Interdisciplinarity is generally explained as connections across established disciplines and pointed out as central to developing 21st century competencies (Drake & Reid, 2018, Drake & Reid, 2020). Interdisciplinary teaching is put on the agenda in Norwegian curricula for grades 1-13 (Ministry of Education and Research, 2017). The curriculum specifies three interdisciplinary topics to focus on: 1) Public Health and Life Skills, 2) Democracy and Citizenship, and 3) Sustainable Development. Since these topics will be taught interdisciplinary in schools, interdisciplinarity must also be reflected in teacher training programs. Arneback & Blåsjö (2017) show how the organization of teacher education is influenced by school content, both in terms of didactics and the arrangement of disciplines. In teacher education, the division into disciplines stands strong. There has been little cooperation across subjects, and there is a need for restructuring and change of work habits both in how education is administered and how teaching is carried out (Biseth et al., 2022). How can we meet such changes in teacher education? We asked 13 teacher educators for their opinion on factors that promote and inhibit interdisciplinary teaching and learning in teacher education. 

We did two focus group interviews at three different Universities, with 2-3 teacher educators in each group. In total, we have gathered data from 13 teacher educators with a variety of educational backgrounds and teaching experiences. We did a thematic analysis of the interviews and analyzed teacher trainers’ beliefs, based on their personal experiences, of what factors inhibit and promote interdisciplinary teaching in teacher education. In order to achieve interdisciplinarity in teacher education programs, the interviewees pointed towards a need for change in managment, leadership, methods used, and attitudes.  This is in line with recommendations made Santaolalla et al. (2020) who among others suggest that teacher educators need shared spaces available so that they easier can cooperate on how to promote interdisciplinary education, and new study plans with new learning styles to achieve 21st century skills.  

We did six semi-structured group interviews, at three different institutions that offer teacher education programs. Two interviews were done at each institution. All six interviews were audio recorded and transcribed verbatim and anonymized before analysis. The method of thematic analysis was used to evaluate the data (Braun & Clarke, 2006), consisting of six steps: 1) familiarization with the data, 2) generating initial codes, 3) searching for themes, 4) reviewing themes, 5) defining and naming themes, and 6) producing the manuscript. Notably, this method of analysis is recursive, meaning that each subsequent step in the analysis might have prompted us to circle back to earlier steps in light of newly emerged themes or data (Kiger & Varpio, 2020).

Although it is documented little cooperation across subjects in teacher education in Norway, we find that teacher educators are favorable towards collaborating for interdisciplinary teaching, given that the necessary resources are provided. The teacher educators ask for sufficient working hours to secure interdisciplinary collaboration, supportive leadership, avoiding becoming extracurricular, dedicated colleagues, ownership in what and how they teach. They also point out that there is a need for restructuring and a change of work habits both in how education is administered and how teaching is carried out.

Arneback, E. & Blåsjö, M. (2017) Doing interdisciplinarity in teacher education. Resources for learning through writing in two educational programmes, Education Inquiry, 8:4, 299-317. doi: 10.1080/20004508.2017.1383804 Biseth, H., Svenkerud, S. W., Magerøy, S. M., & Rubilar, K. H. (2022). Relevant Transformative Teacher Education for Future Generations. Front. Educ. 7:806495. doi: 10.3389/feduc.2022.806495 Drake, S. M. & Reid, J. L. (2018). Integrated Curriculum as an Effective Way to Teach 21st Century Capabilities. Asia Pacific Journal of Educational Research, 1(1), 31-50. Drake, S. M., & Reid, J. L. (2020, July). 21st century competencies in light of the history of integrated curriculum. In Frontiers in Education (Vol. 5, p. 122). Frontiers Media SA. Ministry of Education and Research (2017). Core curriculum– Interdisciplinary topics. National Curriculum for Knowledge Promotion in Primary and Secondary Education and Training 2020. Santaolalla, E., Urosa, B., Martín, O., Verde, A. & Díaz, T. (2020). Interdisciplinarity in Teacher Education: Evaluation of the Effectiveness of an Educational Innovation Project. Sustainability 12, 6748.