Changing Views of Knowledge and Practice in American Higher Education

Abstract

In this chapter, we examine the changing views of knowledge and practice within the American academy, looking closely at what has been said to be a gap between knowledge and practice. Adopting a longitudinal approach, we first examine changing notions of knowledge and practice in discussions of undergraduate education with a specific focus on what it means to be liberally educated. Next, we shift to examine changing notions of knowledge and practice through an examination of research. Typically, the study of liberal education and the research university is distinct. In this chapter, we will not only review changing views of knowledge and practice in each of these two areas, but also raise the question of whether trends in each area are related and whether these can be tied to new theory and research in the area of the developmental and learning sciences during the same time period. It will be argued that both the conceptual frameworks and strategies guiding the organization of American higher education have yet to fully draw upon emerging perspectives from the development and learning sciences.