Student and Faculty Interdisciplinary Identities in Self-Managed Teams

BACKGROUND Interdisciplinary teamwork is increasingly important for engineering graduates. Yet, the reality of teaching interdisciplinarity requires faculty and students to navigate structures of engineering programs that do not accommodate interdisciplinary work. PURPOSE (HYPOTHESIS) The purpose of this study is to understand how students and faculty negotiate interdisciplinary identities and how self-managed work teams can be used as a pedagogical strategy for promoting interdisciplinarity. Gee's concepts of affinity identity and institutional identity are used to theorize interdisciplinary teaming. DESIGN/METHOD Multiple data sets from observations and interviews are used to present a case study of one interdisciplinary design course from the points of view of faculty and students. This approach, combined with research literature, is used to propose a pedagogical model for interdisciplinary teaming. RESULTS A pedagogical approach of self-managed teaming can promote interdisciplinary identities if (a) faculty model institutional identities as interdisciplinary researchers and instructors, (b) students are encouraged to perform as decision-makers in groups constructed through affinity identities, and (c) faculty provide scaffolding for self-managed teams and encourage valuing of different disciplinary perspectives. CONCLUSIONS In the midst of an international shift toward interdisciplinarity, structural boundaries within academia present challenges to interdisciplinary collaborations. Gee's identity theory can facilitate our understanding of academic structures, especially in examining how overlapping affinity and institutional identities are at the center of newly formed interdisciplinary spaces. Issues critical to aiding interdisciplinary teaming include conflict management, scaffolding by instructors, and realistic appraisal of disciplinary grounding.