学科分类与跨学科发展:基于院系组织的分析

自"双一流"政策发布以来,"学科"被置于前所未有的重要位置。如何促进跨学科的发展,成为我国"推进"学科建设必须回应的主题。学科间的交叉融合,需要相应的社会建制与制度安排作为保障。通过对美国大学与我国大学院系组织的比较分析,本文发现美国的学系组织具有更强的开放性,其学科分类的强度较弱,有利于学科交叉与跨学科领域的发展;相比之下,我国大学学院具有较强的封闭性,学科分类是一种强分类,大学缺乏在全校范围内整合资源、促进跨学科发展的制度手段。我国大学需要进行制度调整,促进学科体系从强分类走向弱分类,增强学院组织的开放性,以顺应学科交叉的知识发展趋势。

The Classification System of Disciplines and the Growth of Inter-disciplines: A Preliminary Comparative Study on Disciplinary Departments in America and Schools in China

How to improve the exchange and integration of knowledge among disciplines,is a challenge for our universities,particularly since the"Double-First Class"initiative was published in 2015.This paper argues that there should be social arrangement to foster the interdisciplinary research and its institutionalization.Based on a preliminary comparative study on the boundaries of departments in Chicago University and of academic schools in Chinese universities,this paper finds that the former is open to interdepartmental collaboration,which is explicitly demonstrated in the joint doctoral programs or PhD programs in interdisciplinary fields provided by the committees.This contributes to the development of interdisciplinary fields.By contrast,the schools in Chinese universities is closed to inter-school collaboration,so that the growth of interdisciplinary fields is mainly limited to the boundaries of schools.Based on the comparison,this paper calls for to transform our classification system of disciplines and fields from a strong one to a soft one,making the schools and departments more flexible to inter-school collaboration to respond to the interdisciplinary trend in knowledge production.