Interdisciplinary expansion of conceptual foundations: insights from beyond our field

Roeper Review, Spring, 2005 by Don Ambrose

Some scholars have been importing constructs from various disciplines to inform theory and practice in the field of gifted education. For example, Borland, Schnur, and Wright (2000) borrowed from anthropology to reveal some obstacles to achievement faced by deprived minority children. Pelletier and Shore (2003) used research from the expert-novice literature in cognitive psychology to analyze cognitive processes of the gifted. Hong (1999) also inspected cognition of the gifted through the lens of the expert-novice literature while outlining diverse investigative approaches to studying the mind. Cohen and Ambrose (1993) and Cohen, Ambrose, and Powell (2000) used theories from diverse disciplines to make explicit the complexity of perspectives on creativity and intelligence. Cross (2003) imported phenomenological inquiry methods from philosophy and other fields to propose new research agendas for gifted education. Ambrose (2002, 2003) employed research and theory from economics, sociology, and ethical philosophy to reveal socioeconomic barriers hindering aspiration development and self-fulfillment among the deprived. Simonton (1984, 1994, 1999) used historiometric inquiry to reveal historical and sociocultural patterns in the emergence of creative eminence.

Hong (1999) and Ambrose (1998) also recommended more interdisciplinary borrowing to enrich theory development and research in the field of gifted education. Such borrowing can draw from different levels of analysis or scale, from the microlevels of physics and microbiology to the macrolevels of economics, sociology, political science, history, archaeology, anthropology, and ethical philosophy. In spite of arguments that all phenomena ultimately will reduce to the microlevels of the physical sciences (Atkins, 1995; P. S. Churchland, 1995, 2002) locking into one level and claiming that perspective as fundamental or preeminent may be a conceptual fallacy hindering progress in fields such as gifted education, which focus on the complex dynamics of the human mind.

The concept of levels of analysis has provided scholars with a productive large-scope interpretive lens for understanding complex phenomena in various fields (Ambrose, 1996, 1998; Arecchi, 1996; Boden, 1995; Midgley, 1998; Rose, 1998a). These levels usually form hierarchies in which each level can make its own unique and significant contributions to understanding. For example, in an argument against methodological reductionism, theoretical physicist and complexity theorist Tito Arechhi outlined seven levels of scientific description from micro through macro with each level providing building blocks for the next. These levels, with some disciplines through which they are investigated designated in parentheses, include the elementary particulate (particle physics), atomic (atomic physics), biomolecular (biochemistry), cellular (cytology), organic (physiology), individual (psychology), and community (sociology). A broad search for diverse insights at multiple levels can expand our conceptions of giftedness and talent while preventing dogmatic insularity, which is the tendency to ignore or reject all but a single perspective on phenomena (Ambrose, 1998).

Such a search is consistent with increasing collaborative exploration involving multiple academic disciplines. Many accomplished scholars in many fields see the need to reach beyond their fields for insights unavailable within their own. Just as the qualitative research strategy of data triangulation enhances the credibility of specific qualitative research findings by employing multiple data sources or methods of data collection (Lincoln & Guba, 1985), larger scale metatriangulation of disciplinary perspectives on phenomena relevant to gifted education can enhance the credibility of theory development by expanding our conceptual foundations.

Opportunities for interdisciplinary cross-checking or perspectival triangulation abound in today's academic climate. Some examples include (a) the lively dialogue and debates among linguists, psychologists, neuroscientists, philosophers, artificial intelligence researchers, and anthropologists in cognitive science, which encompasses the study of brain-mind processes (Baumgartner & Payr, 1995; Rose, 1998b); (b) similar dialogic interactions among economists, political scientists, biologists, physicists, chemists, mathematicians, and others in the vibrant, interdisciplinary field of complexity theory, which entails the study of complex adaptive systems (Cowan, Pines, & Meltzer, 1999; Pullman, 1996); (c) periodic interdisciplinary symposia around themes such as reductionism versus holism in scholarly investigation (see Cornwell, 1995; Radnitzky, 1988); (d) the mutual corrections provided by historians' studies of ancient writings and archaeologists' studies of material artifacts in attempts to understand the past (see Chippendale, 2000; Lowenthal, 2000); and (e) the growing interdisciplinary field of consciousness studies (see Cornwell, 1998; Rose, 1998a).