In Europe and elsewhere there are numerous calls for, and advocacy of, an inter-disciplinary approach within the fields of Education and Sport & Exercise Science /Human Movement Studies (SES/HMS). Increasingly research-granting bodies demand it. Both Education and SES/HMS are multi-disciplinary fields, but that does not mean that academics communicate across the sub- disciplines or even within sub-disciplines.

Providing evidence from an experience at a recent European conference I will highlight a number of serious issues that militate against any genuine form of intra and inter-disciplinarity. In particular I will consider how and why rhetoric, ideology, academic identity and vested interests represent significant barriers to intra-disciplinary approaches within sport pedagogy and to inter-disciplinary approaches across the fields of SES/HMS and Education. This has implications for the academic socialization of our future graduates and accordingly for the future of our field. As a way forward, I offer evolutionary psychologist, Jerome Barkow’s notion of vertical (compatible) integration as worth considering as we think about the possibilities of intra and inter-disciplinary approaches to research in sport pedagogy and education.

Barkow, J. (2011). Missing the Revolution: Darwinism for social scientists.