Citizenship

The AAC&U/Global Perspectives Institute report commissioned by the Department of Education on "A Crucible Moment: College Learning and Democracy's Future" (October, 2011) focuses attention on education for citizenship, and suggests that answers should be sought under four headings: knowledge, skills, values, and collective action experiences.

With respect to knowledge, it is now widely recognized that the major public policy challenges of our day require an interdisciplinary approach. Our students will be better citizens if they know how to find, evaluate, and integrate information from diverse disciplines. We address these issues in many places. but especially Preparing Students for Lifelong Learning and Teaching Interdisciplinary Integration.

In addition to the key skill of integration itself, interdisciplinary education fosters several other important Skills.

With respect to values, citizenship depends first on Self-Actualization: We want our students to think for themselves rather than blindly follow others. Interdisciplinary education encourages other important Values, notably respect for differing opinions. Last but not least, the integrative techniques discussed under Teaching Interdisciplinary Integration can be applied to ethical conflicts also.

We address "collective action experiences" under Synergies with Community Service Learning and Integrating Coursework and Campus Life

All too often it seems that conflicts over public policy are un-resolvable: There are insoluble conflicts regarding both the goals of public policy and the means to achieve these [The Crucible Moment report recognizes this challenge in several places] Only by integrating across both divergent values and divergent understandings regarding the efficacy of particular policies can we achieve public policies that work and are seen to work by most citizens. It is noteworthy in this respect that scholars are often drawn to interdisciplinarity because of a desire to address public policy challenges.

William H. Newell, "Contributions of interdisciplinary studies to civic learning: An addendum to A Crucible Moment," Issues in Interdisciplinary Studies 31 (2013), 192-200, outlines how interdisciplinarity can serve the various goals outlined in the Crucible Moment report. [All past volumes of the journal are available at http://oakland.edu/ais/publications/]