This is a list of academic disciplines. An academic| discipline, or field of study, is a branch of knowledge which is taught| or researched at the college or university level. Disciplines are defined and recognised by the academic journals in which research is published, and the learned societies| and academic departments or faculties to which their practitioners belong.
Fields of study usually have several sub-disciplines or branches, and the distinguishing lines between these are often both arbitrary and ambiguous.
Historically (in medieval Europe), there were only four faculties| in a university: Theology, Medicine, Jurisprudence and Arts, with the last one having a somewhat lower status than the other three. Today's disciplines have their roots in the mid- to late-19th century secularization of universities, when the traditional curriculum was supplemented by non-classical languages and literatures, physics, chemistry, biology, and engineering. In the opening decades of the 20th century, education, sociology, and psychology took their place in the university curriculum.
A "*" denotes a field whose academic status is debated. Note that the area into which some fields should be classified is debated, such as whether anthropology and linguistics are social sciences disciplines or humanities disciplines.
Classification of Instructional Programs (CIP 2000): Developed by the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics to provide a taxonomic scheme that will support the accurate tracking, assessment, and reporting of fields of study and program completions activity.
