Cultural Competence in Interdisciplinary Collaborations: A Method for Respecting Diversity in Research Partnerships

There is growing recognition of the need by funding agencies, universities, and research units for interdisciplinary research to tackle complex societal problems that cannot be adequately addressed by single disciplines alone. Interdisciplinary collaboration capitalizes on a diversity of perspectives and practices that each discipline offers in hopes of providing innovative solutions to multifaceted problems. However, for interdisciplinary work to be effective, members of the collaboration must recognize that cultural differences exist between and within disciplines. This paper conceptualizes disciplines as cultural groups and advocates for culturally competent practices to facilitate interdisciplinary research and practice. Specifically, each participant in interdisciplinary collaborations must value diversity, develop the capacity for self-assessment, work towards understanding one's own disciplinary culture, and be sensitive to the dynamics inherent when cultures interact. Additionally, members of any interdisciplinary endeavor must be cognizant of power dynamics at play and avoid such things as tokenism, informal hierarchies, and disciplinary policing. Through awareness of one's own disciplinary culture and sensitivity to others, interdisciplinary research and practice may provide creative solutions to important problems.     

Community Psychology at the Crossroads: Prospects for Interdisciplinary Research

Effective engagement in interdisciplinary work is critical if community psychology is to achieve its promise as a field of ecological inquiry and social action. The purpose of this paper and special issue is to help make the benefits of interdisciplinary community research clearer and to identify and begin to address its challenges. Although some areas of psychology (e.g., biological, cognitive and health) have made substantial interdisciplinary strides in recent decades, progress in community psychology (and related areas) is more modest. In this article we explore the prospects for expanding and improving interdisciplinary community research. Challenges include designs, measures, and analytical frameworks that integrate multiple levels of analysis from individuals through families, organizations, and communities to policy jurisdictions, and the complexities involved in simultaneously bringing together multiple disciplinary collaborators and community partners. Challenges to interdisciplinary collaboration common to all disciplines include the disciplinary nature of academic culture and reward structures, limited funding for interdisciplinary work and uncertainties related to professional identity and marketability. Overcoming these challenges requires a synergy among facilitative factors at the levels of the interdisciplinary project team (e.g., the framing question; embedded relationships; leadership), the investigators (e.g., commitment to new learning; time to invest), and the external context (e.g., physical, administrative, economic and intellectual resources and support for interdisciplinary work). We conclude by identifying several exemplars of effective interdisciplinary collaborations and concrete steps our field can take to enhance our development as a vibrant community-based, multilevel discipline increasingly devoted to interdisciplinary inquiry and action.     

Preparing to Understand and Use Science in the Real World: Interdisciplinary Study Concentrations at the Technical University of Darmstadt

In order to raise awareness of the ambiguous nature of scientific-technological progress, and of the challenging problems it raises, problems which are not easily addressed by courses in a single discipline and cannot be projected onto disciplinary curricula, Technical University of Darmstadt has established three interdisciplinary study concentrations: “Technology and International Development”, “Environmental Sciences”, and “Sustainable Shaping of Technology and Science”. These three programmes seek to overcome the limitations of strictly disciplinary research and teaching by developing an integrated, problem-oriented approach. For example, one course considers fundamental nuclear dilemmas and uses role-playing techniques to address a controversy in the area of nuclear security. At the same time, incorporating interdisciplinary teaching into a university that is organized around mono- or multi-disciplinary faculties also poses a number of challenges. Recognition in disciplinary curricula, and appropriate organizational support and funding are examples of those challenges. It is expected that science and engineering students, empowered by such interdisciplinary study programmes, will be better prepared to act responsibly with regard to scientific and technological challenges.     

Understanding Interdisciplinary Collaborations as Social Networks

The dynamics of interdisciplinary collaboration invite further investigation if we are to make this endeavour more rewarding and productive. We are using social network analysis to track the development of a new interdisciplinary collaboration on complex interventions to improve population health. It involves nineteen scholars across four countries. We report the Baseline network of formal relationships among the scholars, along with the impact of the collaboration on these relationships in the first 18 months. We observed statistically significant increases in the density of six types of relationship networks: citing publications by other members of the collaboration, email contact, meeting with each other (outside of the formal annual meeting), visiting one another's institution, submitting research grants together and working on research projects together. The initial strategic role in the network of key 'gate keepers' has not altered substantially (betweenness centralization of the networks), but reciprocity has increased, that is, people are more likely to cite those who have cited them and work together. Increased collaboration is also reflected in the rise in number of subgroups over time and the increase in the average number of subgroup memberships. Use of social network analysis to understand the dynamics of interdisciplinary collaborations is a relatively new field. It invites reflection about what the optimal network structures for interdisciplinary collaborations would look like.     

Juggling Through Hoops: Implementing Ethics Policies in Applied Language Studies

This article reports on a collective effort to position ethics policies within the context of a specific discipline – Applied Language Studies (ALS). Through a discussion of challenges to ALS-specific pedagogical and research practices, this article highlights (1) the need for consistency across institutional Research Ethics Boards in the application of general principles of ethics review, and (2) the recognition of local considerations that are informed by disciplinary approaches not envisioned in current ethics policies. Ethics policies that are driven by substantive ethical intent will recognize pedagogical practices, research methodologies, and epistemological values and traditions that mark a discipline.     

Interdisciplinary Knowledge Translation: Lessons Learned from a Mental Health: Fire Service Collaboration

Collaborative approaches are being increasingly advocated for addressing a variety of health, mental health and social needs for children, youth and families. Factors important for effective knowledge translation of collaborative approaches of service delivery across disciplines, however, have not been rigorously examined. TAPP-C: The Arson Prevention Program for Children is an intervention program for child and adolescent firesetters provided collaboratively by fire service and mental health professionals. The present study examined the adopter, innovation, and dissemination characteristics associated with TAPP-C implementation, protocol adherence and extent of collaboration by 241 community-based fire service professionals from communities across Ontario. Results revealed that dissemination factors are particularly important for understanding program implementation, adherence and cross-discipline collaboration. Moreover, the findings of this study show significant benefits to both within discipline (intra-disciplinary) and across discipline (interdisciplinary) knowledge translation strategies.     

Advancing Psychology as a Bio-behavioral Science

Concerns for the integrity of psychology as an independent discipline have caused some psychologists to object to introducing any knowledge from the biological sciences into the training of psychologists. However, calls for the greater incorporation of the behavioral sciences in medical education, increased attention to research on the mechanisms of bio-behavioral interaction, and initiatives in translational medical research and clinical care, have prompted increased interest in interdisciplinary research, health care, and teaching. These changes, in turn, are resulting in a re-conceptualization of the structure of academic medicine with increasing emphasis upon multidisciplinary knowledge and interdisciplinary collaboration, and less emphasis upon disciplinary insularity and competitiveness. If clinical health psychology is to play a role in this evolving concept of academic health care, it must adequately prepare its trainees to function in interdisciplinary academic health care settings. This will require not only expertise in the role of behavioral factors relevant to medical disorders, but also some basic familiarity with the biological processes to which those behavioral factors relate. With the evolution of its fund of knowledge, clinical health psychology has the potential to utilize its science to discover, describe, interpret, teach and clinically apply knowledge of the mechanisms of interaction between biological functions and behavioral, learning, cognitive, socio-cultural and environmental processes. By failing to seize this initiative, clinical health psychology risks becoming irrelevant to the evolving model of medical research, education and health care. Presented, in part, to the Association of Psychologists in Academic Health Centers, Minneapolis, MN, May 2007.     

Standards of Scientific Conduct: Disciplinary Differences

Teaching of responsible conduct of research is largely predicated on the assumption that there are accepted standards of conduct that can be taught. However there is little evidence of consensus in the scientific community about such standards, at least for the practices of authorship, collaboration, and data management. To assess whether such differences in standards are based on disciplinary differences, a survey, described previously, addressing standards, practices, and perceptions about teaching and learning was distributed in November 2010 to US faculty from 50 graduate programs for the biomedical disciplines of microbiology, neuroscience, nursing, and psychology. Despite evidence of statistically significant differences across the four disciplines, actual differences were quite small. Stricter measures of effect size indicated practically significant disciplinary differences for fewer than 10 % of the questions. This suggests that the variation in individual standards of practice within each discipline is at least as great as variation due to differences among disciplines. Therefore, the need for discipline-specific training may not be as important as sometimes thought.     

Interdisciplinary research: a philosophy, art form, artifact or antidote?

Interdisciplinary research has many faces--a philosophy, an art form, an artifact, and an antidote. It is all of these things because interdisciplinary research attempts to ask questions in ways that cut across disciplinary boundaries. This is not politically correct and universities especially find it difficult to manage interdisciplinarians and their projects. The author argues that interdisciplinary research has persisted as an alternative when traditional research approaches have failed to come up with answers to common problems. Interdisciplinary research will continue to survive as long as there are creative, risk-taking scientists who are dissatisfied with the political and organizational boundaries we establish around disciplines which limit our ability to learn about their commonalities.     

A classification scheme for discipline: type, mode of administration, context

This paper reviews research related to parental disciplinary practices and presents a classification scheme discipline that separates discipline into the type and the mode of administration used. Previous research has not kept important constructs related to discipline distinct and has ignored some types of discipline, as well as the mode of administration. The classification scheme presented is meant to try to foster conceptual clarity, to advocate for attention to important aspects of disciplinary practices in future research, and to lay the groundwork for development of additional measurement tools — particularly for survey design research.     

A vicious or auspicious cycle: The reciprocal relation between harsh parental discipline and children’s self-regulation

Children’s ability to exercise self-regulation is a key predictor of academic, behavioural, and life outcomes, but the developmental dynamics of children’s self-regulation are not adequately understood. We investigated how children’s self-regulation skills and harsh parental discipline reciprocally predict each other across 12,474 children at ages three, five, and seven in the U.K. (Millennium Cohort Study). Cross-lagged structural equation models indicated that high initial levels of harsh parental discipline predicted lower subsequent self-regulation, which then reciprocally predicted higher levels of harsh parental discipline. Conversely, high initial levels of child self-regulation predicted lower subsequent harsh parental discipline. Implications for policy and interventions are discussed.     

Interdisciplinary research: A philosophy, art form, artifact or antidote?

Interdisciplinary research has many faces—a philosophy, an art form, an artifact, and an antidote. It is all of these things because interdisciplinary research attempts to ask questions in ways that cut across disciplinary boundaries. This is not politically correct and universities especially find it difficult to manage interdisciplinarians and their projects. The author argues that interdisciplinary research has persisted as an alternative when traditional research approaches have failed to come up with answers to common problems. Interdisciplinary research will continue to survive as long as there are creative, risk-taking scientists who are dissatisfied with the political and organizational boundaries we establish around disciplines which limit our ability to learn about their commonalities. Scientific research is not itself a science; it is still an art or craft. W. H. George (1938)     

The influence of school environment and self-regulation on transitions between stages of cigarette smoking: a multilevel analysis.

In this research, hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) was used to address how school context influences the likelihood of transitioning between stages of cigarette smoking as well as modifies the individual-level risk factor of self-regulation. Survey data were collected from 25,186 middle and high school students attending 38 public schools in Kentucky. Results show that students are less likely to increase use in schools with higher levels of teacher discipline and faculty involvement. The analyses of the multi-level interactions between self-regulation and school context reveal that students possessing low emotional regulation are more likely to initiate experimental smoking in schools with poor levels of discipline and involvement than similar types of students in schools with higher levels of these characteristics. This study illustrates how psychological risk factors for substance use may vary across social environments.     

Epistemic dependence in interdisciplinary groups

In interdisciplinary research scientists have to share and integrate knowledge between people and across disciplinary boundaries. An important issue for philosophy of science is to understand how scientists who work in these kinds of environments exchange knowledge and develop new concepts and theories across diverging fields. There is a substantial literature within social epistemology that discusses the social aspects of scientific knowledge, but so far few attempts have been made to apply these resources to the analysis of interdisciplinary science. Further, much of the existing work either ignores the issue of differences in background knowledge, or it focuses explicitly on conflicting background knowledge. In this paper we provide an analysis of the interplay between epistemic dependence between individual experts with different areas of expertise. We analyze the cooperative activity they engage in when participating in interdisciplinary research in a group, and we compare our findings with those of other studies in interdisciplinary research.     

婴幼儿自我调节的发展机制

婴幼儿自我调节的概念结构与发展机制至今无统一定论。本文作者在回顾关于婴幼儿自我调节的文献时发现该领域出现过两次不同研究取向的整合：第一次整合是包含气质-行为领域的整合以及纳入生理调节与情绪调节的整合, 第二次整合是行为-气质研究与认知领域研究的整合。本文总结两次研究取向的整合后提出了以生理-情绪-注意调节为基础、认知-气质-行为调节为核心的新的婴幼儿自我调节发展模型, 为该领域的研究方向提供了理论基础。     

After Babel: Teaching psychoanalysis on a former battlefield – experiences in an international research network

Abstract

This article describes a psychoanalyst's personal experience in an international and interdisciplinary social trauma research network. Crises and conflicts are understood as an integral feature of such a collaboration. Using the self-reflective capacity of the psychoanalyst may help to turn them into a new perspective. Crossing disciplinary borders, reconnecting to the field of academic research, might prove to be a rather rewarding step.     

National ethnic and racial disparities in disciplinary practices: A contextual analysis in American secondary schools

Previous research has documented ethnic/racial disparities in the implementation of school discipline, including exclusionary practices. The current study focused on ethnic/racial disparities in four types of school exclusionary policies through the Civil Rights Data Collection (2013–2014) based on 15,901 middle and 18,303 high schools from the United States. Consistent with an ecological model of multi-contextual influences, school- and region-level characteristics were tested in a multi-level analytic model. Sex, disability status, and ethnicity/race were estimated at level 1, with the following school-level predictors at level 2: proportion of youth eligible for free or reduced lunch, school size, diversity (percentage of students of different ethnicities/races in school), urban/suburban/rural locale, and region (Northeast, Midwest, South, and West). Findings provided robust evidence of persistent discrepancies in disciplinary practices across ethnic/racial groups. Specifically, African American students and students self-identifying as two or more races were found to be at greater risk for school discipline actions across all disciplinary measures in both middle and high schools. Regarding school-level variables, students from lower SES schools and smaller schools were at greater risk for some disciplinary measures. Unexpected findings were found for regional differences, as Midwestern schools had significantly higher rates for most disciplinary measures as compared to Southern schools. Moreover, ethnic/racial discrepancies were moderated by school-level characteristics, such that African American students and students self-identifying with two or more races were more likely to be disciplined at low SES schools and at schools with greater diversity.     

Integrating Social Science and Design Inquiry Through Interdisciplinary Design Charrettes: An Approach to Participatory Community Problem Solving

Interdisciplinary collaborations that aim to facilitate meaningful community outcomes require both the right mix of disciplinary knowledge and effective community participation, which together can deepen collective knowledge and the capacity to take action. This article explores three interdisciplinary design charrettes, intensive participatory workshops that addressed specific community problems and provided a context for integrating design and social science inquiry with local community knowledge. Evaluation data from the charrettes shed light on how students from the design and social science disciplines experienced the charrettes, and on their interactions with community members. Key advantages to this interdisciplinary, community-based collaboration included expanded knowledge derived from the use of multiple modes of inquiry, particularly the resulting visualization tools that helped community members understand local issues and envision novel solutions. Key drawbacks included difficulties in balancing the two disciplines, the tendency for social scientists to feel out of place on designers' turf, and the increased disciplinary and interpersonal conflicts arising from a more diverse pool of participants.     

The intelligent career framework as a basis for interdisciplinary inquiry

This paper examines how separate behavioral science disciplines can be brought together to more fully understand the dynamics of contemporary careers. We adopt one interdisciplinary framework – that of the “intelligent career” – and use it to examine how separate disciplinary approaches relate to one another. The intelligent career framework suggests careers unfold through three interdependent “ways of knowing” reflecting why, how and with whom people work. Breaking this framework down into six unidirectional links, we examine the contributions made by a variety of behavioral science approaches. Our review suggests that separate bodies of career-relevant theory reflect separate links from one way of knowing to another. We offer several lessons concerned with (a) the intelligent career framework; (b) evidence underlying separate theories; (c) differing definitions of career; (d) research methodologies; (e) time; and (f) interdependence among variables. We conclude with some ideas on how to better promote future interdisciplinary careers research.     

Themes and schemes: A philosophical approach to interdisciplinary science teaching

An interdisciplinary fusion between the philosophy of science and the teaching of science can help to eradicate the disciplinary rigidity entrenched in both. In this paper I approach the history of sciencethematically, identifying general themes which transcend the boundaries of individual disciplines. Such conceptual themes can be used as a basis for an interdisciplinary introduction to university science, encouraging certain important cognitive skills not exercised during the disciplinary training emphasised in traditional approaches. Courses which teach themes such as conservation, randomness, and holism/reductionism have already proved successful, and these innovations should encourage philosophers and historians to explore the exciting new possibilities which arise from stepping outside the confines of a single discipline.