The theme of this year's conference is Education as Interdisciplinary.

Anyone in education has a working approach to—and understanding of—education and their role as an educator. This might be something we can explicitly formulate into a teaching philosophy statement or it might be something more inchoate. Not to mention, conversations with those holding profoundly different perspectives on education often spark new ideas, challenging us to develop our own thinking in unexpected ways. How exactly interdisciplinarity should be understood is, arguably, an open question, but, broadly speaking, it involves efforts to transcend normalized boundaries within education in some way. The intention of this conference is to offer a space to think critically about pressing questions to do with the interrelated concepts of interdisciplinarity and education. These questions might include: what is the purpose of education, how can educational aims best be achieved, what counts as knowledge, what counts as teaching, where do the boundaries of individual academic disciplines (as well as the academic/non-academic distinction) serve as a barrier or limitation, and how can these boundaries be addressed.

We each are coming to these questions from our unique positioning within one or more specific disciplines—e.g. philosophy, math, visual arts, etc.—and interests in education such as curriculum, pedagogy, or educational policy. This conference is intended as an opportunity to critically examine our own background assumptions and benefit from other perspectives and approaches. We will focus on thinking critically about foundational questions on the nature of education and the value of transcending disciplinary boundaries and/or questioning disciplinary-specific assumptions. At the same time, this is also a space to look beyond the boundaries of academic disciplines and see where knowledge gathering and sharing is taking place more generally.

This year’s GSCOPE welcomes graduate students to submit work related to or on fundamental yet crucial philosophical questions of what education is. Submissions from all disciplines and creative modalities are welcome, and the presentation of the material is open and flexible beyond traditional academic delivery.