THE SIGNIFICANCE OF DISCIPLINARY DIFFERENCES

Although it is evident that disciplines have their distinctive cultura l characteristics, this consideration tends to be largely overlooked i n research into, as well as policy-making within, higher education. Th e paper aims to draw attention to some of the resulting inadequacies i n analysis and to explore their consequences. After offering an overvi ew of the various disciplinary cultures, it examines different facets of academic activity at the macro, meso and micro levels and suggests that in each case the differences between disciplines are important en ough to merit general recognition. The author concludes with a brief s peculation on why the issue is so widely neglected.