TRACING THE DEVELOPMENT OF LITERACY PRACTICES FOR INTEGRATING INTERDISCIPLINARY CURRICULUM IN HIGHER EDUCATION: INTERACTIONAL ETHNOGRAPHIC STUDY

ABSTRACT In this paper, I present an ethnographic approach that guided multiple cycles of analysis undertaken to trace the developing history of the decisions and actions taken by the lead professor and his design team as they engaged in iterative and recursive phases of development of an interdisciplinary course of study. This study was undertaken in an undergraduate Organizational Communication Program in a public regional university in the United States over a two-year period. The goal of this study was to identify factors that were critical in developing the interdisciplinary curriculum that met the university’s and department’s learning objectives. The microethnographic discourse analysis undertaken provided warranted evidence of how the interdisciplinary curriculum afforded students opportunities to develop conceptual understandings of practices of long-term and futures thinking critical for studying societies from an organizational communication perspective.