The Growth of Liberal Arts and Evolution of Education Disciplines: A Comparative Study between Russia and the UK
Introduction
Interdisciplinarity has become quite the buzzword in scientific circles and identified by several research funding organisations across Europe and the United States as the desirable direction towards which the social sciences should develop themselves, both in terms of teaching and research. Interdisciplinarians sometimes point at the problem that academic work generally happens within narrow and possibly arbitrary or artificial disciplinary boundaries, which sometimes prevents academics seeing the close connections of different phenomena and also of the different disciplines. It has therefore become the general consensus that scientists should aim to develop fruitful relationships to other disciplines than their own and perhaps even to transcend disciplinary thinking altogether. How this is happening at the expense of traditional disciplines is something that has not been explored (to my knowledge), and would be interesting to see.
Meanwhile, the Liberal Arts has also witnessed increasing growth and acceptance in the more developed parts of the world, with educationists warming up to the idea of interdisciplinarity and its role in broadening the vision of students. However, for countries still dealing with issues of development, the Liberal Arts still has some way to go, for they are often seen as "dispensable luxuries in a time of austerity" (Rosen 2013); increasing thrust is given on more technical disciplines such as economics and the computer sciences and on fostering 'innovation' so as to generate quick Returns on Investment.
It seems the ideal curriculum would be one that balances the humanities and social sciences alongside the so-called hard sciences and “provides opportunities for integrative thinking and imagination, for creativity and discovery, and for good citizenship”. Moreover, good business itself demands the skills that the humanities can best cultivate: inventive, lateral and ethical thinking. (Rosen 2013)
Research Questions
The following are some of the questions this study seeks to address:
- Has interdisciplinary education made its way into Russian institutions in a significant way the way it has into institutions of the developed world (specifically the UK)?
- How do the traditional disciplines fare in this evolving continuum? Are we indeed seeing the growth of new disciplines with increasing emphasis on stepping out of the boundaries of those disciplines?
- Is there a future for Liberal Arts Education in Russia and does participation suffer due to lack of funding and a perceived 'economic rationale', especially in times of economic crisis?