Do crossdisciplinar competences exist?

Abstract

Why is the idea of «crossdisciplinar» competences so present in the contemporary pedagogical
discourse? Why do we keep on trying to find competences that must be «transversal» to school disciplines?
It is probable that this new notion will bring an answer to an ancient problem: the problem of knowing what is the knowledge learnt at school for. It seems that, apart from knowing how to read or to count, the competences from school are not useful once you leave it.
Most teachers believe that competences contribute to train, to shape youngsters, although they are not useful for life. Furthermore, they believe that through those competences some wider and more general competences are built and these will be useful for their personal, social and professional life. Therefore the idea of competences being transversal to subjects. It is important to emphasize the role that those competences play on the preparation for professional life because of nowadays imperative of training for mobility, which demands adaptative competences rather than specialized, as it used to.