Practical steps for using interdisciplinary educational research to enhance cultural awareness

This article adds to the dialogue on multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research, providing definitions and practical steps for using interdisciplinary educational research to enhance cultural awareness. Informed by a research study conducted by seven primary researchers situated in the U.K. and Kazakhstan, along with local partners, we sought to combine our varied disciplinary knowledge to examine the socio-educational topic of students’ well-being in post-Soviet Kazakhstan. Through integrating disciplinary perspectives in particular from psychology, anthropology and sociology into educational research for a longitudinal study (2015–2017), we found enhanced cultural awareness relating to an expanded level of trust and strengthened socio-linguistic translations. The article provides practical steps with key examples from the study to demonstrate our process of utilizing interdisciplinary educational research. Findings suggest the challenges and potential of utilizing these practical steps for facilitating the move from multidisciplinary to interdisciplinary educational research to enhance cultural awareness.