From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
An academic discipline, or field of study, is a branch of knowledge which is taught or researched at the college or university level. Disciplines are defined and recognized by the academic journals in which research is published, and the learned societies and academic departments or faculties to which their practitioners belong.
Fields of study usually have several sub-disciplines or branches, and the distinguishing lines between these are often both arbitrary and ambiguous.
[edit] Overview
In medieval Europe, there were only four faculties in a university: Theology, Medicine, Canon Law and Liberal Arts (Arts), with the last one having a somewhat lower status[1]. Current-day university disciplines have their roots in the mid- to late-19th century secularization of universities, when the traditional curricula were supplemented with non-classical languages and literatures, social sciences such as political science, economics and public administration, and by natural science and technology disciplines such as physics, chemistry, biology, and engineering.
In the early 20th century, new disciplines such as education, sociology, and psychology were added. In the 1970s and 1980s, there was an explosion of new disciplines focusing on specific themes, such as media studies, women's studies, and Black studies. Many disciplines designed as preparation for careers and professions, such as nursing, hospitality management, and corrections also emerged in the universities. Finally, the visibility of such interdisciplinary scientific fields as biochemistry and geophysics increased, as their contribution to knowledge became widely recognized.
A "*" denotes a field whose academic status is debated. Note that the area into which some fields should be classified is debated, such as whether anthropology and linguistics are social sciences disciplines or humanities disciplines. Note that some people, particularly critical theorists are critical of the division of disciplines, and virtually every division of disciplines, as well as the structure of the concept of disciplines in general, is disputed by some.
A provocative question to ask might be "how many disciplines of study are there?" And an answer to this question could reasonably be that there is no end to the amount of academic disciplines one could have.
In academia today, it is a growing practice to incorporate fields of study that are created by extending the ideas, theories, and methods of more traditional disciplines. Also, new times and revolutionary thinkers can enhance or renew existing disciplines, or even create new disciplines altogether. For example, it can be argued that Freud created a new sub-field of psychology with his new perspective of psychoanalysis.
- See also Branches of history
- See also Branches of philosophy
- See also List of religions
- See also List of languages, Branches of linguistics, Anthropological linguistics
- See also Branches of anthropology
- See also Branches of archaeology
- See also Branches of area studies
- See also Branches of geography
- See also Branches of political science
- See also Branches of psychology, Types of psychotherapy
- See also Branches of sociology
- See also Branches of chemistry
- See also Branches of earth sciences
- See also Branches of life sciences
- See also Branches of physics
- See also Branches of astronomy
- See also Branches of computer science and ACM Computing Classification System
- See also Branches of mathematics and AMS Mathematics Subject Classification
- Curriculum and instruction
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- See also Branches of engineering
- Allied health sciences
- Medical sciences
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- See also Branches of medicine
[edit] Personal service and related professions
- ^ History of Education, Enclopaedia Britannica (1977, 15th edition), Macropaedia Volume 6, p. 337
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Classification of Instructional Programs (CIP 2000): Developed by the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics to provide a taxonomic scheme that will support the accurate tracking, assessment, and reporting of fields of study and program completions activity.
