Interdisciplinary research is gathering increasing support from sustainability scholars, however, there is little dialogue between scholarship on interdisciplinarity and interdisciplinary environmental science education. The aim of this paper is to take stock of the insights of studies of interdisciplinary research to inform environmental research…

The essence of authentic leadership is alignment of actions with an identity grounded in the "true self." Theoretically, achieving such alignment requires self-awareness of discrepancies between current leadership capacity and elements of aspirational identity. Using personal constructs psychology, this study explores evidence that…

Threshold concepts have been widely utilized to understand learning in academic disciplines and student experiences in a disciplinary curriculum. This study considered how threshold concepts might operate within an interdisciplinary setting. Data were collected through interviews with 40 doctoral students enrolled in an interdisciplinary program…

This article describes a year-long doctoral course on ethnographic case study research in which a communities of practice approach helped non-traditional students manage the challenging identity negotiations of entering a new academic field. Co-taught by faculty in two disciplines--Rhetoric and Composition and Teaching, Learning, and Culture--the…

This article explores a doctoral sustainability leadership course in an interdisciplinary leadership program. Learners in the course study sustainability and sustainability leadership from a systemic design perspective. They are invited to become visionaries who work across boundaries and disciplines with cooperative and reflective spirits to find…

Research suggests that doctoral students' learning and experiences are influenced by their relationships and predominant organizational norms and structures, create gender inequality and discourage or prevent alternative behaviors. However, there is very little empirical information on the nature of doctoral experiences and organizational…

This paper concerns research issues on curriculum, pedagogy and the creative use of method in international higher education. It is motivated by the witnessing of a recent shifting in consensus within the global research communities on international education, towards curriculum renewal of shared knowledge within the field. The article enters into…

Peer-learning networks (PLN) can be valuable tools for doctoral students. Participation in these networks can aid in the completion of the dissertation, lead to increased scholarship productivity, and assist in student retention. Yet, despite the promise of PLNs, few studies have documented their effect on social work doctoral education. This…

Higher education is challenged to produce innovative, collaborative and interdisciplinary knowledge in response to increasing social demands. Faculty are often ill-prepared to engage in such work, raising questions as to the balance between disciplinary identity and interdisciplinary engagement. This article examines the experiences of 40 students…

Purpose: This paper aims to improve the understanding of individual transdisciplinary PhD research in a developing country context, focusing on three individual PhD case studies in South Africa. Design/Methodology/Approach: Multiple-case method was used, and three completed transdisciplinary PhD research efforts undertaken at the Stellenbosch…

This national case study examines the educational experiences of twenty-one women that self-identified as low-income or working-class Chicanas or Native American women pursuing professoriate degrees in the Humanities, Social Sciences, Forestry, and Education. The case study includes forty-two qualitative "testimonio" interviews that…

The 6th Annual Conference of the National Academy for the Integration of Research, Teaching and Learning (NAIRTL) and the 4th Biennial Threshold Concepts Conference was held at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, on June 27-29, 2012. The NAIRTL is a collaborative initiative between University College Cork, Cork Institute of Technology, National…

For professors of educational administration, a critical task is to design learning experiences that engage future administrators in an examination of their practice from a variety of perspectives. This challenge prompted the educational administration faculty at Eastern Michigan University to redesign its doctoral program in order to cross…

The educational administration faculty at Eastern Michigan University sought to expand the linkage between theory and practice in all aspects of the program and to bridge traditional course divisions. A department-wide case method initiative was introduced with the purpose of developing the case-method teaching skills of all department members and…

This volume contains papers submitted to the 11th Annual International Conference of the Bulgarian Comparative Education Society (BCES), held in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, 14-17 May 2013, and papers submitted to the 1st International Distance Partner Conference, organized by the International Research Centre "Scientific Cooperation,"…