Chapter 2: Theoretical considerations and literature review
2.3 Academic disciplines
This section considers the nature of academic disciplines; in particular it develops the notion of disciplines as both social constructs and knowledge structures or, in Becher‟s (1989) well-known terms, as „tribes‟ and „territories‟. The literature on disciplinary influence on teaching and learning is also briefly reviewed.
Both the social and knowledge dimensions of disciplines are clearly represented in the definition put forward by Freebody et al, who view disciplines as “social fields of practice comprising both relatively formal structures of knowledge and practices, and actors who share interests and norms (whether explicit or tacit) of knowledge production and communication” (2008, p.191).
Similarly, White and Hitt assert that academic disciplines comprise “a separate and distinct culture; a culture that exerts influence on the scholarly behaviours of the discipline” as well as
“the structure of knowledge in which faculty members are trained and socialised; carry out tasks of teaching, research, and administration; and produce research and educational input” (2009, p.9). While in practice these two dimensions are inseparable, it is necessary to theoretically
EPISTEMOLOGICAL ACCESS (2.2) involves acquiring
the...
DISCIPLINE-SPECIFIC ACADEMIC LITERACIES (2.5.1)
that enable participation in the...
DISCOURSE (2.4.1) of an...
ACADEMIC DISCIPLINE (2.3; 2.6)
distinguish between knowledge communities and knowledge structures in order to explore the connections between them (Becher, 1989).
Territories: disciplines as knowledge structures
The formation of relatively insulated disciplines is linked to the enormous growth in knowledge during the nineteenth century (Moore & Young, 2001) and to the need for academic division of labour (Foucault, 1966). From this perspective, disciplines can be seen as organisational structures for knowledge. Going a step further, a discipline can be viewed as “knowledge organised for instruction”, with the goal of simplifying understanding (Brown, 1997, p.24). This last point is in fact quite ironic, given the tacit nature of many disciplinary teaching practices and norms, as will be outlined in Section 2.5.1.
Disciplines contain levels of abstraction (Brown, 1997), and are “both the product of and the enabling condition for higher knowledge” (Morrow, 2009, p.134). The distinctive feature of studies in the academy is that they are “based in highly systematised forms of enquiry not synonymous with the practices in everyday life that they must prepare people for, inform and challenge” (Moll, 2004, p.6). Although access to disciplinary knowledge is important for epistemic reasons, students are often only provided with access to content but not to systems of meaning in disciplinary knowledge (Wheelahan, 2006). An academic discipline is thus not the same as the objects it studies (Collier, 1994; Wheelahan, 2006; Brownlie, 2007). Parker agrees that a distinction must be made between „discipline‟ (academic profession, or community of practice24) and „subject‟ (the knowledge base which is taught), and sees a discipline as being a more complex structure than a subject – “to be engaged in a discipline is to shape, and be shaped by, the subject, to be part of a scholarly community, to engage with fellow students – to become
„disciplined‟” (2002, p.374).25 Kreber (2009b, p.4) also provides a useful distinction between
“what is looked at” (subjects) and “what is looked through or with” (disciplines). The knowledge base of the discipline of Marketing in general, as well as the Marketing curriculum at UKZN specifically, will be outlined in Chapter 4.
However, Moje states that disciplines “are not simply bodies of knowledge to be handed down from expert to novice” (2008, p.342, in Baldwin, 2010, p.47), which are fixed and unchanging.
Instead, disciplines are living bodies of knowledge (Brown, 1997), which are “contested in content and meaning over time” (Morrow, 2009, p.134) and which can accordingly be viewed as
24 After Lave & Wenger (1991).
25 This study of the „academic discipline of Marketing‟ will therefore focus on its manifestation in university practices, rather than on workplace or industry practices - although these latter practices may emerge as important in the construction of the Discourse of the academic discipline of Marketing.
epistemic and social constructs (Naude, 2003). For Wallerstein, a discipline is (in addition to a culture and an organisational structure for knowledge) a “claim to turf” (2011), encompassing intellectual claims about what subject matter is „ours‟ and where the boundaries between „us‟ and other disciplines lie.26 These issues will be explored further in Sections 2.6.2 and 2.6.3, drawing on the work of Bernstein and Maton respectively.
Tribes: disciplines as knowledge communities
For Becher (1989, 1994), a discipline is also an „academic tribe‟, a cultural phenomenon that is embodied in a group of like-minded people with their own values, codes of conduct (and distinctive intellectual tasks), with membership manifested in artefacts, idols and most importantly in the language or discourse of the discipline. Of significance is that a tribe‟s cultural aspects (“their traditions, customs and practices, transmitted knowledge, beliefs, morals and rules of conduct, as well as their linguistic and symbolic forms of communication and the meanings they share”) play an important role in defending its identities and turf, and in excluding outsiders (Becher, 1989, p.24). (This resonates with Gee‟s notion of Discourse, and the concept of discourse communities, which will be addressed in Section 2.4.1).
Being accepted as an insider to a discipline thus involves more than familiarity with its knowledge base; it also requires acquisition of the disciplinary values and „ways of being‟. Acceptance as insiders to an academic tribe is important not just for academics but also for students;
epistemological access involves being inducted into a discipline and taking on its characteristic ways of knowing and being (see Smit, 2010). And because the social and epistemological aspects of disciplines are in practice so tightly bound together, lecturers often interpret students‟
non-compliance with disciplinary social norms as cognitive deficit (Ylijoki, 2000).
Disciplinary typologies
A number of typologies of disciplines have been developed. These vary according to whether they focus on epistemological and/or social dimensions, as well as with regard to the methods used for collecting the data on which their development is based. Of these typologies, those developed by Biglan in 1973 (based on a questionnaire completed by academics) and Kolb in 1981 (based on students‟ learning style inventories) are often cited in the literature, although Biglan‟s is perhaps more frequently drawn on and has thus been very influential in subsequent work on disciplinary differences (see Becher, 1989; Hargens, 1996; Kreber, 2009a; White & Hitt, 2009). Focusing on the cognitive dimension, Biglan surveyed academics regarding similarities
26 This statement was made at a seminar entitled “Disciplines, who art ye? That all our swains adore ye?”
that was presented by Professor Immanuel Wallerstein of Yale University, at UKZN‟s Howard College campus on 24 June 2011.
and differences among 36 disciplines and identified three dimensions along which responses could be mapped (Becher, 1989, p.11):
hard versus soft – “the degree to which a paradigm exists” (with soft indicating the lack of a strong paradigm);
pure versus applied – “the degree of concern with application”;
life-system versus non-life system – whether they deal with biological or social areas, or inanimate objects.
Macfarlane (1995) describes Business/Management (which includes Marketing) as a „soft- applied‟ domain, although Marketing amalgamates knowledge from a variety of disciplines that may be classified as soft pure (e.g. Psychology, Sociology) and hard applied (e.g. Statistics). This drawing on a number of disciplines has implications for both identity formation in, and the status of, Marketing - compared to „pure‟ or „traditional‟ disciplines – as will be discussed in subsequent sections and chapters. Becher provides the following overview of the nature of knowledge and disciplinary culture in soft-applied fields: “Functional, utilitarian (know-how via soft knowledge), concerned with enhancement of [semi-] professional practice, resulting in protocols/procedures;
Outward-looking, uncertain in status, dominated by intellectual fashions, publication rates reduced by consultances [sic], power-oriented” (1994, p.154). Given the concern with enhancing professional practice, curricula and research in soft-applied fields are often influenced by practitioners (Becher, 1994). It has also been asserted that soft areas attach greater significance to “broad general knowledge”, “student character development” and “effective thinking skills such as critical thinking” (Neumann, 2001, p.138).
While Biglan‟s typology has been useful in stimulating further research into disciplinary differences, it has also been criticised for offering overly broad generalisations which ignore the changing nature of knowledge production (i.e. transdisciplinarity), for overlooking how lecturers and students themselves understand and interpret their disciplines, and for setting limits on what is seen to be possible in particular disciplines (Kreber, 2009b).
Influence of disciplines on teaching and learning
Becher (1994) expresses puzzlement at the lack of prominence of disciplines in educational research, given their significance as an organisational and social framework in higher education.
Since then, a fairly substantial body of literature has emerged exploring disciplinary differences in teaching and learning (for example Smeby, 1996; Ylijoki, 2000; Neumann et al, 2002; Pace &
Middendorf, 2004; Shulman, 2005a, 2005b; Lindblom-Ylanne et al, 2006; Kreber & Castleden, 2009; Kreber, 2009a).
This literature appears to bear out the claim that the variance between disciplines, in terms of their social and epistemological characteristics, gives rise to different curricula (Geirsdottir, 2008a, citing Bernstein, 2000) and teaching styles (Becher, 1994; Donald, 2009). Geirsdottir uses Bernstein‟s concepts of „classification‟ and „framing‟ to explore the pedagogic discourses of three disciplines (Engineering, Anthropology and Physics) within the same university, and finds the existence of a local pedagogic discourse of each discipline, created by recontextualising a universal pedagogic discourse in a local socio-cultural context (Geirsdottir, 2008b).27 Ylijoki explores four disciplines (Computer Science, Library Science and Informatics, Public Administration, and Sociology and Social Psychology) in one university, and finds that teaching and learning at university have “remarkably distinct meanings for students in different fields”
(2000, p.355). Unlike the studies of Geirsdottir (which focuses on lecturers only) and Ylijoki (which focuses on students only), the study on which this thesis is based includes both students and lecturers as participants.
The literature also indicates that some disciplinary cultures are not well documented because of the difficulty of separating them from the professional practice domains that surround them (Becher, 1989). Accordingly, Schmidt-Wilk (2010) raises the question of what might constitute
„signature pedagogy‟ (Shulman, 2005a, 2005b) in management disciplines (such as Marketing).28 Matthew and Pritchard assert that it is “how disciplines see themselves” that lead to signature pedagogies (2009, p.66), pointing to the importance of eliciting the views of students and lecturers in particular disciplines. However, Pace and Middendorf are of the opinion that this work is in its infancy and that “we have only begun to understand what thinking goes on in different disciplines” (2004, p.2). As noted in Chapter 1, Ferguson (2008) identifies Marketing as a discipline about which very little is known in this regard.
That there is not more of a focus on disciplines in educational research may partly be because much of the literature in this area is seen to be quite controversial, often putting forward unitary, unproblematic and deterministic conceptions of „discipline‟; however, while „discipline‟
encompasses shared practices and focus, it also encompasses great diversity (Trowler &
Wareham, 2008). This could perhaps be related to the existence of „sub-specialisms‟ within most disciplines (Becher, 1989), which may differ greatly in terms of their approaches and methods - and which may lead to contestations over what is accepted as legitimate in the discipline.
Accordingly, “‟discipline‟ brings with it tricky questions about access and boundaries…about who
27 See Section 2.6.2 for an overview of the concepts of „classification‟ and „framing‟.
28 Shulman (2005a, p.52) defines signature pedagogies as “the characteristic forms of teaching and learning” in particular fields, particularly those preparing students for professional practice.
can be said [to be] practicing the discipline” (Parker, 2002, p.374). It is crucial for such issues to be debated within disciplinary communities and a good starting point for such debates is for disciplinary communities to model their discipline‟s “essential pedagogic structure – the disciplinary processes and modes of communication that characterise it” (Parker, 2002, pp.382- 383). The theoretical tools and concepts necessary to be able to do this will be addressed in subsequent sections of this chapter.
To conclude this section on academic disciplines, however, it may be useful to highlight Becher &
Trowler‟s (2001) identification of a number of factors that are likely to impact on (the significance of) disciplinary cultures and knowledge, some of which will be picked up on again later in the thesis:
o the growing number and strength of external forces that exert influence on academic cultures (one example of which is performativity);
o declining academic autonomy;
o a more differentiated and permeable higher education system, in which research is not a significant aspect of the work of many academics;
o the influence of the post-structuralist focus on agency and discourse on the way knowledge is conceptualised (knowledge forms seen as socially constructed and interpreted);
o a focus on local meanings and practices, as opposed to general understandings of practices in particular disciplines.
The notion of disciplinary influence on pedagogy appears to be quite well supported in the literature. However, cautions have also been raised about a number of issues, including:
balancing specialised/disciplinary and generic/cross-cutting skills, knowledge and processes in curricula; the danger that signature pedagogies may work in an insular fashion to strengthen boundaries between disciplines and entrench accepted ways of doing things; the recognition that
„ways of thinking and practising‟ in disciplines evolve over time; and a concern that disciplinary structures may be seen to be the only influence in shaping pedagogy, whereas other factors may also play an important role in this regard (Kreber, 2009b). In particular, it has been asserted that specific „teaching and learning regimes‟ arise out of the intersection between disciplines and local (institutional and departmental) contexts/cultures (Trowler, 2009). Accordingly, this study explores Marketing both as a discipline in general, as well as in the specific context of UKZN.
Having unpacked the notion of an „academic discipline‟, I now move on to explore issues of meaning making in disciplines, drawing on perspectives and theories from NLS.