Curricular
integration between diverse disciplines of humanities, natural, applied and
social sciences supplemented by multi-disciplinary approaches in research can
pave way for lasting resolution of a whole lot of problems and challenges faced
by the mankind
One of the most unpleasant
facts of our times is that we as academics have been strictly working within
our own tight compartments leaving little room for other streams even within
our own disciplines let alone fostering interdisciplinary approaches. Within the
domain of sciences there is very little plausible interaction and meaningful
collaboration between natural and material sciences, between natural and
applied sciences or between biological sciences and technology. It is only
after breaking these barriers of academic quarantines that we can think of
curricular integration across disciplines between sciences and social sciences,
sciences and humanities, sciences and behavioural sciences, sciences and
management studies, so on and so forth. There is need to ‘undiscipline’ our
knowledge and education and churn out ‘undisciplinarian’ graduates and
post-graduates from our colleges and universities since working strictly within
our own compartments and quarantines limits not only the contours of our
thinking, knowledge and imagination but also results into lack of appreciation
of the magnificence and splendour of other disciplines and streams of
knowledge.
We direly need
to decompartmentalize our education and start working across these artificially
created confines and quarantines whereas in essence knowledge is unified and knows
no boundaries. It is like a vast ocean that has no limits. That will however
become possible only when appropriate and sufficient curricular innovation and
upgradation allows the same. Our education has at present been fenced within
the constraints of curricular framework and is held tightly by the noose of our
evaluation and examination system. Any deviation from the prescribed curriculum
within a particular stream will tighten the noose of examination leading to
strangulation and failure of the learner. This noose needs to be loosened and
made more flexible allowing deviations from the set curricular framework in
order for any multidisciplinary approaches to take shape and bear fruit. Learning
outcomes have to be made broad-based incorporating interdisciplinary learning and
acquisition of knowledge.
Our research
activities in particular need to be liberated from the shackles of mono-disciplinary
restrictions paving way for greater autonomy of trans-disciplinary thinking and
investigation. Mode of investigation in research should to a reasonable extent
include induction through observation, deduction through experimentation as
well as innovation through intervention, to whichever extent possible. Problems
faced by the human kind, more often than not have manifold non-scientific dimensions
apart from the intrinsic scientific and technological facets. Therefore there
is need to explore and inquire into some if not all of these dimensions while
working on a scientific problem. Subsequently every compilation of a thesis
work whether in natural or material sciences, applied or engineering sciences
must shed some light upon the legal, socio-cultural, political, economic,
behavioural, ecological, environmental, demographic, ethnic or humanistic
impact and implications of the research work because unless some of these
implications of the research work are not outlined, the work cannot be said to
be complete and impactful in real sense of these terms, even though it might
eventually find space in some high impact journal.
Corona virus
outbreak has doubly emphasized upon the hard lesson of integration of academic
disciplines since this pandemic is not only fraught with disastrous implications
upon health and well-being of the human population but also has serious
repercussions on the economic, political, social, cultural, ethnic, humanistic
and geographical aspects of the human life. Consequently crisis unfolded by
COVID-19 needs multi-disciplinary approaches worldwide since scientists or
doctors alone cannot be of much help in overcoming the multi-dimensional deleterious
consequences of this pandemic. Therefore it is high time that we take some cues
from the measures taken to counter COVID crisis and integrate our academic
disciplines and curricula for the benefit of humanity. That alone can pave way
for proper management of such extreme and unprecedented crisis situations in
future since our young learners will be better equipped with encompassing and
comprehensive knowledge about all the disciplines required to manage such
conditions.
Disciplines like
humanities, sciences and social sciences are so intricately embedded and
interconnected that they can hardly be segregated when viewed holistically and
humanistically through the wider prism of global challenges. For instance while
scientists in different parts of the world are working overnight to develop a
vaccine for coronavirus infection and rid the humanity of this scourge, social
scientists are discussing ways and means by which it could be made accessible
and affordable to the entire seven and a half billion population of the world.
Unless basic, applied and social scientists work in tandem benefits of
scientific inquiry cannot be reaped by a vast majority of the human population.
Similarly unless multi-disciplinary experts sit across and work shoulder to
shoulder with doctors, engineers, natural and applied scientists, remedies to a
wide spectrum of implications of COVID-19 pandemic cannot be found for a quick return
to the pre-COVID era, moreso in the face of pronouncement made by the World
Health Organization officials that we may need to learn to live with
coronavirus firstly because this virus may become yet another endemic virus in
our communities and never go away just like HIV and secondly because it is hard
to know when a safe and effective treatment or vaccine will become available.
Effective
resolution of contemporary besetting problems like coronavirus pandemic calls
for an active engagement of a wide range of sciences that in turn largely
depends upon a sharp deviation from the general notion that the social science
bears an end-of-pipe role in relation to scientific and technological advancements.
While inventing a new gadget, machine or device engineers and scientists pay
little attention towards its social implications leaving it to the social
scientists to either resolve or ignore the same. Philip Lowe et al (2013) have
argued that the social scientists have over a period of time been forced into
an auxiliary role of supporting and interpreting developments in natural
science and technology. Such a belief also arises from the assumption about “the
underlying permanence of the natural world and the impermanence of the social
world that has put the social sciences on seemingly shakier foundations”.
However, twenty-first century concerns about the instability of the natural
world pose different epistemological assumptions, as a result of which they
have proposed that “there is need for a more upfront engagement of social
sciences in their relation to science and technology and the need to consider
the various potential roles that social scientists may play within
socio-technical innovations and inventions”. This will ultimately pave way for
a meaningful cross-disciplinary engagement of the social and natural sciences.
Nevertheless,
historically social science has not always been cast in such a subsidiary role
in relation to science and technology. The nineteenth century founders of
social science that included engineers, social reformers and philanthropists
saw it as an essential counterpart to natural science and engineering, helping
to steer the enormous technical possibilities they generated and to guide the
potential they unleashed for a substantial change. Being himself a Physicist,
Auguste Comte, who coined the terms sociology, positivism and altruism first
used the term social physics to describe sociology, reflecting his vision of
social science as the essential guide and counterpoint to the technical sciences.
The sociology of science involves the study of science as a social activity,
especially dealing with the social conditions and effects of science, and with
the social structures and processes of scientific activity. Comte is often
regarded as the first philosopher of science to have laid the foundations
for interdisciplinarity between sciences and social sciences. Harvey J. Graff, an eminent scholar in
Literacy Studies, Professor of English and History at the Ohio State University
is the author of a book titled, “Undisciplining
Knowledge: Interdisciplinarity in the Twentieth Century” in 2015 in which
he has described interdisciplinarity as the interrelationships among
distinct fields, disciplines, or branches of knowledge in pursuit of new
answers to pressing problems of the humanity.
Over the years a
common perception has developed both among scientists and social scientists
wherein they blame each other for not doing enough to relieve the human kind of
its problems arising out of fast changing lifestyles, materialism, consumerism,
globalization, automation, increasing social, communal and racial discord,
discontent within families and inefficiency of governments. All this is in
spite of the immense progress made on the healthcare front evolving effective
treatments to a large number of hitherto untreatable diseases like cancer,
AIDS, polio, smallpox, tuberculosis etc. Fact of the matter is that both of
them are partly responsible for most of the unresolved miseries and sufferings
of the mankind. Had they worked in tandem adopting interdisciplinary
approaches, life would surely have been much simpler with little discord and
discontent among families, races, castes and communities. Their style of
functioning within their own isolated compartments is largely responsible for
the simmering clashes in the utility of their research outcomes. A new
discipline of community sciences is gaining pace to build healthy, just and
equitable communities where social solidarity, social security and social
justice reigns supreme. Interdisciplinarity is not only required in teaching
and learning but also in research, extension, consultancy work. We need to
identify and explore the interface and common ground between multiple disciplines
and utilize them to resolve actual problems as well as potential challenges
faced by the mankind.
