An academic discipline or academic field is a subdivision

of knowledge that is taught and researched at the college or university

level. Disciplines are defined (in part), and recognized by
the academic journals in which research is published, and the learned
societies and academic departments or faculties within colleges and
universities to which their practitioners belong. It includes scientific
disciplines.
It incorporates expertise, people, projects, communities, challenges,
studies, inquiry, research areas, and facilities that are strongly
associated with a given scholastic subject area or college department.
For example, the branches of science are commonly referred to as the
scientific disciplines, e.g. physics, chemistry, and biology.
Individuals associated with academic disciplines are commonly
referred to as experts or specialists. Others, who may have
studied liberal arts or systems theory rather than concentrating in a
specific academic discipline, are classified as generalists.
While academic disciplines in and of themselves are more or less
focused practices, scholarly approaches such
as multidisciplinarity/interdisciplinarity, transdisciplinarity, and cross-
disciplinarity integrate aspects from multiple academic disciplines,
therefore addressing any problems that may arise from narrow
concentration within specialized fields of study. For example,
professionals may encounter trouble communicating across academic
disciplines because of differences in language, specified concepts or
methodology.
Some researchers believe that academic disciplines may, in the
future, be replaced by what is known as Mode 2[1] or "post-academic
science",[2] which involves the acquisition of cross-disciplinary
knowledge through collaboration of specialists from various academic
disciplines.

Contents

 1Terminology
 2History of the concept
 3Functions and criticism
 4Communities of academic disciplines
 5Interactions
o 5.1Multidisciplinary
o 5.2Transdisciplinary
o 5.3Cross-disciplinary
 6Bibliometric studies of disciplines
 7See also
 8References
 9Further reading
 10External links

Terminology[edit]
Also known as a field of study, field of inquiry, research
field and branch of knowledge. The different terms are used in
different countries and fields.

History of the concept[edit]

The University of Paris in 1231 consisted of
four faculties: Theology, Medicine, Canon Law and Arts.[3] Educational
institutions originally used the term "discipline" to catalog and archive
the new and expanding body of information produced by the scholarly
community. Disciplinary designations originated in German
universities during the beginning of the nineteenth century.
Most academic disciplines have their roots in the mid-to-late-
nineteenth century secularization of universities, when the
traditional curricula were supplemented with non-classical languages
and literatures, social sciences such as political
science, economics, sociology and public administration, and natural
science and technology disciplines such
as physics, chemistry, biology, and engineering.
In the early twentieth century, new academic disciplines such
as education and psychology were added. In the 1970s and 1980s,
there was an explosion of new academic disciplines focusing on
specific themes, such as media studies, women's studies,
and Africana studies. Many academic disciplines designed as
preparation for careers and professions, such as nursing, hospitality
management, and corrections, also emerged in the universities.
Finally, interdisciplinary scientific fields of study such
as biochemistry and geophysics gained prominence as their
contribution to knowledge became widely recognized. Some new
disciplines, such as public administration, can be found in more than
one disciplinary setting; some public administration programs are
associated with business schools (thus emphasizing the public
management aspect), while others are linked to the political science
field (emphasizing the policy analysis aspect).
As the twentieth century approached, these designations were
gradually adopted by other countries and became the accepted
conventional subjects. However, these designations differed between
various countries.[4] In the twentieth century, the natural science
disciplines included: physics, chemistry, biology, geology,
and astronomy. The social science disciplines
included: economics, politics, sociology, and psychology.
Prior to the twentieth century, categories were broad and general,
which was expected due to the lack of interest in science at the time.
With rare exceptions, practitioners of science tended to be amateurs
and were referred to as "natural historians" and "natural
philosophers"—labels that date back to Aristotle—instead of
"scientists".[5] Natural history referred to what we now call life sciences
and natural philosophy referred to the current physical sciences.
Prior to the twentieth century, few opportunities existed for science as
an occupation outside the educational system. Higher education
provided the institutional structure for scientific investigation, as well
as economic support for research and teaching. Soon, the volume of
scientific information rapidly increased and researchers realized the
importance of concentrating on smaller, narrower fields of scientific
activity. Because of this narrowing, scientific specializations emerged.
As these specializations developed, modern scientific disciplines in
universities also improved their sophistication. Eventually, academia's
identified disciplines became the foundations for schiolars of specific
specialized interests and expertise.[6]

Functions and criticism[edit]

An influential critique of the concept of academic disciplines came
from Michel Foucault in his 1975 book, Discipline and Punish.
Foucault asserts that academic disciplines originate from the same
social movements and mechanisms of control that established the
modern prison and penal system in eighteenth-century France, and
that this fact reveals essential aspects they continue to have in
common: "The disciplines characterize, classify, specialize; they
distribute along a scale, around a norm, hierarchize individuals in
relation to one another and, if necessary, disqualify and invalidate."
(Foucault, 1975/1979, p. 223)[7]

Communities of academic disciplines[edit]

Communities of academic disciplines can be found outside academia
within corporations, government agencies, and independent
organizations, where they take the form of associations of
professionals with common interests and specific knowledge. Such
communities include corporate think tanks, NASA, and IUPAC.
Communities such as these exist to benefit the organizations affiliated
with them by providing specialized new ideas, research, and findings.
Nations at various developmental stages will find need for different
academic disciplines during different times of growth. A newly
developing nation will likely prioritize government, political matters and
engineering over those of the humanities, arts and social sciences. On
the other hand, a well-developed nation may be capable of investing
more into the arts and social sciences. Communities of academic
disciplines would contribute at varying levels of importance during
different stages of development.

Interactions[edit]
These categories explain how the different academic disciplines
interact with one another.
Multidisciplinary[edit]
Main article: Multidisciplinary approach
Multidisciplinary knowledge is associated with more than one existing
academic discipline or profession.
A multidisciplinary community or project is made up of people from
different academic disciplines and professions. These people are
engaged in working together as equal stakeholders in addressing a
common challenge. A multidisciplinary person is one with degrees
from two or more academic disciplines. This one person can take the
place of two or more people in a multidisciplinary community. Over
time, multidisciplinary work does not typically lead to an increase or a
decrease in the number of academic disciplines. One key question is
how well the challenge can be decomposed into subparts, and then
addressed via the distributed knowledge in the community. The lack of
shared vocabulary between people and communication overhead can
sometimes be an issue in these communities and projects. If
challenges of a particular type need to be repeatedly addressed so
that each one can be properly decomposed, a multidisciplinary
community can be exceptionally efficient and effective.[citation needed]
There are many examples of a particular idea appearing in different
academic disciplines, all of which came about around the same time.
One example of this scenario is the shift from the approach of
focusing on sensory awareness of the whole, "an attention to the 'total
field'", a "sense of the whole pattern, of form and function as a unity",
an "integral idea of structure and configuration". This has happened in
art (in the form of cubism), physics, poetry, communication and
educational theory. According to Marshall McLuhan, this paradigm
shift was due to the passage from the era of mechanization, which
brought sequentiality, to the era of the instant speed of electricity,
which brought simultaneity.[8]
Multidisciplinary approaches also encourage people to help shape the
innovation of the future. The political dimensions of forming new
multidisciplinary partnerships to solve the so-called societal Grand
Challenges were presented in the Innovation Union and in the
European Framework Programme, the Horizon 2020 operational
overlay. Innovation across academic disciplines is considered the
pivotal foresight of the creation of new products, systems, and
processes for the benefit of all societies' growth and wellbeing.
Regional examples such as Biopeople and industry-academia
initiatives in translational medicine such as SHARE.ku.dk in Denmark
provides the evidence of the successful endeavour of multidisciplinary
innovation and facilitation of the paradigm shift.[citation needed]
Transdisciplinary[edit]
Main article: Transdisciplinarity
In practice, transdisciplinary can be thought of as the union of all
interdisciplinary efforts. While interdisciplinary teams may be creating
new knowledge that lies between several existing disciplines, a
transdisciplinary team is more holistic and seeks to relate all
disciplines into a coherent whole.
Cross-disciplinary[edit]
Cross-disciplinary knowledge is that which explains aspects of one
discipline in terms of another. Common examples of cross-disciplinary
approaches are studies of the physics of music or
the politics of literature.

Bibliometric studies of disciplines[edit]

Bibliometrics can be used to map several issues in relation to
disciplines, for example the flow of ideas within and among disciplines
(Lindholm-Romantschuk, 1998)[9] or the existence of specific national
traditions within disciplines.[10] Scholarly impact and influence of one
discipline on another may be understood by analyzing the flow of
citations.[11]
The Bibliometrics approach is described as straightforward because it
is based on simple counting. The method is also objective but the
quantitative method may not be compatible with a qualitative
assessment and therefore manipulated. The number of citations is
dependent on the number of persons working in the same domain
instead of inherent quality or published result’s originality[12].
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discipline_(academia)