The CO-SPACE Model: Developing an Analytical Framework for Interdisciplinary Student Collaboration

Grasping the complex field of interdisciplinary collaboration in education has been an ongoing topic of interest in both research and teaching practice. Research highlights several elements such as common goals (boundary objects), interdependency, shared mental models, trust, mutual respect, reflexivity, epistemological transparency, awareness of discipline specific routine behaviors, quality of communication, stability and construction of the team. However, research also agrees that interdisciplinary collaboration is complex and that educational attempts to create these settings often fail in practice. Further, the literature heavily focuses either on the actors’ involvement and actions within the interdisciplinary context or on the structural elements of said context, giving less attention to the interplay and interconnectedness between actors and structures in interdisciplinary collaboration. By introducing the concept of relational space, interdisciplinary collaboration is provided with a holistic approach to understanding the complex system students encounter when participating in an interdisciplinary collaborative space. Through a reconceptualization of Löw’s sociological model within education, this article expands the literature with an integrated perspective of interdisciplinary collaboration in education including both structural and interpersonal elements. By analytically bringing together actors and institutions, the Interdisciplinary Collaborative Space in Education (CO-SPACE) framework enables an examination of interdisciplinary collaboration as a relational participation space. This approach highlights interdisciplinary collaboration as a multidimensional system, including multiple interacting layers and aspects. Institutional structures, social goods and people all influence the “prefixed” space, affecting how students interpret and place themselves and others within the established participation space, in turn determining access possibilities and how power unfolds. The analysis particularly brings attention to the emergence of sub-spaces, temporal dynamics, and knowledge-related access asymmetries.