Scholarship of Integration vs Scholarship of Discovery
Discussion
Gary Hampson:
"Boyer’s (1990) scholarship of integration provides the paper’s scholarship modality; it also synergies with the paper’s object of inquiry (integration). Scholarship of integration involves the quest for “new topologies of knowledge” (p. 19) stretching across boundaries in service of meaning enhancement, among other things (Boyer, 1990). This form of scholarship complements the more conventional scholarship of discovery, which focuses on a narrow, tightly-bounded topic. In contrast, the scholarship of integration legitimises a wider, more loosely-bounded area of address.
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According to Boyer (1990), a key purpose of the scholarship of integration centres around meaning enhancement. He indicates that scholarship of integration scholars are those “who give meaning to isolated facts” (p. 18) with a view to “illuminating data in a revealing way” (p. 18), effecting the possibility of “more comprehensive understanding” (p. 19). Noting that “specialization, without broader perspective, risks pedantry” (p. 19), Boyer also indicates possible purposes of the scholarship of integration as including the furthering of authenticity and the quest for wisdom. "
Status
Gary Hampson:
"The scholarship of integration is one of four types of scholarship identified by Ernest Boyer as part of his 1990 report from the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching entitled Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate (Boyer, 1990). The other three are the scholarships of discovery, application and teaching respectively. Of all the types, Boyer considered the scholarship of integration the most important (Rice, 2005). Yet it appears to have had the least uptake by the academy as an overarching construct (Braxton, Luckley, & Helland, 2002; Rice, 2005). David Scott (2005) suggests that this is because it requires integrative epistemologies such as found in the emerging discourses of integral and holistic studies—a relatively rare occurrence."