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The Challenges of Interdisciplinarity in Graduate Graduation
The Challenges of Interdisciplinarity in Graduate Graduation
Agronômica.
Received: 20 Aug 2022, Abstract— This article aims to raise discussions about interdisciplinarity,
Received in revised form: 13 Sep 2022, particularly in teacher education, in order to present a critical view of the
need to develop interdisciplinary actions present in theoretical references
Accepted: 18 Sep 2022,
and in official normative documents consulted that dialogue with the topic
Available online: 29 Sep 2022 today. Through a bibliographic review, the importance of interdisciplinary
©2022 The Author(s). Published by AI training for teachers was brought to light, with the aim of deepening the
Publication. This is an open access article different types of knowledge in higher education, more specifically in
under the CC BY license postgraduate courses in public universities, based on the assumption that
(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). interdisciplinarity is a concept under construction. The analytical
Keywords— Interdisciplinarity, traditionality, approach of the information collected was qualitative and content analysis
content integration, postgraduate studies. was used to interpret the speeches.
Palavras – Chave— Interdisciplinaridade, Resumo— O presente artigo tem como objetivo levantar discussões sobre
tradicionalidade, integração de conteúdos, a interdisciplinaridade, particularmente na formação docente, de modo a
pós-graduação. apresentar uma visão crítica sobre a necessidade de desenvolver ações
Mots-clés— Interdisciplinarité, traditionalité, interdisciplinares presentes nos referenciais teóricos e nos documentos
intégration de contenu , études supérieures. oficiais normativos consultados que dialogam com o tema na atualidade.
Por meio de revisão bibliográfica, foi trazida para reflexão a importância
da formação interdisciplinar para os docentes, com o intuito de
aprofundar os diferentes tipos de conhecimento no ensino superior, mais
especificamente nos cursos de pós-graduação nas universidades públicas,
partindo do pressuposto de que interdisciplinaridade é um conceito em
construção. A abordagem analítica das informações coletadas foi
qualitativa e utilizou-se a análise de conteúdo para interpretação dos
discursos.
Resumée— Cet article vise à susciter des débats sur l'interdisciplinarité,
notamment dans la formation des enseignants, afin de présenter un regard
• particular domain of knowledge; teaching subject; various disciplines or heterogeneous sectors of the same
• set of rules imposed on the members of a collectivity to science leads to real interactions, to a certain reciprocity in
ensure the proper exchange, leading to mutual enrichment”. The
interdisciplinary approach seeks original concepts,
functioning of the social organization; obedience to these
methods and theoretical structures through the
rules and
agglutination of concepts, methods and theoretical
• rule of conduct that the individual imposes. structures from different disciplines (ROGERS and
For Maheu (2000:2-3), discipline – from an RIZZO, 2006).
epistemological point of view – means: The interdisciplinary approach, therefore,
“Structured domain depends on the theoretical-methodological progress of
of knowledge that each of the sciences involved and on the preparation of
has its own object professionals in the domain of their area of expertise.
of study, a Without this, there is a risk of the superficiality of the
conceptual scheme, approach, without reflection and without the due
a specialized contribution to the formulation of new concepts and new
vocabulary, and knowledge. Since the 1990s of the last century, Santos
also a set of (1995:38) has already pointed out that, in Education,
postulates, interdisciplinarity should be seen “as a cooperative form of
concepts, particular work to replace individualistic procedures”, since the
phenomena, integration of knowledge between the different areas
methods and laws. responds to the demand of today's society, which requires
A specific set of – from students of higher education and postgraduate
knowledge that has courses – the search for knowledge that goes against a
its own fragmented knowledge, employed by separate disciplines.
characteristics in For the Paulo Freire Institute (2005), the
terms of teaching, methodology of an interdisciplinary work implies: “1st -
formulation, content integration; 2nd - move from a fragmentary
methods and conception to a unitary conception of knowledge; 3rd -
subjects” overcoming the dichotomy between teaching and research,
(LEGENDRE apud considering study and research, based on the contribution
MAHEU, 2000, p. of different sciences; 4th - teaching-learning centered on a
2-3). vision that we learn throughout our lives.”
Interdisciplinarity takes a step forward in the It is the search for universal knowledge, which
process, producing knowledge through theoretical and is not divided into several fields, as Fazenda (2005: 26)
methodological exchanges, generating new concepts and rightly states. With the same understanding, Nicolescu
methodologies, with the objective of understanding (2005:18) states that if there is interdisciplinarity, there is a
complex phenomena, “being, therefore, the convergence of transfer of methods from one discipline to another, and this
two or more areas of knowledge, not belonging to the same occurs in the following degrees:
class, that contribute to advancing the frontiers of science
Degree of application: the methods of nuclear
and technology [...]” (CAPES, 2017:1).
physics are transferred to medicine and this leads to the
In the same direction, Araújo (2014); emergence of new treatments for cancer, through nuclear
Nisenbaum; Pinheiro (2016), define interdisciplinarity as medicine;
“dialogical doing”, where concepts from other areas are re-
Transdisciplinarity, on the other hand, is concerned with
signified and dialogues allow the construction of
what is between disciplines, across different disciplines,
knowledge, which can be both individual, when the
and beyond all disciplines. Its goal is to find the unity of
researcher works in different areas, and collective, when
knowledge, within a total system, without any boundary
researchers from different areas of knowledge develop
between disciplines (NICOLESCU, 2005:8). According to
studies and research in collaboration to provide answers to
this author, transdisciplinarity is fueled by disciplinary
society's problems.
research and its pillars are:
The term interdisciplinarity should be used to
A. The multiple levels of reality;
designate “the level at which the interaction between
B. Middle logic included and know almost everything about almost nothing. Breaking
C. Complexity, which determine the methodology of with the traditionalism of higher education in Brazil is not
transdisciplinary an easy task, as it implies understanding, as stated by
Freire (2007: 47), that “teaching is not transferring
research.
knowledge, but creating possibilities for its production or
It is a form of self-transformation that allows the construction”, which requires an interdisciplinary behavior
creation of a new art of living in society (NICOLESCU, and the connection of knowledge.
2005:9).
The academic world is the world of disciplines,
As Santos (1995) explains in the where the process of division and stratification in the
Interdisciplinary Letter: scientific field is expressed by two worldviews: scientific
knowledge and common sense knowledge, with
widespread inferiority to popular knowledge, generated by
“(...)
non-schooled traditional populations. This dichotomous
transdisciplinarity
view is a mistake, since interdisciplinary knowledge must
brings out, from the
be a communication between knowledge and knowledge,
confrontation of
not a way of neutralizing all the meanings of other
disciplines, new
disciplines. An interdisciplinary attitude will lead the
data that articulate
specialist to know the limitations of his discipline and
them among
welcome other disciplines, in an attempt to replace
themselves and that
fragmented knowledge with more global knowledge. This
give us a new
gives validity to the knowledge of common sense, because
vision of nature and
it is through everyday life that we give meaning to our
reality.
lives (FAZENDA:1996:38).
Transdisciplinarity
does not seek the It is also clear that universities have shown
domination of themselves to be fragile in the treatment of
several disciplines, interdisciplinarity, as they treat it in a fragmented and non-
but the opening of comprehensive way, which ends up resulting in a waste of
all disciplines to financial resources directed to the theme and energy of
what crosses and researchers dedicated to this cause, since they do not able
surpasses them.” to accomplish what they could or should (RHOTEN,
2004).
The worrying point of this fragmentation is the lack of
II. THE CHALLENGES OF
integration of the content of the various curricular
INTERDISCIPLINARY EDUCATION IN
components, in addition to the disarticulation of the
HIGHER EDUCATION
academic environment with the social environment, where
If in the 20th century the specialization and the student will be inserted as a market professional and
fragmentation of knowledge was the keynote in the the holistic vision to solve socioeconomic issues
academy, in this 21st century there is no room for the (SEVERINO, 2008).
continuity of such a procedure and the trend that presents
For Santos (2005: 28), in this model of
itself is the application of interdisciplinarity in the
rationality, knowledge advances through the specialization
teaching-learning processes. Interdisciplinarity, not just as
and disciplining of scientific knowledge, which makes the
a combination of two or more disciplines to better
scientist a “specialized ignorant”, causing negative effects,
understand or address a particular issue or problem, but as
since knowledge must seek universal totality, without
an approach that allows the emergence of new points of
isolate the place. From this perspective, it is necessary to
view that go beyond the limits of the disciplines
appropriate several fields of knowledge to answer
themselves (AUGSBURG, 2016; REPKO, 2008).
questions that cannot be answered by a single form of
The search for knowledge in the wake of time knowledge, and interdisciplinarity is capable of breaking
has produced successive fragmentations, and this with this fragmentation.
dismemberment of science and knowledge has generated a
In the view of Fazenda, one of the most
distance from totality, without respect for human
respected theorists on the subject (1994:22), “university
indivisibility, resulting in researchers and scholars who
education should demand an interdisciplinary attitude that
would be characterized by respect for teaching organized The situation worsens when the same professor
by disciplines and by a review of the existing relationships develops the same subject for different courses, for which
between disciplines and between disciplines. the problems he has no specific training and the question that arises is:
of society”, where interdisciplinarity would not only be a how to make the didactic transposition of scientific
panacea to ensure the evolution of universities, but a point knowledge to the academic and from this to the
of view capable of exercising an in-depth, critical and professional, when does he not know the field for which he
healthy reflection on the functioning of the university allegedly forms? (ISAIA, 2006:77).
institution, allowing the consolidation of self-criticism, the A ready answer to this question does not exist,
development of research and innovation. (FAZENDA, however, if the anxieties and difficulties in the training and
1994:22). monitoring of professors at the university were in fact
Within this vision, the author states that resolved, the interdisciplinary experience in different
interdisciplinarity is not a category of knowledge, but an courses could be of fundamental value for the
action that develops from the disciplines themselves, improvement of their teaching. It is also important to
making it evident that it is impossible to reach the consider, as Santos (2004:76) states, the ecology of
propositions listed by her without dealing with the training knowledge, which consists of the production of dialogues
of educators, considering that the great most teachers come between scientific knowledge produced by the university
from a disciplinary background (1994:23). and popular, urban and rural knowledge that exist in
In Gaudêncio Frigotto's analysis (1995:26), society.
interdisciplinarity is imposed by the very way in which If such an understanding is valid for the
“man produces himself as a social being and as a subject academy, it is also very relevant for the pattern of
and object of social knowledge”. It is based on the economy of this century, where modern high-tech
dialectical character of social reality, guided by the corporations no longer consider Taylorism-Fordism as the
principle of contradiction, by which reality can be only production model to solve their management
perceived, at the same time, as one and diverse. Something problems. On the contrary, they are seeking in society,
that requires us to delimit the objects of study by together with the consumers of their products, how to act
demarcating their fields, without, however, fragmenting more effectively, understanding that their organizations are
them. It means that, although the problem to be studied is part of a systemic and multidimensional whole, where
delimited, we cannot abandon the determined multiplicity everyone depends on each other, influencing and being
and the historical mediations that constitute it. influenced by them, which is why which higher education
For interdisciplinary learning to occur, teachers institutions should use interdisciplinarity in the training of
and students need to identify, incorporate and value their students (CEZARINO et al, 2019). It allows solving
different perspectives and recreate their own knowledge, problems and answering questions that cannot be
understanding and practices on a given topic from the satisfactorily answered by unique approaches or methods
learning acquired with each other, establishing a sense of (ASHBY; EXTER, 2019).
community to build a final product. (BRADBEER, 1999). Interdisciplinarity in management education is
On the relationship between interdisciplinarity a social system that requires the development of complex
and higher education, Isaía (2006:68) points out the thinking. Therefore, students should be introduced to a
challenges of teaching, which are increasingly complex, in critical and systemic way of thinking, avoiding approaches
the sense of interpellation between the areas of knowledge, based on a single discipline (ASHBY; EXTER, 2019).
which impose on the teacher the need for constant Authors such as Nascimento; Feather-See; Silveira (2008),
updating and require, above all, interest and motivation on since 2008, already argued that higher education in
your part, with didactics being the flagship. universities should be inserted not only in the
interdisciplinary discourse, but also in the transdisciplinary
However, upon entering higher education, many teachers
one, facing the demands that demand transformations in
without training for teaching assume full responsibility for
society. However, building an interdisciplinary team
the subjects from the beginning, without the support of
requires effort and dedication, as well as a period of
more experienced colleagues, nor with institutional spaces
personal adaptability (JACOB, 2015:32).
aimed at learning to be a teacher, developing many
sometimes a feeling of pedagogical loneliness, due to As Jacob (2015:33) rightly states:
helplessness and unpreparedness, not technical, but (...) disciplinary
pedagogical. approaches are
considered islands
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