Evaluación de Riesgos / Posibles problemas

The model of academic disciplines most widely drawn on in linguistics studies of the subject is that developed by Tony Becher (Becher 1981, Becher 1987a, Becher 1987b, Becher 1989, Becher 1994; Becher and Trowler 2001, Newmann, Parry & Becher, 2002). This model has recently been explicated most fully in Becher and Trowler (2001). Becher and Trowler’s (2001) model of disciplinary groupings and disciplinary knowledge provides a useful starting point for investigating the concept of academic discipline. Becher and Trowler (2001, pp. 31-35) criticize the lack of capacity for subtlety of distinction between areas of knowledge afforded by the earlier ‘uni-dimensional’ nature of models used to describe the sciences developed by Pantin (1968, cited in Becher and Trowler, 2001) who saw a division between ‘restricted’ and ‘unrestricted’ fields and Kuhn (1962, cited in Becher and Trowler, 2001) who differentiated paradigmatic from pre-paradigmatic fields. They argue the need for an examination of the disciplines that goes beyond the sciences. They also argue that, in terms of the humanities and social sciences, disciplinary areas that

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would be defined by Kuhn’s model as ‘pre-paradigmatic’ are not as he would argue on a path of evolution to ‘mature paradigmatic status’, but are in fact disciplines in which dissension and pluralism are natural. In this sense one defining feature of a discipline is the extent to which it is inherently prone to consensus or plurality (p. 33).

Becher and Trowler offer a new scheme which synthesises models developed by Biglan (1973, cited in Becher and Trowler, 2001) and Kolb (1981, cited in Becher and Trowler, 2001, pp34-35) both of whom take a perspective of knowledge drawn from research into how those engaged in the activity of a particular arena of knowledge perceive the arena they are engaging with (p. 34), the former drawing on data based on questionnaires conducted with academics, the latter on data regarding the learning styles of students (pp. 34-35). This scheme divides academic knowledge into four broad categories of hard pure, soft pure, hard applied and soft applied fields (p. 36) (as seen in Figure 1.) and in a ‘broad-brushed’ way delineates the ‘epistemological features’ of each category in terms of ‘characteristics of the objects of enquiry; the nature of knowledge growth; the relationship between the researcher and knowledge; enquiry procedures; extent of truth claims and criteria for making them [and] the results of research’ (pp. 35-36).

23 Disciplinary grouping Nature of knowledge

Pure sciences (e.g. physics); ‘hard-pure’

Cumulative (crystalline/tree-like); atomistic, concerned with universals, quantities, simplification; impersonal; value-free; clear criteria for knowledge verification and obsolescence; consensus over significant questions to address, now and then in the future; results in discovery/explanation

Humanities (e.g. history) and pure social sciences (e.g. anthropology): ‘soft-pure’

Reiterative; holistic (organic/river-like); concerned with particulars, qualities, complication; personal; value-laden; dispute over criteria for knowledge verification and obsolescence; lack of consensus over significant questions to address; results in

understanding/interpretation

Technologies (e.g. mechanical engineering, clinical medicine): ‘hard- applied’

Purposive; pragmatic (know-how via hard knowledge); concerned with mastery of physical environment; applies heuristic approaches; uses both qualitative and quantitative approaches; criteria for judgement are purposive, functional; results in products/techniques

Applied social science (e.g. education, law, social administration): ‘soft- applied’

Functional; utilitarian (know-how via soft knowledge); concerned with enhancement of [semi-] professional practice; uses case studies and case law to a large extent; results in protocols/procedures

Figure 1: Knowledge and disciplinary grouping in Becher and Trowler (2001, p. 36)

Becher and Trowler point out a number of limitations to their framework of the disciplines. They acknowledge that it entails a ‘realist’ that disciplinary knowledge reflects ‘a discernible and stable reality’ as opposed to ‘phenomenological’ view of disciplines as ‘essentially socially constructed’ (p. 37). Although questioning the relativism of the phenomenological view they do not deny that social factors and contexts, particularly power relations, are important in the shaping of epistemology and argue that in fact social processes mediate knowledge structures (ibid.); as a result of this reasoning they recognise the need to acknowledge not only disciplinary knowledge but also narrative ‘stories’ regarding disciplinary epistemology (p. 38). They highlight two further caveats in terms of their framework, the first being that the fact the nature of knowledge is continually

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evolving means it is difficult to argue that any attempts to classify it can be enduring or permanent, and the second being that the categories and boundaries between these in the framework oversimplify a reality that is in fact much more ambiguous (pp. 37-39). They conclude, nonetheless, that ‘[t]he Kolb-Biglan framework … can provide a workmanlike set of categories and a useful basic terminology for exploring knowledge in all its variety … and … particularity’ (p. 39).

Further to these caveats, they argue that the nature of a discipline is by no means straightforward. The concept has the capacity for uncertainties in its application. These uncertainties can include such matters as when a knowledge area is sufficiently separated from its original disciplinary source to become a discipline in its own right, as in the case of statistics separating from maths, or whether a new disciplinary area, such as for example black studies, is seen as valid (p. 41). Criteria that can be interpreted as evidence to support the existence of a discipline include the existence of professional associations and specialist journals for the area of knowledge seeking the status of ‘discipline’, whether this area has currency internationally, whether its subject matter is seen as appropriate, and whether it is seen as having ‘academic credibility’ or ‘intellectual substance’ (ibid.).

Becher and Trowler acknowledge significant institutional variations in terms of how disciplines are delineated, but reject the argument that this implies the need for a strong form of the ‘situationally contingent approach’; they argue that there are more consistent patterns in divisions within departments, such as, for example, between ‘pomos’ (postmodernists) and ‘the rest’ in sociology than would be possible if they were completely dependent on their local institutional context (p. 42). They state that at the global level disciplines exhibit both unity and diversity arguing that disciplines vary historically in terms of how knowledge domains change in nature over time, and geographically in terms of ‘differences in emphasis’(p. 43). They cite Rusco’s (1987) biological analogy of the genotype, ‘the fundamental instructions to the organism’, and the phenotype, the ‘actual manifestation of that potential in a particular physical settting’ and his argument that although considerable ‘phenotypical variations’ exist between disciplines there are

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nonetheless ‘genotypical’ cultural characteristics intrinsic to disciplines. They acknowledge the existence of variations reflecting both features of local educational systems and development levels, and ‘national traits and traditions’, but point out that ‘[n]o one who writes or speaks of national differences seems to want to deny that strong resemblances persist between different branches of the same family’ (ibid.).

Overall, Becher and Trowler seem to argue that the characteristics that a discipline shares tend to have a stronger influence than potential differences based on institution or geographical location. An important question for the current study is whether this is the case not only at a ‘professional’ level in academia but also at a student, specifically undergraduate level at UK HE institutions. The strength of cross-institutional continuities in how discipline is instantiated in departments and degree programmes may mean a high level of cross-institutional consistency in the writing of undergraduate students for their degree programmes; conversely, the different nature and status of early student work in a discipline may mean the particularities of local contexts have a stronger influence on student academic writing. Neither of these possibilities can be assumed and therefore need to be taken into account in research that investigates student writing.