Interdisciplinary scholars: negotiating legitimacy at the core and from the margins

Abstract

In response to the incessant calls for interdisciplinary scholarship, universities adopt initiatives and encourage faculty to collaborate across discipline lines. Yet, the literature shows that it is difficult to institutionalise such work as faculty members are heavily influenced by their discipline-bound training. When faculty do participate, they wonder how their work will be regarded. Thus, in this paper, we set out to investigate the experience of STEM faculty who conduct work in the area of K-20 education. We were particularly interested in exploring how these faculty, whom we refer to as boundary crossers, position themselves as scholars and their work as scholarship to their discipline-based peers. Our analysis shows that boundary crossers assume great personal responsibility as their university failed to make firm structural or policy-based reforms in support of this particular initiative. Personal responsibility manifests in three distinct ways: working overtime, unpacking one’s work, and framing one’s work as a public good. We argue that these responses are grounded in a larger sociocultural framework, and that they reinforce the marginal position of these scholars.