Article

Research in Education
2021, Vol. 111(1) 2 4­–45
Higher education, ! The Author(s) 2021

the arts, and DOI: 10.1177/00345237211005799

transdisciplinarity: journals.sagepub.com/home/rie

A systematic review
of the literature

Wander M van Baalen ,

Tamara de Groot and
Liesbeth Noordegraaf-Eelens
Erasmus University College, Erasmus University Rotterdam,
Rotterdam, The Netherlands

Abstract
Against an increasingly compartmentalized educational landscape, we have heard urgent
calls for new modes of teaching and learning. In this light, educators from a variety of
disciplinary backgrounds turned to transdisciplinarity and the arts for a possible
response. The educational initiatives being developed and the related literature are
situated across a wide range of themes, disciplines, and methodologies. The fragmented
nature of the academic discussion inhibits our capacity to think through the implications
of mobilizing the concept of transdisciplinarity within the arts and education. This study
addresses the lack of an overview by conducting a systematic review of the literature
characterized by a triangular interest in higher education, transdisciplinarity, and the
arts. The documents under review amount to 458 unique scientific papers. In our
results, we present a metaphorical scale – moving from buzzwords to a theoretically
delineated usage – to make sense of the use and conceptualization of transdisciplinarity
and we introduce three main ways how the arts are part of transdisciplinary educational
compositions. In bringing together literature on education, the arts, and transdiscipli-
narity, we shed light on relevant similarities between thinking and doing that too often

Corresponding author:
Wander M van Baalen, Erasmus University College, 3062PA, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
Email: vanbaalen@euc.eur.nl
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operates in isolation. As such, we aim to facilitate opportunities for mutual learning and
present an improved vantage point from which to consider how decisions regarding
particular conceptualizations and positionalities feed into our artistic and educational
practices.

Keywords
Higher education, arts, transdisciplinarity, transdisciplinary education, systematic
review

Transdisciplinarity (TD), in its various manifestations, has gained traction in

higher education as a way of addressing complex societal problems by enabling
productive border-crossing between different knowledge domains and communi-
ties of practice. These transdisciplinary efforts, attuned to co-creation, a richer
conception of knowledge, and an awareness for ‘more-than-rational’ aspects
(Galafassi et al., 2018), are increasingly put into connection with the arts and
arts education. The primacy of TD in art education, and the urgency to learn
more about it, was reflected in the theme of the ELIA Biennial 2020. ELIA is a
globally connected knowledge platform with 260 members (all art schools) in
48 countries that aims to provide a place for discussions and development in
higher arts education. With the motto “Expanding the arts”, the Biennial centered
on the examination of “new crossovers and collaborations” (ELIA Theme, no
date). On their website, they state that thinking and reflecting across disciplines
has become a necessity. The proliferation of academic articles discussing TD
involving the arts seems to affirm their statement. An overview of the literature
is however lacking. The current fragmented nature of the academic discussion
inhibits our capacity to think through the implications of mobilizing the concept
of TD within the arts and education and it hampers opportunities for mutual
learning. In this article, we seek to address the lack of an overview by bringing
complementary, yet largely isolated articles in conversation by performing a sys-
tematic review of the literature concerned with higher education, the arts, and TD.
Nicolescu (2018), one of the key thinkers in the field of transdisciplinary theory,
stresses the utmost necessity of “a new type of education which takes into account
all the dimensions of the human being” in dealing with complex societal issues
(p. 75). To enable this new type of education, Nicolescu (2018) asserts the impor-
tance of a reconciliation between the arts and sciences. He writes that “[e]verything
must be done” to reunite the arts and sciences “so that they will move beyond to a
new transdisciplinary culture, the preliminary condition for a transformation of
mentalities” (Nicolescu, 2018: 78). These calls are amplified by authors such as
Galafassi et al. (2018) who acknowledge that today’s complex challenges (e.g.
climate-induced problems) cannot be faced by science alone, but demand an
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“open and engaging transdisciplinary processes with large and diverse populations
aimed at sharing experiences, co-creating knowledge and reimagining public goals”
(p. 73). As Mittelman (2018) reminds us, however, reformist rhetoric in itself is not
enough. The rhetoric should always be accompanied by doing and by an enduring
commitment to fostering cultures of creativity sustained by values of playfulness,
adaptability, and innovation. These values must be “reflected in the creation of
unorthodox curricular architecture dedicated to imaginative thinking, bold exper-
imentation, and audacious visions” (Steger, 2019: 764). It is exactly those curric-
ular activities that make up the bulk of our data set.
The fact that science alone cannot effectively respond to the “wicked problems”
(Rittel and Webber, 1973) that plague our societies (e.g. social inequality, waste
problem, pandemics) becomes increasingly apparent. Even within the academic
arena, voices urge scientists to reflect upon how science might contribute to the
production and maintenance of the problems we are facing. This realization and
reflection offers much-needed opportunities to rethink how we shape our courses,
curriculum, and educational landscape. Among educators, there is an increased
attention for the potentiality of the arts to transform longstanding mentalities and
ways of acting and learning of both students and staff. Examples of this trend can
already be found in more established modalities such as Art Integration, Arts-Based
Methods, and STEAM education (e.g. Chemi and Du, 2018; Ghanbari, 2015;
Marshall, 2014). Simultaneously, connections are forged between these types of
educational initiatives and transdisciplinary approaches, both in theory and practice.
Marshall (2014), for example, points to the similarities between the aims of
TD and arts integration, by proposing art integration as a transdisciplinary prac-
tice, while Costantino (2017) refers to STEAM education as transdisciplinary
practice. Several educational programs base their pedagogy on a transdisciplinary
practice combined with the arts, such as the Transdisciplinary Studies program at
Zurich University of the Arts, the Arts and Creative Practices initiative at Aalto
University (Tavin et al., 2017), and the Transdisciplinary Design program at New
School’s Parsons School of Design (Parsons Transdisciplinary Design (MFA), no
date). In addition, many smaller initiatives, situated in the margins of the educa-
tional landscape, draw upon a transdisciplinary framework with the involvement
of the arts to create new spaces for educational innovation.
In sum, both in theory and in practice, there is great interest – by educators,
artists, and scholars alike – in connecting higher education, the arts, and TD. The
particular ways in which TD is mobilized, however, and how the arts are part of
transdisciplinary compositions remains unclear. It is important to examine these
differences because concepts always do more than describing the social world.
They influence how we make sense of our practices, surroundings, and ourselves.
Concepts “enter constitutively”, as Giddens (1987: 20) put it, into the worlds in
which they are mobilized. Similarly, how we take up space in a collaboration has
consequences for the nature of that collaboration. Bearing that in mind, we set out
to provide the conditions to think through the implications, for our educational
and artistic practices, of certain usages of TD, and certain artistic positionalities,
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rather than others. We have formulated two research questions that direct our data
collection and analysis towards that objective.

• How is transdisciplinarity used and conceptualized in articles concerning them-

selves with higher education, the arts, and transdisciplinarity?
• How are the arts positioned in transdisciplinary educational initiatives involving
the arts?

Materials and methods

In this section of the paper, we expound upon the criteria for inclusion in our data
set, present our corpus, and elaborate upon our analytical procedure.

Setting the scope

The documents under review amount to 458 unique scientific papers. The papers
have been identified and selected through a structured literature survey of the ISI
Web of Knowledge and Scopus databases (all years). We used key words to tailor
our search towards issues related to higher education, TD, and the arts. The lit-
erature search was executed in November 2018. In an attempt to capture our
triangular field of interest as comprehensive as possible we used different declen-
sions of the same key word (see Table 1) and, following Johnston (2008), we
“define the arts in a very generous way” (p. 224). In so doing, we avoid foreclosing
potential avenues worth exploring before even conducting our qualitative analysis.

Table 1. Overview of the key words used in our search query.

Relating to: Education Transdiscplinarity The arts

Education Transdisciplinary Animation

Educational Transdisciplinarity Architecture
Art
Artistic
Arts
Ballet
Circus
Dance
Design
Fashion
Film
Illustration
Music
Photography
Poetry
Theater
Theatre
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van Baalen et al. Research in Education 111(1)5

All of the possible combinations of the search terms were entered in the title search.
We did not restrict our search in terms of paper categories. The results of our
search query were exported to a reference manager.

Materials used
The reference manager allowed us to organize the collected data. The first and
second author removed duplicate entries and independently scanned the entire
data set for material not related to the field of transdisciplinary, the arts, and
higher education. We measured interrater reliability at the level of the decision
to include articles to be reviewed. The percentage agreement amounted to 98%.
During the process, we organized frequent meetings to discuss issues or concerns
and collaboratively decide in cases of doubt.
In order to answer both research questions, it was necessary to construct two data
sets (see PRISMA Flow Chart, Figure 1). Our second research question centers on
the position of the arts in transdisciplinary, educational initiatives. We could only
formulate an accurate answer to this question based on articles that actually concern
themselves with educational initiatives. Therefore, only case studies were included.
Our first research question did not require this categorical distinction.

Analytical procedure
In line with studies like Zscheischler and Rogga (2015) and Fritz and Binder
(2018), our analysis is based on a qualitative in-depth examination of each publi-
cation and applies a synthetic approach for qualitative studies which builds upon
the work of Noblit and Hare (1988). Our themes capture patterns of meaning,
relating to our overall research questions, in our data sets. We use an inductive,
data-driven approach to our corpus. Meaning that, in our analysis we coded the
data without trying to fit it into a preexisting theoretical framework. Our analytical
process progressed from description, where we primarily organize and summarize
patterns in the manifest content, to interpretation, where we attempt to theorize the
meaning of patterns often already in relation to existing literature, and finally we
proceed to situating the broader implications of our results in a relevant body of
literature. While constructing our themes, we aimed to acknowledge the complex-
ities of our data set. Rather than smoothening out inconsistencies within our
themes, we retained accounts that depart from the dominant narrative.

Results
This section presents the results of our qualitative review of the literature. Our
analysis resulted in the construction of two themes. The first theme centers on the
use and conceptualization of the notion of TD and consists of four subthemes. The
second theme revolves around the position of the arts within transdisciplinary
educational initiatives. The first theme relates to our first research question and
the second theme concerns itself with the second research question.
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Identification

Records identified through Records identified through Web of

SCOPUS searching Knowledge searching
(n = 444) (n = 384)

Records after duplicates removed

(n = 458)
Screening

Records screened Records excluded

(n = 458) (n = 386)

Full-text articles assessed Full-text artciles excluded,

for eligibility with reasons (n = 16)
Eligibility

(n = 72)
• No reference to the arts
• Not situated in higher
education
Studies included in qualitative
synthesis for RQ1
(n = 56)
Included

Full-text artciles excluded,

Studies included in qualitative with reasons (n = 15)
synthesis for RQ2
• Not a case study
(n = 41)

Figure 1. PRISMA flow chart.

Transdisciplinarity: Patterns of use and conceptualizations

In this section, we map the ways in which TD is used and conceptualized. Our
subthemes are structured in line with our analytical procedure. We begin each
subtheme with a descriptive account of the pattern of meaning concerned, then
we present data extracts which vividly capture the essence of the theme, and we
conclude with a more interpretive account of the data.

Mere mentions
If we were to approach the degree to which TD was conceptualized in our corpus
as a scale, then we have to envision a scale that moves from mere mentions to
lengthy, theory-heavy conceptualizations. Departing from the idea that the entirety
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of the scale is worth investigating, we start by exploring patterns that emerge from
articles characterized by their frugal usage of TD.
The articles (n ¼ 9) supporting this subtheme did not go beyond mentioning the
word transdisciplinary. All articles mentioned the word in the abstract. There were
two minor deviations to this trend. Kondolf et al. (2013) mentioned transdisciplin-
ary in the abstract as well as in their keywords. Penaluna and Penaluna (2009)
mentioned transdisciplinary in their title, abstract, and keywords. But none of the
articles mentioned the word in their actual text. Neither did one of the articles
mention the declension transdisciplinarity. Table 2 provides an overview of several
occurrences in the texts.
The abstract is a prominent place in an academic text (let alone the title or
keywords). Therefore, the silence after introducing the concept (i.e. TD) in the
abstract was noteworthy. Perhaps the authors, during the writing process, imagine
an audience familiar with the concept. But due to the lack of a universally accepted
definition, methodology or theory of TD (Klein, 2013), this seems unlikely, or in
any case ill-informed.
This mere mention-usage is better understood as authors attempting to ride the
waves of the “current increased momentum for Transdisciplinarity” (Klein, 2013:
197). This also explains the use of the “word à la mode”, as Lawrence and Despres
(2004: para. 1) described TD, in the abstract. After all, the abstract may very well
be the text enjoying the highest readership in an academic article.

TD as an adjective
In a significant amount of the articles (n ¼ 33) TD was particularly used as an
adjective. This means that the authors understood it as an attribute or quality of
something else. The quantity as to which transdisciplinary is used, in the articles
composing this subtheme, varies considerably. Hansen and Kofoed (2017), for
example, mention the term 25 times (i.e. including 7 times in the title, abstract,
and keywords). Esteve-Faubel et al. (2018), on the other hand, merely use the term
once. In Table 3, we present in-text examples from four different articles.
As Table 3 makes clear, TD functions as a characteristic of something else, may
it be pedagogies or approaches. TD requires a noun to become meaningful and the
noun becomes more meaningful by virtue of its relation to the adjective.
The current subtheme highlights the importance of not only paying attention to
the way TD is conceptualized, but also very much how it is used. It is telling that 26
(out of 33) articles do not use the declension transdisciplinarity, which suggests
that it can be something in and of itself.
The pattern of usage that underlies this subtheme regards TD as a relational
concept. TD therefore always needs to be contextualized, has to be put to use, has
to exist in a symbiotic relationship with a noun (or nouns) of choice. This under-
standing of the term clarifies why we will not find lengthy elaborations on TD itself
in these articles. Its meaning is always constructed in relation with and can only
be understood as such. In this sense, the usage resembles the way in which
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Table 2. Examples of mere mention-usage.

Location
in text Paper category Paraphrase Source

Abstract Peer-reviewed Recent guidance for UK government Penaluna and

academic policy makers has warned that HEIs Penaluna
paper face an uncertain future and has (2009)
advocated transdisciplinary curricula.
Abstract Peer-reviewed Stream restoration involves the appli- Kondolf et al.
academic cation of disciplines such as hydrol- (2013)
paper ogy, fluvial geomorphology, ecology,
engineering, and landscape architec-
ture, so education should arguably
replicate the transdisciplinary, col-
laborative approach ideally found in
practice.
Abstract Conference A broader objective of the project is to Kapur et al.
paper develop an experimental, transdisci- (2013)
plinary model for teaching computer
science curriculum that can be
replicated at other arts institutes,
and extended to students in similar
non-traditional computer science
contexts.
Abstract Conference It is against this background that a Vahed (2016)
paper web-based game project called
Dental Bytes emerged. This involved
the trans-disciplinary collaboration
between a Dental Technologist, eight
third-year Information Technology
(IT) students and their lecturer.
Abstract Conference These resources identify the complexi- Tejedor and
paper ty and transdisciplinary issues of Segalas
sustainability and new methodologies (2017)
and tools to help student understand
and analyse them.

Gibbons et al. (1994) discuss TD, as something that “consists in a continuous linking
and relinking, in specific clusterings and configurations of knowledge which is
brought together on a temporary basis in specific contexts of application” (p. 29).

A borderline case
Before introducing the next subtheme, we wish to present one data point which
finds itself at the border between mere mentions and TD as an adjective. In Lin and
 32

Table 3. Examples of sentences in which TD is used as an adjective.

Page Mention
Paper category Excerpt number Source transdisciplinarity
van Baalen et al.

Peer-reviewed academic “Responding to the latter aspect as well as what p. 85 Gilliland and No
paper (case study) we might individually bring to such a course, Halilovich (2016)
we decided that a team-taught transdisciplinary
approach would work best.”
Peer-reviewed academic “[. . .] the method is better situated to renovate p. 46 Moore (2017) No
paper the transdisciplinary pedagogy of community
service”
Conference paper “[. . .] the most desirable outcome for the p. 345 Williams and Yes
students would be to develop a Brewer (2008)
transdisciplinary understanding of designing
for the environment.”
Peer-reviewed academic “This paper will discuss the application of a p. 42 Clark and Button Yes
paper (case study) sustainability transdisciplinary education (2011)
model (STEM) applied by CCSU professors
that examined the three pillars of sustainability
[. . .]”
Peer-reviewed academic “Narratta was generated through situated and p. 151 Morrison and No
paper (case study) online collaboration, connected to field work Chisin (2017)
in several arctic cities and journeys (Figure 2),
by a transdisciplinary team of researchers and
design based studios, courses and events [. . .]”
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Li’s (2017) research, notions of interdisciplinarity and TD are used throughout the
text without a clear distinction. Their research question focuses on interdisciplin-
ary learning experiences, but they describe their course (which serves as the context
of their study) as being grounded in “a value-driven and locally relevant holistic
approach to inter-/transdisciplinary learning” (Lin and Li, 2017: 560). In their text,
TD is always used in relation to interdisciplinary and never in isolation. The con-
traction “inter-/transdisciplinary” appears four times in the entire text (i.e. includ-
ing abstract, citations, and keywords), the word “interdisciplinary” appears nine
times.
This article is a borderline case because it does use transdisciplinary as an
adjective (and it does not use transdisciplinarity), but by not expanding upon
their usage of TD and by only using it in contraction with interdisciplinarity,
they really only mention TD. It is important to describe this tension in our data
set, because it draws attention to the constructedness of our themes and accen-
tuates the permeable boundaries of the themes. Borderline cases, like this one,
demonstrate the continuity of our metaphorical scale and explicitly remind us
not to think of the themes as categorically distinct territories.

Theoretically delineated usage

The texts (n ¼ 13) supporting this subtheme operationalize the notion of TD. Seven
articles explicitly define transdisciplinarity. The other articles are similar in the
sense that they also clearly situate themselves in a theoretical tradition or body
of literature. But rather than conceptualizing transdisciplinarity as such, they
choose to elaborate on, for example, “transdisciplinary knowledge” (Al-Hagla,
2012: 23; Pour Rahimian et al., 2014: 3), a “transdisciplinary approach” (Exter
et al., 2017: 5), “transdisciplinary” (Ertas et al., 2003: 289; Thomas, 2015: 474), or a
“transdisciplinary tradition” (Stenberg and Fryk, 2012: 3285). In doing so, they all
clarify what TD, or a similar-but-different concept, means to them and share, to
different extents, what this implies for their research. The articles supporting the
subtheme TD as an Adjective omit such clarifications. In Table 4, we present five
brief excerpts from a variety of conceptualizations.
As the excerpts show, the authors often build upon the work of others.
Nicolescu’s work is cited in five articles. But it falls outside the scope of our
study to conduct an adequate Citation Network Analysis. What the current sub-
theme does show is that there is no consistent, unidimensional conceptualization of
TD throughout the articles. More than once, the authors acknowledge the lack of
conceptual clarity surrounding TD, but this does not inhibit them from using the
concept. They still regard it valuable enough to give it a prominent place in their
studies. Like Klein (2013), they do not aim to settle the debate and come to a
universally accepted definition. They are interested in using the concept and for
that reason they define TD in a way that works for them and their project, fully
aware of potential conflicting conceptualizations. On a project-basis, they seem to
come to consensus as to what TD entails. This helps the authors in directing their
Table 4. Five examples of how TD is conceptualized.
34

Page
Paper category Excerpt (bold emphasis added) number Source

Peer-reviewed academic “Some scholars use the term transdisciplinarity to describe the effort to p. 103 Muller and Flohr
van Baalen et al.

paper (case study) achieve deeper understanding and cooperation in addressing problems (2016)
situated within complex systems (Max-Neef, 2005). As Ramadier (2004)
put it, “Transdisciplinarity essentially concerns the articulation between
disciplines, rather than their relations, as is the case with pluri- and
interdisciplinarity” (p. 424).”
Conference paper “Transdisciplinarity is defined as “a new form of learning and problem solving p. 1 Shin et al. (2006)
(case study) involving cooperation among different parts of society and academia in
order to meet complex challenges of society” (H€aberli, 2000).”
Peer-reviewed academic “More recently, Basarab Nicolescu has stated that transdisciplinarity is ‘at p. 192 Hugill and Smith
paper (case study) once between the disciplines, across the different disciplines, and beyond (2013)
all discipline’ (Nicolescu 2,00,244) and that it encourages an active
engagement with real-world problems, a transformative praxis and a
constructive approach to problem-solving.”
Peer-reviewed academic Gibbons et al. (1994) identify four features of this ‘transdisciplinary knowl- p. 24 Al-Hagla (2012)
paper (case study) edge’: it develops a distinct but evolving framework to guide problem-
solving efforts; the solutions involve movements in many directions,
theoretical and empirical work, the diffusion and dissemination of new
knowledge to participants that take place through rather than after this
process; and finally, it is dynamic and constantly evolving.
Peer-reviewed academic “[. . .] our transdisciplinary point of departure implied that all actors - pro- p. 3286 Stenberg and Fryk
paper (case study) fessionals working in the academic, public and private sectors as well as (2012)
members of civil society - are considered knowledge producers, knowl-
edge bearers, and knowledge users. Such an outlook on knowledge meant
that implementation was considered part of the project, instead of
something left for ‘practitioners’ to take care of afterwards.”
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research and also evaluating the results. It, among other things, allows researchers
to make statements like Exter et al. (2017), who concede that although they “aimed
for true transdisciplinarity [emphasis added]”, they did not manage to fully realize
that objective (p. 14).

The position of the arts

This section of the paper presents the results of our qualitative analysis of case
study literature concerning themselves with higher education, the arts, and TD.
The current theme presents the different ways of how the arts are positioned in
transdisciplinary educational initiatives. The nine articles making up the subtheme
mere mentions were excluded from our analysis for The Position of the Arts. We
want to make claims pertaining to transdisciplinary educational initiatives. When
no connection is made between the described educational practice and TD, as is
the case in subtheme mere mentions, the case studies were excluded from our
analysis. The articles under review therefore amount to 32, rather than 41
(see Figure 1).

An instrumentalized position
This theme captures those articles (n ¼ 5) in which the position of the arts is
instrumentalized. Meaning that, within the collaborations the arts are treated as
a tool or guide to action, rather than an end in itself. The arts can still play an
important role in these collaborations, but the degree to which they are allowed to
give color to that role is greatly reduced. In other words, the arts, when discussing
the articles in this theme, are not peripheral, but do enjoy a greatly reduced auton-
omy. More than once, the arts are invited, in different gradations, into a university
setting. This is usually achieved through the application of arts/design methodol-
ogies in academia and/or by inviting staff/students from the arts into the academic
setting.
A characteristic example of the story presented in this theme can be found in the
case study by Shankar et al. (2017). They report on a course in which they bring
together engineering, nursing, and arts students. The students are asked to develop
an app in which patients can manage health-related activities. This should allow
the patients to reduce the number of hospital visits/stays and avoid the stress that
usually accompanies it. Let us consider the extracts presented in Table 5.
The first fragment shows that the arts students are asked to stay within their
discipline and apply their skills on a very specific area within the larger collabo-
ration. They have to concern themselves with the aesthetics, with the packaging,
and not with the content. Within this theme, we observe a willingness to open-up a
research process or educational context to a wider variety of actors, without the
inclination to consider altering the infrastructure of the process or context itself.
Other examples where the arts are mobilized in the interest of a pre-defined objec-
tive is (i) the article written by Bradley et al. (2017) where they describe a program
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Table 5. Sentences exemplifying the instrumentalized position of the arts.

Page
Excerpt number Source

Thus, each group had 3 engineering students, p. 3 Shankar et al. (2017)

typically one each from these three engineering
disciplines, randomly assigned to each group.
In addition, the student teams had a nursing
student to ensure that the app had appropriate
health content, and an arts student to
ensure that the app had aesthetic appeal and
a user-friendly interface.
The focus and content of the topic was decided in p. 9 Shankar et al. (2017)
consultation with the nursing partner, with the
arts students providing aesthetic support.

in which “creative practice and arts-based methods [are used] to develop critical
thinking and analytical skills across a range of core curriculum areas” (p. 55) and
(ii) the research conducted by Lin and Li (2017) in which students “were asked to
take photos focused on issues or personal interests representing the concept of
“sustainable oceans” [parentheses in original]” (p. 560).
The current subtheme is supported by no more than five articles; the smallest
number of articles still constituting a unique theme in our analysis. But although
small in quantity, the articles do strongly and coherently add to the overall argu-
ment presented in this theme. The fact that we see this trend relatively little in our
data set may come as no surprise to some. Instrumentalizing one discipline to the
benefit of another may seem counterintuitive in transdisciplinary collaborations.
After all, TD collaborations are more than once characterized by an adherence to
equal footing and “truly lived co-leadership” (Binder et al., 2015).

The artistic vantage point

In thirteen articles the arts can be understood to be the primary perspective from
which the article is written. Meaning that, in these articles the arts (in whatever
manifestation) are not infused or integrated into an otherwise academically-
oriented collaboration, but are the very canvas on which the collaboration is
played out. Vogler and Eth (2000) and Rey and Lufkin (2016), for example,
mobilize the notion of TD within the field of architecture, other scholars (e.g.
Mulder, 2015; Muller and Flohr, 2016; e.g. Exter et al., 2017) depart from a
design perspective.
It is common for studies to position themselves within a particular tradition,
body of literature, or epistemological framework. This decision influences the ways
in which a subject is approached, valued, and understood in relation to other
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processes or objects. We posit that the articles supporting this theme place them-
selves primarily within an artistic tradition. A compelling example of the story this
theme is telling can be found in Al-Hagla’s (2012) case study. In his research, he
investigates the role of the design studio in integrating sustainability thinking in
architectural pedagogy. The design studio functions as the main vantage point, not
only textually or theoretically, but also literally; it is the material space within
which his case study is situated. This space is far from passive, but comes with
its own traditions and norms, and as such gives shape to the educational activity
within it.
The current theme (i.e. The Position of the Arts) centers on the position of the
arts within transdisciplinary, educational initiatives involving the arts. It is impor-
tant to emphasize that the articles within this theme are not being positioned by, for
example, a higher-in-rank academic actor, but determine their own position within
the collaboration (may it be implicitly). Subsequently, the articles making up the
composition of this subtheme do not extensively justify, explain, or rationalize the
presence of the arts in the educational setting. After all, the arts are the starting
point. It is not only taken for granted that they deserve a seat at the table, but more
so, they decide the type of table and are in charge of the attendance.

Transdisciplinary approach
The articles (n ¼ 15) supporting this subtheme situate themselves in a space already
beyond the disciplinary borders. Our analysis showed that in these studies, a wide
variety of actors were included in heterogeneous collectives and the initiatives often
took place in different contexts (regularly outside the traditional classroom). Clark
and Button (2011), for example, describe an educational initiative where they
“used a combination of visual art, music, video/film, theater, poetry, nature
sounds, and sculpture to teach about the science of sustainability” (p. 48). Our
review indicates that in studies like this it is not sensible to speak of a singular
position of the arts. Their initiative (i.e. Clark and Button, 2011), like the other
articles contributing to this theme, transgress disciplinary boundaries and demand
to be understood from a transdisciplinary perspective.
Detand and Emmanouil’s (2018) case study captures the essence of the current
subtheme. They report on a project-based elective which centers on “co-creation”.
All students, studying at the institution concerned, are eligible for the course. The
lectures in the course (on a wide variety of topics such as: communication, design
thinking, creativity and prototyping, entrepreneurship, and human aspects of
co-creation) are given by a team of experts from four different faculties. The stu-
dent teams consist of a total of five students, where at least three different disci-
plines are represented. The goals and aims of the project are defined by the teams
in collaboration with external stakeholders. Throughout the entire process, the
students receive guidance from a personal coach who participates actively in the
meetings and pays attention to, among other things, the “development of common
language” and “positive collaboration” (Detand and Emmanouil, 2018: 3).
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van Baalen et al. Research in Education 111(1)
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The teams, in collaboration with the stakeholders, concern themselves with

addressing real-life experiences through an iterative process.
The, admittedly lengthy, enumeration in the previous paragraph clarifies that
the actors in the case study “actively create a space for their interaction”, to speak
with Fritz and Binder (2018: 6), in which disciplinary boundaries begin to blur.
Rather than seeing that as an obstacle in the attempt to determine the position of
the arts, we regard it as the main feature of this subtheme. If an educational
initiative is positioned between (rather than beyond) disciplines (may it be scientific
or arts disciplines), then one can usually determine between which disciplines it is
positioned. It could for example be between sociology, architecture, and interac-
tion design. The articles within this subtheme resist such categorizations and
require to be addressed as a newly formed whole rather than an accumulation
of components.

Discussion
In this section, we formulate an answer to our research questions, we discuss the
meaning of our results in relation to existing literature and discuss our
contributions.

Usage and conceptualization of transdisciplinarity

In our first subtheme (mere mentions), we approach the conceptualization of TD as
a scale. We propose to imagine a scale that moves from mere mentions to lengthy,
theory-heavy conceptualizations. At the beginning of the scale, we identify a pat-
tern of usage characterized by an absence of any attempt to define or clarify TD.
The articles contributing to this theme use TD as a buzzword. In these cases, the
mobilization of TD is characterized by the “absence of real definition, and a strong
belief in what the notion is supposed to bring about” (Rist, 2007: 486). Buzzwords,
precisely, gain their “purchase and power through their vague and euphemistic
qualities, their capacity to embrace a multitude of possible meanings, and their
normative resonance” (Cornwall, 2007: 272). TD lends itself to being used as such,
but we must realize that, within this particular theme, usage will last only as long as
the trend upholds. Once out of vogue, a new word will be found as a substitute.
In the second subtheme (TD as an adjective), we still see a degree of ambiguity in
the usage and conceptualization of TD. But in those instances, we should not
understand it as a buzzword. The second subtheme presents the symbiotic
nature of the times when TD is used as an adjective. It is the ambiguity that
deserves closer attention now. In transdisciplinary collaborations, different
actors, with different epistemologies, methodologies, and disciplinary backgrounds
and from different institutional realities meet to work on projects of shared inter-
est. In the articles contributing to the second subtheme, TD seems to function as a
malleable concept facilitating collective action. Eisenberg (1984) was one of the
first to stress the functionality of ambiguity in organizational communication. The
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conceptual fuzziness surrounding TD, generally shunned by academics, may serve

a purpose and may even be worth protecting. There is an opportunity for “unified
diversity” when multiple viewpoints can be read into the same concept (Giroux,
2006: 1229). In this sense, TD is the conceptual glue that brings together otherwise
distinct territories. TD, as a boundary object, thus proves to be “both plastic
enough to adapt to local needs and the constraints of the several parties employing
them, yet robust enough to maintain a common identity across sites” (Star and
Griesemer, 1989: 393). When venturing beyond the boundaries of institutions and
disciplines, TD has the potential to temporarily serve as a collective anchor pro-
viding a sense of common ground for wandering nomads.
The scale of usage ends with a theoretically delineated usage of TD. In a way,
this can be understood as realizing the same objective, as compared to the previous
paragraph, by using different means. The strategic ambiguity discussed before is
employed for its potential for collective action, for generating communion in the
face of difference. The articles supporting the final subtheme (Theoretically delin-
eated usage) face similar challenges (i.e. the coming together of different episte-
mologies and communities of knowing etc.), but cope with it not by employing the
space generated by the malleability of TD, but rather by developing a meaningful
consensus about precisely that what brings them together.
The proposed scale illustrates how the same concept is used and conceptualized
in various ways. Different positions on the scale, subsequently, come with different
consequences and implications, as already touched upon in the introduction of this
article. Interestingly, by using TD as a buzzword however, one robs it of its con-
stitutive force. There is a desire to benefit from the buzz without having to rethink
or change common ways of doing things. If, to continue down the scale, TD is used
as the common ground for a hybrid collaboration (TD as an adjective), then it can
be necessary to negotiate how the ‘common ground’ relates to the ‘particular
grounds’ of the participating parties. Approaching the other end of the scale,
the implications for one’s educational or artistic modus operandi are expected to
become more significant. Once a meaningful consensus has been reached as
to what TD entails (Theoretically delineated usage) the attention can be directed
to, for example, finding an appropriate educational space, the exploration of how
different bodies of knowledge relate to each other, and how evaluation and
assessment must be organized. Different ways of using TD, as a concept, leads
us to encounter different questions and opportunities. The scale is helpful in con-
sidering, at an early stage, what types of encounters one hopes to facilitate by
mobilizing TD.

The position of the arts within transdisciplinary educational initiatives

Our second research question centers on how the arts are positioned in transdis-
ciplinary educational initiatives. In our results, we present three different position-
alities. In the first subtheme (an instrumentalized position), the arts fulfill an
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17

instrumentalized role in the educational activities. Opposed to that, we illustrate, in

the second subtheme (the artistic vantage point), how the arts can be the primary
framework from which a case study operates. And finally, in the third subtheme
(transdisciplinary approach), we describe several articles that situate themselves in
an already in-between space.
The differences between these subthemes can be best understood as differing
degrees of engagement in the transdisciplinary process. In order to make sense of
our findings, it is helpful to build upon Mobj€ ork’s (2010) work. She refined our
common understanding of TD through identifying the different roles actors can
play within transdisciplinary collaborations. Her work resulted in a distinction
between consulting and participatory TD, which we will use to clarify the differ-
ences between our subthemes.
The first and second subtheme resemble a consultancy mode of TD, in which
invited actors have “the role of responding and reacting to the research conducted”
(Mobj€ ork, 2010: 870). An important note however is that the second subtheme
moves in a counter-hegemonic direction. The arts are the primary perspective and
do the positioning, rather than being invited in an academic context because they
are thought to be of value to academically-inclined research interests.
The final subtheme, as opposed to the first two, leans more towards participa-
tory TD, characterized by its open and equal nature, in which all actors are
involved in choosing and developing research questions and methodologies. The
interactional space in which the educational collaboration is situated is not given,
but is co-constituted by the different actors involved. This integrative approach is
in many ways a “much more delicate task than restricting the actors included and/
or circumscribing their role in the research process” (Mobj€ ork, 2010: 871). Our
corpus has showed that the degree of integration is often not only dependent on
the intentions of the initiators, but also very much on limitations in practical
matters such as time, funding, and spatial constraints.
The distinction between consulting versus participatory TD is helpful in
clarifying the ways in which the arts are situated differently in transdisciplinary
educational initiatives. We acknowledge that, depending on one’s conceptualiza-
tion of TD, consulting TD will come across as a contradictio in terminis to some.
But we deem it useful because it explicitly draws attention to the constitution of
participation. It helps demonstrate that some actors are given, or take up, more
discursive space in the case studies than others. This comes with critical implica-
tions for the nature of the educational initiative, because it translates into who is
allowed to what degree to make decisions regarding, for example, assessment,
course contents, and the bodies of knowledge that are presented. Although it
falls largely outside the scope of our research, it is important to move the conver-
sation to power in transdisciplinary collaborations. Neglecting or “negating power
asymmetries between participants might weaken the transformative potential” of
participatory research and education (Fritz and Binder, 2018: 19).
van Baalen et al.
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Our analysis presents three main ways how the arts are part of transdisciplinary
educational compositions. These positionalities are not fixed. Contours of belong-
ing can change throughout a project. Our findings are not meant to be read as a
normative account of participation and engagement in transdisciplinary education,
rather we encourage scholars, artists, and educators to use our results to start
thinking about, and experimenting with, what positionalities, at what times, are
appropriate for the collaborations they wish to enable.

Future research
Our study presents a systematic review of the academic literature concerning itself
with higher education, the arts, and TD. There are two avenues of further research
that we wish to suggest. Firstly, we have centered our study on the academic
knowledge community. Future studies, working with similar methodologies,
could open up their search query to include a wider variety of materials (e.g.
books, videos, presentations) from databases representing a larger territory of
our knowledge landscape. Secondly, it is important to engage critically with how
(unbalanced) power relations feed into the nature, process, and evaluation of
transdisciplinary educational efforts involving the arts. In so doing, we can both
broaden and deepen our understanding of the practices and thinking situated at
the intersection between higher education, the arts, and TD.

Conclusion
Despite the plurality of the articles in our data set and the particularities of each,
mapping the ways scholars, artists, educators and a variety of other stakeholders
bring together higher education, the arts, and TD holds great potential for collec-
tive learning and doing beyond the confines of traditional disciplinary boundaries.
Our introduction of the scale as a sense-making metaphor upholds the possibility
for concurrent difference when it comes to the usage and conceptualization of TD.
Ambiguity and multiplicity are not complications in collaborative processes, but
can be thought of as “qualities that signal marvellous potentials for an on-going,
open-ended fabrication of the world” (Gough, 2006: 116). Our examination of the
positionality of the arts within transdisciplinary educational initiatives can help
educators with transdisciplinary ambitions to have enhanced conversations about
participation, engagement, and inclusion. The need for further exploration not-
withstanding, our findings present an improved vantage point from which we can
consider how our usage and conceptualization of TD, and our artistic positioning,
can facilitate the type of educational collaborations we envision, and how each
choice comes with its own implications for our artistic and educational practice.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, author-
ship, and/or publication of this article.
42
van Baalen et al. Research in Education 111(1)
19

Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, author-
ship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the Dutch Research
Council through the Comenius Leadership Fellowship [grant number 405.18865.732].

ORCID iD
Wander M van Baalen https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9442-2084

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