The language used in education shapes policy, practice, and perceptions. Edge’s latest series asks, ‘What’s in a word?’ and scrutinises the impact of the terminology we commonly employ.
In everyday educational talk the terms ‘subjects’ and ‘disciplines’ are often used interchangeably. While this is fine on an everyday basis, beneath these terms lies an important distinction between knowledge-acquiring and knowledge-transmitting activities. It’s important for teachers and curriculum designers to be aware of this distinction. ‘Subjects’ refers to the bodies of knowledge, know-how and acquaintance that are taught in schools and colleges: mathematics, physics, geography, music etc and the practices of teaching and learning that sustain them. Subjects have a content that is tailored to the needs of learners, so that they are gradually drawn in to subject knowledge of greater depth and complexity, starting from complete novices and ascending all the way to the threshold of expertise. ‘Disciplines’ by contrast are knowledge acquiring activities in different fields of human endeavour. They have evolved historically as human knowledge has grown in scope and become ever more specialised. Disciplines include mathematics, physics, geography, music etc. So what is the difference between a discipline and a practice and why is the distinction an important one for educators?
To answer this question, it’s best to start with the disciplines. Those who practice a discipline like physics are involved in expanding, validating and refining human knowledge of the ways in which the physical world operates. They are working at the frontiers of knowledge. Without disciplines it would be difficult for us to enlarge our knowledge or to revise our views on what we know and what we don’t know. To be a disciplinary practitioner is to be an expert in one’s discipline working at its highest level, albeit in some specialism of the discipline. However, to become an expert requires years of study and practice, beginning with formal schooling, if not before. All disciplinary practitioners have got to where they are by learning at primary school, then at secondary school and in the vast majority of cases going on to advanced study at university. At school they are introduced to and study subjects. Like their fellow learners they began as novices.
Most learners will not go on to become experts in a discipline but if their education has been successful they will have some appreciation of how the discipline that they study within a school subject works. By studying physics they will become acquainted with central physical concepts like mass, energy, inertia etc. They will learn about scientific methods of inquiry and gain some sense of what is involved in conducting and learning from an experiment. They will use mathematical formulae as tools for understanding physical relationships, so their study of mathematics as a school subject will be necessary for them to progress in physics. A small minority of those who study physics will go on to university and then on to doctoral and postdoctoral study and then, if they are lucky, they will be employed in universities and research institutes to further advance knowledge of physics. They will have advanced far beyond the study of the subject of physics that they encountered at school or even in their first degree at university, but if they had not studied that subject it is unlikely that they would eventually have become physicists.
Sometimes there is a straightforward relationship between school subjects and disciplines. Physics and mathematics are good examples. The subjects use a selection of the knowledge embodied in the corresponding discipline and organise it into a form that can be learned by novices and non-experts. But, more often than not, there is no straightforward correspondence between subject and discipline. The school subjects of social studies or business studies are good examples. These subjects organise material from different disciplines such as sociology or psychology and combine more than one set of reorganised disciplinary knowledge into a subject with a view to developing understanding or to enable practice in, for example, the business world or management. So there is very often only a small correspondence between school subjects and their associated disciplines.
What then is the importance of the distinction between subjects and disciplines? The subjects and their practitioners have two roles, both very important. Without the subjects the disciplines will wither and die. Even though most subject learners will not become disciplinary experts the subjects must be taught in such a way that some learners will eventually become disciplinary practitioners. But they cannot be taught solely for future disciplinary practitioners because our society requires that the population attain at least certain minimal level of disciplinary understanding, whether or not this is endorsed with a qualification Without some literacy and numeracy it is difficult to function in employment. In order to learn the technical demands of a job or occupation, such basic disciplinary understanding is unavoidable. One can view a skilled occupation as a kind of discipline, but invariably it is one which requires basic disciplinary understanding, achieved initially through pursuing relevant subjects at school.
Furthermore, disciplines advance in knowledge and understanding and this advance will need at some stage to be reflected in the relevant school subjects, so curriculum designers and teachers will need to take account of this or the school subject will become out of date and irrelevant. It is a great challenge for educators to get the balance right between developing general disciplinary understanding on the one hand and a springboard for future experts on the other.
Chris Winch is Professor of Educational Philosophy and Policy at Kings College London. Chris has recently published on the distinction between subjects and disciplines, which you can read here.
Next time… Parity of Esteem by Ann-Marie Bathmaker