Distinctive Features of Interdisciplinarity at Faculties of Liberal Arts in Japanese Universities:

Analyzing the Subjects in Specialized Education

Abstract

This paper examines the management and qualitative features of interdisciplinarity through an analysis of subjects at Faculties of Liberal Arts in Japanese universities. I classified the subjects in specialized education by academic discipline. The number of departments was large in interdisciplinary fields. However, observing the number of subjects, the proportion of interdisciplinary fields was the smallest. The same was true of the method of classifying departments into five groups. In the interdisciplinary departments, I pointed out that there are two cases, one focusing on subjects in the Arts field and the other on subjects in Arts fields and Sciences fields in balance. The former proved to be a factor for the gap. When counting frequently occurring words of subjects, terms relating to interactive and collaborative classes appeared.