School & Academic Disciplines (DP IB Theory of Knowledge): Revision Note

School & academic disciplines

• Schools function as sources of knowledge by giving students access to shared, organised information from beyond their personal experience, through teaching, textbooks and assessments

• Schools introduce students to the academic disciplines; subject areas, e.g. biology, history, maths or economics, with their own subject-specific:

  • methods

  • standards of justification

  • perspectives

Subject-specific methods

• Different disciplines generate knowledge using different methods, e.g.:

  • natural sciences: controlled experiments and measurement are used to test explanations about the physical world

  • mathematics: proof is used to show that a statement is true by explaining it in clear steps that fall within agreed-upon rules

  • history: methods include analysing sources, evaluating reliability and building interpretations from evidence

• Academic disciplines utilise tools, e.g. statistical tests, databases and models to support methods and communicate ideas clearly

Standards of justification

• A discipline’s standards of justification are the rules it uses to decide whether a claim is supported well enough to accept it as knowledge

• Justification standards vary by discipline, but often include expectations about evidence quality, reasoning and whether other knowers can check the claim

  • In experimental subjects, relevant factors include:

    • repeatability

    • sample size

    • control of variables

  • In argument-based subjects, knowers may look for:

    • clarity of reasoning 

    • use of credible evidence

• Differing standards of justification explain why a claim may be accepted in one subject but questioned in another, e.g.:

  • a historian might accept the claim “the crowd panicked” if multiple independent eyewitness accounts describe this, while a psychologist might question it unless “panic” is defined and supported by observations of behaviour

  • a geographer might accept the claim that “this town is at higher flood risk” using modelling and mapped data, while an economist might question whether “risk” has been justified in terms of costs

Disciplinary perspectives on shared issues

• The same real-world issue can look different across disciplines because each discipline asks different questions, e.g.:

  • climate change can be approached through physical evidence (science), impact and incentives (economics) and questions of responsibility (ethics)

  • artificial intelligence can be approached through capability and design (computer science), effects on behaviour (psychology) and fairness or harm (ethics)

• Disciplines may complement each other when combining them produces a fuller understanding

• Different perspectives can also create disagreement because

  • a claim that is well-justified in one discipline may be treated as incomplete or unconvincing in another

  • solving a problem in one way can produce benefits in one area, but harms or risks in another