From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
An academic discipline, or field of study, is a branch of knowledge which is taught or researched at the college or university level. Disciplines are defined and recognized by the academic journals in which research is published, and the learned societies and academic departments or faculties to which their practitioners belong.
Fields of study usually have several sub-disciplines or branches, and the distinguishing lines between these are often both arbitrary and ambiguous.
Overview
In medieval Europe, there were only four faculties in a university: Theology, Medicine, Canon Law and Liberal Arts (Arts).[1] Current-day university disciplines have their roots in the mid- to late-19th century secularization of universities, when the traditional curricula were supplemented with non-classical languages and literatures, social sciences such as political science, economics and public administration, and by natural science and technology disciplines such as physics, chemistry, biology, and engineering.
In the early 20th century, new disciplines such as education, sociology, and psychology were added. In the 1970s and 1980s, there was an explosion of new disciplines focusing on specific themes, such as media studies, women's studies, and Black studies. Many disciplines designed as preparation for careers and professions, such as nursing, hospitality management, and corrections also emerged in the universities. Finally, the visibility of such interdisciplinary scientific fields as biochemistry and geophysics increased, as their contribution to knowledge became widely recognized.
A "*" denotes a field whose academic status is debated. Note that the area into which some fields should be classified is debated, such as whether anthropology and linguistics are social sciences disciplines or humanities disciplines. Note that some people, particularly critical theorists are critical of the division of disciplines; and virtually every division of disciplines, as well as the structure of the concept of disciplines in general, is disputed by some.
A provocative question to ask might be "how many disciplines of study are there?" And an answer to this question could reasonably be that there is no end to the amount of academic disciplines one could have.
In academia today, it is a growing practice to incorporate fields of study that are created by extending the ideas, theories, and methods of more traditional disciplines. Also, new times and revolutionary thinkers can enhance or renew existing disciplines, or even create new disciplines altogether. For example, it can be argued that Freud created a new sub-field of psychology with his new perspective of psychoanalysis.
- See also Branches of history
- See also Branches of philosophy
- See also List of religions
- See also List of languages, Branches of linguistics, Anthropological linguistics
- See also Branches of anthropology
- See also Branches of archaeology
- See also Branches of area studies
- See also Branches of geography
- See also Branches of political science
- See also Branches of psychology, Types of psychotherapy
- See also Branches of sociology
- See also Branches of chemistry
- See also Branches of earth sciences
- See also Branches of life sciences
- See also Branches of physics
- See also Branches of astronomy
- See also Branches of computer science and ACM Computing Classification System
- See also Branches of mathematics and AMS Mathematics Subject Classification
- See also Branches of engineering
- Allied health sciences
- Medical sciences
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- See also Branches of medicine
The academic areas of research, development of applications, and education in Military Sciences is very diverse one, but can be broadly divided into four disciplines:
Service personnel development
- Professional military education - this is a discipline that at its core seeks to instil discipline into those individuals who seek a professional career in the national armed forces, and who form their officer corps. For the most part this includes areas of study such as military leadership including that of senior military staff positions and roles, personal development, including physical, organisational management, tactics and doctrines of their chosen Armed Services, and a technology specialisation within the Service as a career choice.
- Military training administration - as a discipline is concerned with researching and developing best ways and means of creating a combat-capable organisation in which the vast majority of personnel are not professional military servicemen and women, including use by them of technologies, weapons and equipment as required by the doctrines of the armed forces.
- Military behavioural and social sciences - seeks to understand how human being behave in peace and wartime military organisations, and primarily the relationship of leadership with their subordinates, and the organisation as a whole under stress of combat operations.
- Military biological and medical sciences - aside from the usual research and development of application of their civilian counterparts also develop equipment and systems to reduce stress and enhance health of troops in combat environments, and participate in design of weapons and equipment as these affect users. It includes operational military medicine.
Military concepts and methods development
- Military concepts sciences - is a broad area of research and development concerned mostly with how military and civilian participants in the process of maintaining strategic capability to wage war think about the process that leads to conflicts such as game theory, usually derived from military history, how armed forces create necessary capabilities based on available military intelligence, how conflicts such as military campaigns are conducted according to military law, and how post-conflict military issues such as military ethics during occupation and disarmament are resolved.
- Military methods sciences - is an area of research and development of specific methodologies applicable to the concepts used by military and civilian authorities. Most often they are related to the specific Armed Services, Combat, Combat Support or Service Support arms or branches of military service. Methodologies are mostly concerned with specific operational application of concepts in warfare such as naval tactics.
Military policy and administration
- Military policy science - is the sphere of research and development of knowledge and understanding of how to translate the product of military concepts and methods into specific military capabilities desirable by the armed forces or specific Armed Services, Combat, Combat Support or Service Support arms or branches of military service. The military policy academics are often involved in both the prescriptive policy analysis and preparation of descriptive policy documents for the armed forces, often with specialised thematic scope such as special operations and low intensity conflict.
- Military administration - is the study of how military personnel are best used organisationally by study of comparative military systems, create force structures that correspond to the operational and strategic goals of the military policies, and develop programs that help to integrate specific technologies, weapons and equipment into personnel training for both the professional officer corps and the non-commissioned or enlisted personnel. Military administration also produces research and develops applications for financial management of military organisations and their assets, integration of military logistics and the cyclical transitions or reforms based on change requirements of warfighting in concepts or methods.
Military engineering
- Military technologies - is a broad area that includes research, development and study in the application of science and technology to satisfy military capability needs produced by the military policy discipline in accordance with the concepts and methods envisioned to be those used in the next conflict the nation's armed forces may be called on to participate in. Research in this field of sciences is always conducted under highly restricted regime, and applications are developed outside of public view as a matter of necessity to preserve optimum capability for use by the military personnel. This area of military sciences is also concerned with the building of application prototypes for further development in production facilities whether private or publicly owned. The research is sometimes conducted in specific area such as naval science.
- Military weapons technologies - are applied research and development range of disciplines usually divided into land, naval, air, space and information applications to be used in combat. They also include testing and providing professional education on, and service integration of the new types of weapons.
- Military equipment technologies - are applied research and development range of disciplines usually divided into land, naval, air, space and information applications to be used in support of combat such as combat engineering, or in providing services which support overall military operations either in peace or war. They also include testing and providing professional education on, and service integration of the new types of equipment that range from construction of new bases to storage of perishables in field environments.
Personal service and related professions
Human physical performance and recreation
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- Scriptural study and languages
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Notes
- ^ History of Education, Encyclopædia Britannica (1977, 15th edition), Macropaedia Volume 6, p. 337
See also
External links
