Differential Convergence Education from Pluridisciplinarity to Transdisciplinarity

Five modalities of differential convergence that may be deployed in the context of any curriculum, including discipline-based curricula, are proposed in a systemic perspective. These are, in increasing order of cohesiveness and productivity, pluridisciplinarity, multidisciplinarity, interdisciplinarity, crossdisciplinarity, and transdisciplinarity, with the last two as ultimate modalities for secondary school and university respectively. Download Full Text

Differential Convergence Education from Pluridisciplinarity to Transdisciplinarity

Ibrahim Halloun

Abstract

Convergence, the process of bringing together traditionally distinct disciplines for creative and innovative purposes in various aspects of life, is nowadays a sweeping reality in the job market, professional R&D organizations, and new majors and departments at prominent universities around the globe. Educational institutions of all levels should follow suit, including K-12 general education. Differential convergence is hereby proposed with five modalities that can be accommodated in any educational system, like in any non-educational sector, including traditional discipline-based systems. Modalities distinguished in terms of specific theoretical and practical criteria are, in increasing order of cohesiveness and productivity, pluridisciplinarity, multidisciplinarity, interdisciplinarity, crossdisciplinarity, and transdisciplinarity. These modalities, like discipline-based curricula, become particularly efficient when designed and implemented under systemic theoretical/pedagogical frameworks that consider the physical world around us, as well as the conceptual realm of our thoughts and academic disciplines, to consist of well-defined systems. Convergence in education is thus hereby advocated as systemic differential convergence education, with crossdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity to be gradually attained in secondary and tertiary education respectively.

Keywords

Convergence, crossdisciplinarity, differential convergence, discipline-based education, emergence, framework, interdisciplinarity, multidisciplinarity, paradigm, pluridisciplinarity, systemism, transcendence, transdisciplinarity

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