which
may take at least two forms: (1) the ‘overt’ form of interdisciplinary
institutions (e.g. having a single umbrella organization or having
interdisciplinary graduate programs, or interdisciplinary think tanks);
(2) the commonly less overt forums for interdisciplinary dialogue
(e.g. study groups, symposia, conferences, publications, and institutes
similar or akin to an “invisible college” [Crane, 1972]), which refers
to a communication network of productive scientists linking separate
6 It seems that Hirst uses the term ‘subject matter’ differently from the sense which
Heckhausen gave to it as “the point of view from which a discipline looks upon the
material field or object”. In this context, Hirst seems to refer instead to the “material
field or object”.
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