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The scholarship of interdisciplinarity provides a potentially powerful response to anti-intellectual and anti-democratic impulses. It recognizes that proof and disproof are generally impossible, and that scientists can be biased in their evaluation of the evidence. Yet it proposes a set of strategies for transcending scholarly disputes in order to achieve more comprehensive understandings. Interdisciplinary scholarship also guides individuals to understand the perspectives of those we disagree with, and suspect that there is some kernel of truth in widely-held beliefs. Interdisciplinarians can urge a reasoned skepticism of both expert advice and democratic processes. We can potentially integrate across differences in values. If we can educate students in interdisciplinary attitudes and strategies -- ideally in K-12 as well as in the university -- we can prepare future generations for constructive and respectful discourse. Much of this article will focus on what we should teach our students and how we might change the academy to do so. However, the literature on interdisciplinarity also suggests some important institutional changes in the wider world. Citizens' fora -- often recommended in the literature on transdisciplinarity -- would allow typical voters to evaluate the evidence relevant to particular public policy questions. The interdisciplinary literature asserts that one need not have disciplinary expertise to draw intelligently upon disciplinary insights, or to integrate across competing insights. Interdisciplinary online resources could attempt to synthesize competing points of view on contentious issues.

With recent increased interest in and efforts to reform and revitalize general education curricula to make an educational experience more vital and germane, many institutions have become interested in incorporating interdisciplinary learning opportunities, or even in creating fully interdisciplinary programs. In order to address the growing need for interdisciplinary curricula work, the authors, as representatives of the Association for Interdisciplinary Studies (AIS), facilitated a workshop on Interdisciplinary General Education at the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) conference on General Education in February 2017. The purpose of the workshop was to describe how to employ interdisciplinary thinking into programs and courses. The overall lesson was to communicate that interdisciplinary thinking and practice should not only be widely employed within General Education, but also that it is quite feasible for instructors who are not immersed in the literature on interdisciplinarity, would be able to develop and teach interdisciplinary courses and curricula. In addition, attendees were introduce to resources available for interdisciplinary curriculum design on the AIS website. This article summarizes the events of the workshop and the concluding thoughts from the authors.

This article argues that cross-disciplinary linkages -- that is, relationships among phenomena studied by those in different disciplines -- often serve to destabilize, at least temporarily, systems of stability that are theorized to operate within the sets of phenomena studied within most disciplines. It surveys across disciplines both systems of stability and mechanisms of instability, and derives several implications for interdisciplinary and disciplinary research practice. In particular it argues that systems of stability deserve to be included within conceptions of disciplinary perspective. It speculates on how a general connection between stability and instability might be explored. The article thus informs our understanding both of what interdisciplinarity is and how it is best performed.

An extensional definition of interdisciplinarity--that is, a definition that identifies the types of practices that are interdisciplinary--is explained, advocated, and developed. The criteria for identifying appropriate interdisciplinary practices are outlined. Such a definition is useful both for interdisciplinary teachers and researchers who reflect on the nature of interdisciplinary practice, and for students and administrators who wish to better appreciate what interdisciplinarity involves. Critically, it facilitates identification of where along a continuum from interdisciplinarity to disciplinarity a particular field, course, or project lies. Some scholars or fields might then decide, and--importantly--know how, to become more interdisciplinary. Such a definition is arguably necessary, though hardly sufficient, in our efforts to advocate for better administrative treatment of interdisciplinarity.

Our understanding of the process of interdisciplinary research has expanded considerably over the last decades. The purpose of this brief paper is to take stock of where we are and where we are going. The first section addresses definitional issues and discusses the relationship between teaching and research. The second section discusses potential objections to the idea of identifying best practices for interdisciplinary research. The third section outlines best practices for each step in the interdisciplinary research process, and identifies avenues for further research.

This article addresses the interrelated questions of why it is important to teach students about the nature of interdisciplinarity and how this material might be best communicated to students. It is important to define for students what is meant by disciplines and interdisciplinarity. Having distinguished interdisciplinarity from the disciplinary approach, the advantages and disadvantages of each can be discussed. It is useful to discuss the history of both disciplines and interdisciplinarity. It is also useful to discuss the complex relationship between interdisciplinarity and other intellectual currents: postmodernism, unity of science, complexity analysis, feminism, and others. Critically, students should be guided as to how interdisciplinary research might be best performed. Some potential objections to teaching interdisciplinary research practice are addressed.