FOCUSED INQUIRY
In addition to Modes of Inquiry, there are important cross-cutting
intellectual themes about which Duke students need to be knowledgeable.
These themes represent enduring focal points of inquiry and application
of knowledge to which many disciplines speak. The three areas
of focused inquiry are: 1) Cross Cultural; 2) Science, Technology
and Society; and 3) Ethical Inquiry. We have selected these
themes for focused inquiry because of the expectation that Duke
students will need to address these issues throughout their lives
and careers, and because Dukeís faculty is well-poised to address
them.
Cross Cultural Inquiry (CCI)
Rationale: Globalization is reshaping political and economic
regimes as well as social and cultural relations in the United
States and throughout the world. Students living and working in
the 21st century need to become aware of the ways in which different
and shifting political economies, cultural identities, and social
issues and conflicts are negotiated. To be successful, Duke students
need formal and academic experience in the processes of exploring,
understanding, and analyzing differences among peoples and among
social systems within both national and international contexts.
CCI provides an academic engagement with the dynamics and interactions
of culture(s) in a comparative or analytic perspective. This type
of inquiry provides a scholarly, comparative, and integrative
study of political, economic, aesthetic, social and cultural differences.
It seeks to provide students with the tools to identify culture
and cultural difference across time or place, between or within
national boundaries. This includes but is not limited to the interplay
between and among material circumstances, political economies,
scientific understandings, social and aesthetic representations,
and the relations between difference/diversity and power and privilege
within and across societies. CCI encourages critical and responsible
attention to issues of identity, diversity, globalization, and
power so that students may evaluate complex and difficult issues
from multiple perspectives. In fulfilling the CCI requirement,
students are encouraged to undertake comparisons that extend beyond
national boundaries and their own national cultures and to explore
the impact of increasing globalization.
Objectives:
We seek for students to:
- increase understanding of the ways in which identities and
notions of difference are constructed, reinforced and changed
- develop an understanding of different national cultures, institutions,
and policies and the ways that these are being affected by and,
in turn, influencing global processes
- recognize stereotypes and to evaluate critically complex and
competing ideas about individual and group differences
- understand the processes by which categories of difference
change over time and in relationship to material circumstances,
political economies, social power and privilege and social and
cultural definitions of justice and right
- explore the role of scientific, medical, religious, aesthetic,
legal and other modes of analysis in constructing notions of
difference and diversity in particular cultures and societies
- examine commonly accepted notions of the normative through
analyses of cultural systems, political economies and social
relations
Requirement: Students must complete two CCI exposures.
Criteria: A course offering exposure in CCI meets both
of the following conditions:
- Courses investigate culture and identity as they are socially
constructed through nationality, relations of race, gender,
ethnicity, class, sexuality and/or shared world views (behavior,
arts, beliefs and institutions); and
- Courses have either a significant explicit and systematically
comparative component across different national or cultural
groups or across distinctively different historical periods,
or an in-depth, intensive examination of a given cultural group,
cultural region, or nation in a comparative or analytic perepective..
Science, Technology, and Society (STS)
Rationale: Advances in science and technology have wrought
profound changes in the structure of society in the modern era.
They have fundamentally changed our world, both its philosophical
foundations, as in the Copernican or Darwinian revolutions, and
in its practical everyday experience, as in the rise of the automobile
and television. In the second half of the 20th century, the pace
of such change has accelerated dramatically, and we have every
reason to believe that science and technology will play an even
greater role in shaping society in the coming century.
If Duke is to prepare its graduates to critically analyze and
evaluate the scientific and technological issues that will confront
them and to understand the world around them, they will need exposure
to basic scientific concepts and to the processes by which scientific
and technological advances are made and incorporated into society.
They must come to understand the interplay between science, technology
and society -- that is, how science and technology and society
have influenced the direction and development of society and,
conversely, how the needs of society have influenced the direction
of science and technology. Grappling with this interplay is essential
for understanding both the outcomes of the basic scientific enterprise
and how they apply to everyday life.
Objectives:
We seek for students to:
- know the historical and/or philosophical development of a
given scientific or technological subject. Students need to
develop the analytical skills necessary to examine the scientific,
political, and/or societal factors that ultimately came to bear
on the development and application of the particular topic.
- understand contemporary issues relating to the development
and application of a particular area of science and technology.
Exposures should address current and future issues by critically
assessing the aesthetic, ethical, sociological, and political,
in addition to scientific, factors that bear on the issue.
Requirement: Students will complete two STS exposures.
Criteria: A course offering exposure in STS meets one
of the following conditions:
- It examines in a sustained fashion the impact of major scientific
or technological developments on political, economic, philosophical,
ecological or sociological aspects of society.
- It addresses in a sustained fashiom the historical, social,
political, and/or economic roots of scientific or technological
fields or phenomena.
Ethical Inquiry (EI)
Rationale: Undergraduate education is a formative period
for engaging in critical analysis of ethical questions arising
from the world in which we live. Students need to be able to assess
critically the consequences of actions, both individual and social,
and to sharpen their understanding of the ethical and political
implications of public and personal decision-making. Thus, students
need to develop and apply skills in ethical reasoning and to gain
an understanding of a variety of ways in which ethical issues
and values frame and shape human conduct and ways of life.
Objectives:
We seek for students to:
- develop the capacity for discernment and choice about diverse
systems of values and competing courses of action
- acquire critical understanding of diverse meanings of justice,
goodness, and virtue across time, place, and communities
- develop the capacity to articulate ethical questions, to assess
competing claims and approaches to ethical thought, and to engage
in careful and critical reflection about individual and social
behavior, institutions, and ways of life
Requirement: Students must fulfill two Ethical Inquiry
(EI) exposures.
Criteria: A course offering exposure to Ethical Inquiry
meets at least one of the following conditions:
- It explores ethical arguments and beliefs within one or more
cultures, religions, or philosophical, dramatic, or literary
texts or traditions from a critical standpoint.
- It examines ethical and political issues and controversies
within a particular historical, disciplinary, professional,
or policy context.
- It combines coursework and service experiences with rigorous
reflection and writing on ethical issues.
Next: COMPETENCIES
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