A discipline is a domain of knowledge with its own methods. What makes a discipline a discipline — as opposed to a topic or a loose collection of ideas — is methodological independence: it has its own standards for what counts as evidence, how claims are validated, and how inquiry proceeds.
Mathematics proves. Sociology observes and theorizes. Philosophy argues. Ecology measures and models. These are not interchangeable. The methods of a discipline are among its most important content — they determine what kind of knowledge the discipline can produce and what forms that knowledge takes.
Disciplines can contain subdisciplines. A subdiscipline inherits from its parent but has enough methodological specificity to warrant independent treatment. Pedagogy is a subdiscipline of education; critical theory is a subdiscipline of philosophy. The nesting follows methodological refinement: each subdiscipline specializes the parent’s methods for a more specific domain of inquiry.
Disciplines can also contain schools — named traditions that share the discipline’s subject matter but differ in methodology, epistemology, or emphasis. Critical pedagogy and constructivism are schools within pedagogy: they study the same things (teaching, learning) but differ in their methods and commitments.
In the ASR, disciplines are top-level directories. Each discipline directory can contain terms, concepts, topics, schools, texts, curricula, methods, and subdisciplines. The directory organization specification describes the standard structure; not every discipline has all of these, and only those with content are created.