Towards interdisciplinarity in teacher education : demystifying hegemonic social factors influencing fragmented use of knowledge by student teachers in Zimbabwe

Abstract

This study was conducted to explore the social causes of the use of knowledge in fragmented form by student-teachers in Zimbabwe’s Midlands Province so as to find ways to promote interdisciplinarity in the use of course disciplines’ knowledge. Literature related to the theoretical framework, disciplinarily, interdisciplinarity and theory-practice in Zimbabwe and globally was reviewed. The study was guided by Antonio Gramsci’s cultural hegemony theory that posits that domination is maintained through cultural means transmitted as the norm through social institutions such as education. The transmission enables the powerful to strongly influence the values, norms, ideas, expectations, worldviews, and behaviours of the rest of society, including knowledge fragmentation. The study was conducted at three teacher training colleges, and was informed by the critical theory paradigm, adopting the qualitative approach and case study design involving 90 participants purposively sampled as the critical case. Interview, document analysis and observation methods and their attendant instruments were employed to generate data. The data generated was manually and thematically analysed and findings confirmed the benefits of interdisciplinarity to students though disciplinarity reigned, driven by dominant powerful subjects that thrived on knowledge categorisation which led to animosity between disciplines and members as disciplinary tribes and territories. Solutions proposed as ways to help students to embrace interdisciplinarity included team-teaching, advocacy and engaging resource persons among others. For these ways to succeed, putting in place policies to promote interdisciplinarity and harmonisation of disciplines was recommended together with institutional effort to capacitate lecturers and transform curricula towards interdisciplinarity.