Disciplinary Unity Research Articles

On the quest for disciplinary unity and the virtues of open concepts

One key strategy for unifying the discipline of psychology is to develop a meta-theoretical framework through the advancement of core concepts.  Rather than having these be strictly defined from the outset, this commentary argues for the utility of open-ended concepts for scientific advancement. This is illustrated with a brief historical review and current status of Prägnanz, assimiliation-accommodation, schema, liminality and mediation, which also show the difficulties on finding core concepts for psychology as a whole. Open-ended concepts may be useful here in that they can help to bring together converging lines of research from different approaches within psychology. Finally, a case is made for mediationas a core concept that is currently converging with notions of extended and distributed cognition. 

Navigating together without a map: Metaphors for making Geography’s future

This article sets the scene for the 10 papers comprising the special issue ‘‘Geographical research for the 21stcentury: trajectories and possibilities’. It asks the hoary question, ‘by what means, and to what ends, should Geography be directed?’. It does not, however, venture a substantive response because there is no single answer that will suffice. Instead, the article offers resources for those seeking to respond to this question. It identifies 12 parameters that define the ‘operating space’ that most geographers worldwide now have to act within, like it or not. These parameters not only impose constraints but also offer opportunities. The article then focuses on metaphors that might help us better understand who we are as a research and teaching community: after all, metaphors can distil the essence of our ongoing preoccupations. I venture a ‘new ecological’ metaphor that might enable accuracy and hope in our self-understanding as we enter the third decade of an already extraordinary century. It may seem paradoxical to say, but we can navigate forward purposefully without a map, avoiding the polar opposites of an infeasible disciplinary unity and an undesirable Balkanisation of our activities.

Российское религиоведение в цифровую эпоху

The article is devoted to the analysis and assessment of the modern state of Rus­sian religious studies as a research field, scientific discipline and educational program of higher education in the context of digital transformations of culture and society. The ways of reaction of the religious studies community to the re­thinking of the principles of rationality and the production of scientific knowl­edge are described. The issues of the autonomy of religious studies in relation to other socio-humanitarian disciplines are discussed, it is stated that in the Russian context, it is possible to talk about disciplinary unity only in the educational sphere. The features of the current educational standards in religious studies are considered, the change in the number of budget places, including, in comparison with the direction of “Theology”, a significant reduction in the number of gradu­ating universities is recorded. The problems of professional orientations of reli­gious scholars and the expansion of career trajectories are discussed. Promising areas of religious studies are outlined: cognitive approaches, an appeal to envi­ronmental and bioethical problems. The authors justified the relevance of the de­velopment of the field of mediology of religion as a religious studies analysis of the processes of mediatization of religious ideas and practices in a changing me­dia sphere.

Building bridges between Europe and China to strengthen social work field education: preliminary findings from Guangdong Province

ABSTRACT Social work education has extended globally and has developed in China at an unprecedented speed. Serious attention must be paid to how the global spread of social work education interacts with developments in China. This study describes and assesses an international collaboration in field education between six European and Chinese universities using multiple data sources in Guangdong Province. Trust, disciplinary unity and local participation in the collaboration generated good practices in developing Chinese field education, including linking and preparing universities and agencies from developed and less developed areas, implementing a well-defined learning process with a competence-based perspective and training supervisors through training the trainers. Moreover, positive outcomes of this project were identified, including high satisfaction by both students and supervisors and increasing levels of supervisors’ self-efficacy and students’ competencies. In future, international collaboration should focus more on the issue of indigenisation.

Fragmented Memory in a Global Age: The Place of Storytelling in Modern Language Curricula

The article presents a hypothesis that seeks to explain the present difficulties of modern languages as playing out the consequences of the demise of philology and the rise of linguistics in its place. While the founding gesture of the latter as a distinct discipline was to exclude cultural and social considerations, the former is an account of the cultural memory of the language. With the demise of philology, modern languages have lost their disciplinary unity, and hence the principle upon which to construct coherent curricula. As a result, they have lost their intellectual authority. The article proposes a revisionist analysis of the philological tradition, divesting it of its essentialist assumptions, and focusing on its methodological principles. It argues that memory (and with it, the emerging field of memory studies) be adopted as a central term in an account of culture fitted to the teaching of modern languages to foreign learners in a world in which memories, just as much as languages, are what we do not predictably share. It makes some suggestions as to how to shape curricula on these principles, insisting that in order to make good on our belief that culture informs language, those curricula should focus selectively and systematically on the discursive arts. Storytelling, from personal to collective, from explicit to implied in political debate, should take a central place in our students' learning; as a result, ‘story listening’ should be central in their intercultural encounters.

Dictionaries, disciplines and the future of geography

This essay contributes to the discussions initiated by Setten [ Setten, 2008. Encyclopaedic vision: speculating on The Dictionary of Human Geography. Geoforum 39 (3), 1097–1104], about The Dictionary of Human Geography. Rather than focusing on the identity and relative exclusiveness of the contributors, I emphasize how successive editions of the Dictionary have helped reshape the discipline in two ways. First, the proliferation of texts, like the Dictionary, aimed squarely at a student market has gone hand in hand with a variety of changes to the political economy of publishing in geography. Second, human geography has increasingly come to be defined in terms of its concepts and theories. The paper ends by considering the implications of these changes for disciplinary unity and the future of geography given the increasing prominence of both of integrated environmental science and of GIS.

The Return of the Phoenix: The 1963 International Congress of Zoology and American Zoologists in the Twentieth Century

This paper examines the International Congress of Zoology held in Washington D.C. in 1963 as a portrait of American zoologists' search for effective and rewarding relationships with both each other and the public. Organizers of the congress envisioned the congress as a last ditch effort to unify the disparate subdisciplines of zoology, overcome the barriers of specialization, and ward off the heady claims of more reductionist biologists. The problems zoologists faced as they worked to fulfill these ambitious goals illuminate some of the challenges faced by members of the naturalist tradition as they worked to establish disciplinary unity while seeking public support in the competitive world of twentieth century science.

When Writing Professors Teach Literature: Shaping Questions, Finding Answers, Effecting Change

The article explores writing-centered pedagogies that deepen student learning in literature survey courses. More broadly, the article also responds to Richard Fulkerson and Maureen Daly Goggin, who challenge professors of English studies to find disciplinary unity within the diverse epistemologies of rhetoric.

The Psychology of Psychology

Rhetorical calls for disciplinary unity and vision currently lack any grounding in historically informed analysis of Psychology's character and functions, while the historians of Psychology providing the material for such an analysis continue to remain marginalized. A framework for considering the issue is outlined in terms of a circuit reflexively linking the discipline ('Psychology') and its subject matter ('psychology'). This focuses on the psychologist role, the `inputs' from which Psychological ideas ultimately derive, and the disciplinary `outputs', which in turn affect psychology itself. Thus viewed, the prospects for disciplinary unity appear necessarily faint. The importance of history of Psychology, however, is clarified and reinforced. (The distinction between `Psychology'/ `Psychological' to refer to the discipline and `psychology'/'psychological' to refer to its subject matter is sustained throughout this paper.)

ANOMIE, SOLIDARITY, AND CONFLICT: French Sociology and the Limits of Dialogue

What explains the splintering of the sociological imagination? Why do so many rival schools contend for influence? Is there a chance for consensus? Donald N. Levine seeks to answer these questions in his intriguing recent study of the sociological tradition. He contends that sociology has been divided from the start along national lines, yet continues to progress towards harmony thanks to the “dialogical” commitments of the various national traditions. I argue that Levine misjudges the character and depth of past and present rifts, and that he overestimates the likelihood of future disciplinary unity.

Anomie, Solidarity, and Conflict: French Sociology and the Limits of Dialogue

What explains the splintering of the sociological imagination? Why do so many rival schools contend for influence? Is there a chance for consensus? Donald N. Levine seeks to answer these questions in his intriguing recent study of the sociological tradition. He contends that sociology has been divided from the start along national lines, yet continues to progress towards harmony thanks to the “dialogical” commitments of the various national traditions. I argue that Levine misjudges the character and depth of past and present rifts, and that he overestimates the likelihood of future disciplinary unity.

A critical history of CPA's various code of ethics for psychologists (1939–1986).

Abstract Codes of ethics are historical products of the process; the form and content of codes of ethics develop within the specific historical context of the of the occupational group for which they are written. During the 1950s and 1960s, the CPA's decisions regarding adoption of a code of ethics were centred on two major needs; namely, to secure a market niche for 'psychologists' as this was defined by CPA and to sustain this image as the basis for continuing funding for related psychological research. Different historical factors resulted in the decision by CPA, in the 1970s, to produce a made-in-Canada code of ethics. These were a) the need of CPA to produce a document of professional self-regulation that recognized problems faced by psychological practitioners employed within various organizational structures, and (b) organizational problems of the CPA related to disciplinary unity and achievement of a national leadership role. The results of this historical analysis confirm the importance of codes of professional ethics as strategies of as hypothesized by Johanne Louw in 1990.A Critical Approach To Writing A History Of Codes Of EthicsProfessional groups typically view their codes of ethics primarily as regulatory devices to protect the public from incompetent and unethical practices by certified members of the profession. However, some authors in philosophy, psychology, sociology and history (e.g., Bucher and Strauss, 1961; Danziger, 1990; Elliot, 1972; Freidson, 1986; Gyamarti, 1975; Hamnett, Porter, Singh, and Kumner, 1967; Harries-Jenkins, 1970; Johnson, 1972; Kultgen, 1988; Larson, 1977; Louw, 1990; MacIver, 1955; MacNiven, 1982; Marshall, 1965; Schuler, 1982; Van Strien, 1976) suggest that production of a code of ethics plays a central role in the of an occupational group and in the development of politically powerful associations of professionals. Critically viewed, they primarily have been productions that advanced the of self-interested participants.The term professionalization process has received many different theoretical treatments in the above literature, only some of which employ a critical historical perspective. A historical perspective does not take at face value the explanations of the participants in the as historical explanations for their productions; rather, it looks to the specific sociocultural, political, and economic conditions as causal contexts for the development of professional practices and products (Danziger, 1990; Van Strien, 1985).Unlike a historical approach, functionalist histories of employ an historiography in which the story of the development of characteristics of professions (e.g. accrediting agencies, codes of ethics) is told from the perspective of their assumed social utility. Functionalist histories assume that the relationship between the professions and society is essentially one of a rationally organized mutual dependency; the development of a profession's defining characteristics is often taken for granted as one which naturally results from this dependency. The primary function of codes of ethics, for example, is often viewed in a manner compatible with that presented by the professions themselves (e.g., protection of the public from charlatans).These approaches are uncritical historically in the sense that they do not take into account such questions as why and how such dependencies emerged, why they took a particular form within and without the emerging profession, or what role was played by various players and social forces in the definition of such dependencies. The move toward historiographies of the began with these kinds of questions being raised by sociologists (Freidson, 1984, 1986; Gyamarti, 1975; Haskell, 1984; Johnson, 1972; Kultgen, 1988; Larson, 1977). …

Oral Sources and Contemporary History: Dispelling Old Assumptions

Over the past decade or so, debates about the merits of contemporary history and oral history have given way to controversies surrounding what one critic was tempted to term the history.1 Yet if writing about contemporary topics and using oral interviews as sources are no longer new practices, both are still treated with probationary restraint. Historians have accommodated in varying measure to such changes as the loss of historical objectivity as an ideal, the fragmentation of disciplinary unity, and the proliferation of subspecialities. But we still tend to believe in the superiority of chronologically distant, document-driven history, preferring our sources, like our wine, properly aged and stored. Our craft is best practiced, according to the traditionalists among us, when we stay off the streets, out of legislative corridors, and away from the tape recorder. Both territory and tool belong to journalists until contemporary passions cool and events can be seen in proper perspective. I share the preference for a well-stocked manuscript room with its ease of access and aura of quiet detachment. My experience, however, is that contemporary topics, even those embedded in intense controversy, and the research techniques that contemporaneity makes possible pose far fewer problems of perspective, sources, and evidence than is generally assumed. The issues faced in securing and analyzing evidence are remarkably similar to those encountered in working on more distant topics with more traditional methods. What is different is the way such research highlights the problematics of evidence and the complexity of historical construction. Indeed, both are inescapable -and having to confront that inescapability is itself a significant benefit that I neither anticipated when I began my foray into contemporary history nor fully appreciated until some years later. I hope to clarify the

Discourse as language and politics: An introduction to the philology of political culture in Australia

Despite a number of different attempts to identify a mutual body of ‘research interests’, ‘methods’, ‘materials’ and ‘levels of analysis’ by Van Dijk (1985) and others (e.g., Brown and Yule (1983) Stubbs (1983) Coulthard (1985)) what counts as discourse analysis remains problematic. This is complicated by a further consideration of the broader distinction between these and other Anglo-American approaches and continental European approaches to discourse (Lecourt (1975) Macdonell (1986)) a distinction which has a number of interesting parallels with that between the two forms of semiotics associated with the two sides of the Atlantic. In the Anglo-American tradition there have been urgent attempts to search out a sub-disciplinary identity and unity for discourse analysis, its “common core” (Stalpers (1988: 88)). Foundational figures have been recognised; key moments in the history of the sub-discipline have been named; texts have been selected for the canon. Yet, on this side of things, questions about whether and how a “new (sub)discipline” has “come into existence” (Stalpers (1988: 87)) about “disciplinary maturity” ~ like many efforts in other disciplines to explicate a common core of theory, object and method ~ begin from particular unproblematicised assumptions about discourse and its analysis. Moreover, these assumptions quite often include the idea that discourse analysis should ‘naturally’ exist in some particularly close relation to linguistics, as though the latter itself were not fraught with rifts as to its proper object and method (Stalpers (I 988: 88-89)). Methodological reflection on discourse analysis, in such cases, is in danger of becoming nothing more or less than a subset of methodological reflection on linguistics. Along with the contributors to the present volume, we see severe problems with such an attempt to establish disciplinary unity and singularity in the field. Our purpose