As a field of research, Higher Education Research (HER) has historically been thought about either as a discipline or an interdiscipline. This paper tries to overcome such dichotomies by reconceptualising contradictions still alive in the field by looking at HER as it develops when enacted in/through research. To that end, we develop a theoretical account of epistemic interfaces – relational sites where individual epistemic thinking engages with socially distributed epistemic norms and practices – to examine how HER and individual researchers can advance reciprocally. Drawing on social epistemology (Goldman, 2011), we address uncertainty about HER’s disciplinary status by theorizing how epistemic plurality and friction (c.f. Medina, 2013) condition possibilities for research development beyond accumulation alone, understood as the linear integration of findings into unified frameworks. In acknowledging the scarcity of theoretically focused research conceptualising the development of HER, we identify conceptual contradictions scattered in the field. By integrating and differentiating theoretical strands, we seek to reposition the need of epistemic plurality and friction in the making of HER.

From a social epistemological perspective, knowing is fundamentally an activity of individual epistemic agents, yet one that is unavoidably shaped by social arrangements, norms, and institutions that condition successful inquiry (Goldman, 2011). Epistemic thinking (Barzilai & Zohar, 2014) is therefore neither arbitrary nor idiosyncratic. Rather, it is shaped by what Castorina and Faigenbaum (2002) describe as internal and external constraints. Internal constraints refer to the epistemic commitments, habits, and interpretive resources individuals bring to inquiry, largely analogous to epistemic thinking, whereas external constraints refer to the normative, methodological, and conceptual structures of the domains in which knowing is enacted. Following this, we consider disciplines as mid-level epistemic systems, non-deterministic sets of external constraints that may be more or less ‘well-structured’. From a relational perspective (Castorina & Faigenbaum, 2002), individual epistemic thinking develops through repeated engagement with externally structured practices, with such practices themselves being sustained and transformed through the activity of individuals over time.

This is particularly salient in HER, which is widely recognized as a plural, even a-theoretical, discipline that draws on other established disciplines, especially psychology, sociology, and economics (Lovakov & Yudkevich, 2023; Tight, 2004; Orona, 2021). Researchers engaging with HER are often shaped by various disciplinary backgrounds and encounter external constraints that are comparatively weakly standardized. Consequently, results often serve to restate prior conceptual frameworks (Ashwin, 2012) and fail to make use of methodological resources available in HER (Huisman, 2024). However, interdisciplinary research and epistemic diversity perspectives foreground plausible advantages of engaging within joint epistemic spaces (Talbi & van Woerden, 2025). Although not all the epistemic goods that individuals bring in light of their epistemic commitments are negotiable, the potential of such spaces lies in the way differing constraints become visible when emergent friction is engaged (Medina, 2013). In this, interdisciplinary development can be considered at not only the between- and above-disciplines level (Talbi & van Woerden, 2025), but as grounds for individual epistemic change as well (Bendixen & Rule, 2004).

Even so, developments at different levels are considered reciprocally related but asynchronous. Although changes in individual commitments are understood to be “slow” (Bendixen & Rule, 2004), they are comparatively faster than changes at the level of an epistemic system (cf. Popkewitz, 1997). In the context of HER, this perspective opens analytic space for examining how epistemic plurality functions not merely as a challenge to the coherence of the field, but as a condition under which different forms of research development may become intelligible.

This paper adopts theory development as its primary methodological approach in light of its need in HER (Wald et al., 2024). Following Hamann and Kosmützky (2021), theoretical work is treated as a legitimate and necessary mode of inquiry in fields characterized by conceptual fragmentation, as it enables clarification of assumptions, articulation of relationships, and integration across otherwise disconnected strands of scholarship. In the context of HER, where plural theoretical traditions and disciplinary backgrounds coexist (Lovakov & Yudkevich, 2023), such theory work is particularly warranted. Recent calls within educational psychology likewise emphasize that advancing knowledge requires not only methodological and ethical reform, but also renewed attention to how theory is developed, evaluated, and revised (Greene, 2022). The theory work undertaken here is conceptual-analytic and integrative in nature. Rather than proposing a comprehensive or unifying theory of HER, the paper develops a mid-level conceptual construct – epistemic interfaces – by bringing social epistemology into dialogue with research on epistemic thinking and HER. In line with the notion of “philosophizing with” (Dohn, 2011), epistemology is not employed as an external foundation or corrective, but as a dialogue partner that helps clarify how individual epistemic agency and socially distributed epistemic practices interact in HER contexts. This approach aligns with prior philosophical engagements in HER that have sought to support disciplinary development through conceptual clarification rather than paradigm imposition (Orona, 2021). Development is understood here in a non-teleological sense. Drawing on Amsel et al. (1997), development is conceptualized as potentially involving stability, variability, differentiation, or reorganization, depending on contextual conditions. This framing allows epistemic change to be theorized without presupposing progress, convergence, or cumulative integration. It also underpins the paper’s emphasis on reciprocal but asynchronous change, whereby individual epistemic commitments and broader epistemic systems may evolve at different paces and in different directions. The theorizing presented is constrained and evaluated through engagement with established literatures in social epistemology, epistemic cognition, interdisciplinarity, and HER. In line with recent discussions of theory development in educational psychology, the proposed account is assessed for adequacy with reference to Greene’s (2022) virtues of theory development, such as plausibility and internal consistency. Attention is likewise paid to historical and critical accounts of interdisciplinarity that caution against forced synthesis or homogenization (Graff, 2016). Together, these constraints aim to ensure that the theory developed is both intellectually responsible and generative for future empirical and theoretical work.

This paper has argued that HER can be productively understood through the lens of epistemic interfaces: relational sites at which individual epistemic thinking encounters socially distributed epistemic norms, practices, and constraints. By theorizing these interfaces, the paper offers a viable unit of analysis for examining how researchers enact knowing in epistemically plural fields, and how individual and collective forms of epistemic development may unfold under conditions of disciplinary heterogeneity. Rather than treating plurality as a deficit to be resolved through theoretical or methodological homogenization, the analysis foregrounds how epistemic friction can make underlying epistemic commitments visible and open to reflexive engagement. Building on this analysis, the paper proposes the model of meta-disciplinary thinking for understanding research development in HER. This model emphasizes meta-level epistemic engagement as a central feature of research activity in contradictory (singular-plural) fields. The model is not intended to replace existing accounts of disciplinarity grounded in theoretical or methodological cohesion, nor to imply that such forms of cohesion are undesirable. Rather, it highlights a different organizing principle: one in which epistemic plurality and dialogue across disciplinary boundaries constitute a potential epistemic advantage. Importantly, proposing meta-discipline is not a claim about what HER should become, nor an attempt to stabilize its identity once and for all. Disciplines are historically contingent and subject to ongoing transformation. In this sense, meta-discipline is offered as a descriptive and analytic lens that more accurately captures the current epistemic condition of HER—one that has persisted for decades—while opening alternative ways of thinking about research development beyond accumulation alone. By foregrounding epistemic interfaces and meta-disciplinary thinking, the paper aims to contribute conceptual resources for examining how plurality, rather than consensus, can figure productively in the ongoing development of research fields.

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