Case studies in interdisciplinary research

Preface / Allen F. Repko, Rick Szostak, William H. Newell : Audience The research model Outline of chapters Part I. Introduction : 1. The interdisciplinary research process / Rick Szostak : Should interdisciplinarians identify such a process : Structure versus freedom ; The role of shared methodologies ; Revolutionary versus normal science ; Interdisciplinarity and training ; Strategic interdisciplinarity What would an interdisciplinary research process look like? Interdisciplinary research: process and theory ; The ecology of team science ; Integration and implementation sciences ; Types of interdisciplinarity ; Transdisciplinary perspectives Part II. Drawing on disciplinary insights : 2. Jewish marriage as an expression of Israel's conflicted identity / Marilyn R. Tayler : Drawing on disciplinary insights ; Step 1. State the focus question ; Step 2. Justify using an interdisciplinary approach ; Steps 3 and 4. Identify relevant disciplines and conduct a literature search ; Step 5. Develop adequacy in each relevant discipline ; Step 6. Analyze the problem and evaluate each insight into it Integrating insights and producing an interdisciplinary understanding : Step 7. Identify conflicts between insights and their sources ; Step 8. Create or discover common ground ; Step 9. Integrate insights ; Step 10. Produce an interdisciplinary understanding of the problem and test it 3. The metropolitan problem in interdisciplinary perspective / Michan Andrew Connor : CIties and suburbs: spatial framings of metropolitan issues : Historical perspectives on metropolitan formation ; Methodological patterns in urban and suburban history ; Intradisciplinary debate and the new suburban history ; Parallels between the new suburban history and urban history Alternate spatial framings in the social sciences : Metropolitics: fighting fragmentation ; Behavioralism and public choice theory ; Critical legal studies: the power of local government and boundaries ; The limits of social science perspectives on metropolitan formation The social production of metropolitan Los Angeles : Theory, practice, and metropolitan space: the career of public choice in Los Angeles County ; The rule of homes: the culture of a public choice metropolis ; The image of homes mediates political contradictions ; Metropolitan political conflicts under public choice theory Mektoub: When art meets history, philosophy, and linguistics / Mieke Bal : How to develop a research question ; The end: philosophy of cinema ; Poetry: a cinema of literature ; Where are we?: Geography of setting ; Schizophrenia: psychiatry of cinema ; Tragedy: ethics of theater ; Mektoub

Part III. Approaches to integration : 5. Integrating theory-based insights on the causes of suicide terrorism / Allen F. Repko : Drawing on disciplinary insights (steps 1 to 6) : Identifying the most relevant disciplines (step 3) and conducting the full-scale literature search (step 4) ; Developing adequacy in each relevant discipline (step 5) ; Analyzing the problem and evaluating each insight into it (step 6) ; A taxonomy of theory-based insights

Integrating causal explanations (steps 7 to 9) : Identifying conflicts in insights and locating their sources (step 7) ; Creating common ground (step 8) ; Constructing a more comprehensive understanding (step 9) ; A statement of the more comprehensive theory itself

Lessons for interdisciplinary practice

The final step

6. An interdisciplinary analysis of the causes of economic growth / Rick Szostak : Identify an interdisciplinary research question

Identifying relevant phenomena, theories, methods, and disciplines

Evaluating disciplinary insights

Creating common ground : The proximate causes themselves ; Trade and growth ; Technology and growth ; Institutions ; Culture and growth ; Networks ; Social structure ; Community development ; Emergent properties ; Lessons for interdisciplinary practice

Reflection and communication

7. Why we talk: an interdisciplinary approach to the evolutionary origin of language / Ria van der Lecq : Beginning the research process (steps 1 to 4) : Framing the research question (step 1) ; Justifying an interdisciplinary approach (step 2) ; Identifying relevant disciplines (step 3) and conducting an in-depth literature search (step 4)

Drawing on disciplinary insights on the primary function of language (steps 5 to 6) : Developing adequacy in each relevant discipline (step 5) ; Evaluating disciplinary insights (step 6)

Integrating insights and producing an interdisciplinary understanding (steps 7 to 10) Identifying conflicts between insights and their sources (step 7) ; Creating common ground (step 8) ; Integrating disciplinary insights (step 9) ; An interdisciplinary understanding of the primary function of language (step 10)

Lessons for interdisciplinary practice

8. Understanding human action: integrating meanings, mechanisms, causes, and contexts / Machiel Keestra : Mechanism-based explanation in brief ; Drawing on disciplinary insights (steps 1 to 6) : Defining the problem: decomposition of action understanding ; Justify using an interdisciplinary approach: action understanding as a multilevel phenomenon ; Identify disciplines most relevant to the mechanism-based approach ; Conduct an in-depth literature search ; Develop adequacy concerning the relevant components, operations, and interactions of the mechanism ; Analyze the phenomenon and evaluate each insight into it

Integrating insights (steps 7 to 10) : Identify conflicts between insight and locate their sources ; Create or discover common ground via a mechanism ; Integrate insights into a mechanism-based explanation ; Produce a mechanism-based explanation of human action understanding and test it

9. Integrative theory in criminology applied to the complex social problem of school violence / Stuart Henry and Nicole L. Bracy : Creating common ground(s) and a comprehensive understanding in criminology : Conceptual integration ; Propositional integration ; Causal integration ; Cross-level integration

Toward an integrated analysis of violence and school violence : Violence as a complex problem

Integrative theory in criminology as a explanation of violence/school violence

Integrative analysis of school violence as a cumulative reciprocal causal process

10. Research integration: a comparative knowledge base / Julie Thompson Klein : Historical beginnings

Transdisciplinarity and the shift to complexity and problem solving

Means of integration

Lessons for TDR integration

Conclusion : The principle of variance : No universal formula for integration ; The principle of platforming : Interaction structure, integration potential, fundament

The principle of iteration : Moving back and forth, bootstrapping, triangulation, reflective balance, and weaving ; The principle of communicative rationality : Shared language culture, social learning, translation-negotiation-mediation, intersubjectivity

Conclusion / William H. Newell : Interdisciplinary research process across the academy ; Conceptions of interdisciplinarity across the academy ; Modifications to the interdisciplinary process ; Operationalizing the interdisciplinary process ; Meta-discussions of interdisciplinary research process.