Higher education: discipline or field of study?

Abstract

Higher education, or more strictly higher education studies, is sometimes referred to as a discipline, though it is more often referred to as a field, sector or area for study. But what is a discipline and does higher education studies, at its current state of development, qualify as one? This article re-considers these matters and comes to some conflicting conclusions. The issue of whether higher education studies is, or is not, a discipline should probably, therefore, be regarded as still open for debate.

Mapping the field of research on African higher education: a review of 6483 publications from 1980 to 2019

“…The overall publication portrait is reflected when looking at the existing institutional infrastructure (or "hardware") specifically established in Africa to promote research on (African) HE. As highlighted elsewhere (Altbach 2002;Tight 2020), the vitality of HE as a field of study can also be judged by examining university departments and research centres, academic degrees, journals and professional associations that have been established specifically to focus on HE. A more detailed picture requires an in-depth analysis in a separate paper, but a brief account shows that a HE institutional basis is well established in South Africa, but weak or non-existent in other African countries.…”

“…As often happens with emerging scientific domains, the literature has mapped the field of HE research. Some scholars have addressed the features of the field through disciplinary or non-disciplinary debate (Teichler 1996(Teichler , 2005Tight 2004Tight , 2020. Others have focused on the development of the field in specific regions (Altbach 2014 for a global portrait; Teichler 2015 for Europe).…”

Philosophy’s rematch: A new conceptualization of the study of higher education

“…In recent years, Mayhew's claims appear just as relevant. There remains perpetual confusion on why higher education degree programs exist (Melendez, 2002), what their scholarship concerns (Brennan and Teichler, 2008;Terenzini, 1996;Tight, 2019Tight, , 2020, and what it means to educate students in higher education (Bitzer and Wilkinson, 2009;Card et al, 2016;Miller and Nelson, 1994;Weidman et al, 1984). Moreover, the purpose and academic legitimacy of higher education research has been sharply criticized (Layzell, 1990;Terenzini, 1996), spurring attempts to define its unique contribution (Brennan and Teichler, 2008;Cheng, 2009;Dressel and Mayhew, 1974;Teichler, 2014;Tight, 2004Tight, , 2014.…”

“…Appealing to interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary labels do not salvage the situation, either. Most empirical studies on higher education research suggest thatwhile borrowing from other disciplines-the study of higher education does not have unique theories and methods of its own (Daenekindt and Huisman, 2020;Tight, 2004Tight, , 2013Tight, , 2014Tight, , 2019Tight, , 2020, failing to fit the typical requirements characteristic of interdisciplinary fields (Bitzer and Wilkinson, 2009). And even if rightly considered multidisciplinary (Jensen and Freeman, 2019), these areas have been shown to lack coherence, display opaque epistemic contribution, and jeopardize the development of expertise and the training of graduate students (Graham, 2005;N� uñez et al, 2019).…”

Editorial: Geography in the world

“…It is important to point out that both the “national” and the “discipline” are imperfect units from which to reflect on these questions. There are differences and tensions that exist within a country around what a discipline is, what it involves, and what it “ought” to be about, and many debates and concerns take shape at scales and networks beyond the national and through multiple epistemic and institutional routes (within and outside the academy) (Abbott, 2001; Tight, 2020). The term “discipline” assumes a certain institutional formation for the organisation of Geography in a given national context, when in fact there are many cases where Geographers have been distributed across cognate fields, subsumed into larger schools, merged into new institutional formations, differently connected to various non‐academic publics, and so on, while different areas of thought and method might undergo radical transformation, often in dialogue with other disciplines and fields.…”