Sustaining interdisciplinary education: developing boundary crossing governance

ABSTRACTInterdisciplinarity has become part of contemporary university discourses on knowledge in both research and curriculum. The move to break down traditional disciplinary boundaries reflects emerging forms of enquiry into knowledge that are less hegemonic and more distributed, and more tuned to its production, practices and the needs of its practitioners. A focus on complex problems that draws on multiple knowledge domains and an emphasis on professional knowledge have engendered a loosening of discipline boundaries in the development of curriculum and degree programmes. In this case study, we investigated teaching practices across discipline boundaries: how interdisciplinary curriculum and teaching are understood, practiced and supported within an Australian university that typifies a discipline-based organisational structure. Through interviews with relevant academics, managers and professionals, we explored the challenges and strategies in sustaining interdisciplinary curricula that were managed b...