Doctoral Dissertation Research: A Sociological Analysis of Competing Explanations for Curricular Change

SES：0622299 PI：Jeff Goodwin CO-PI：该项目探讨了跨学科学术研究的新领域如何在美国高等教育中制度化。它提出了两个主要问题。首先，什么机制和过程导致课程改革，特别是新的跨学科课程和计划的发展？为了回答这个问题，该项目将比较和测试基于市场，机构特征，扩散，教师压力和学生运动的解释。假设学生运动在理解这些项目何时、何地以及如何出现方面至关重要，该项目提出了第二个问题：我们如何理解高等教育机构和更普遍的机构内的社会运动的动态？为了回答这些问题，该项目依赖于一个多方法的研究策略，包括一个原始数据集的60个随机选择的高等教育机构。将通过定性比较分析和统计方法对这些数据进行分析。该项目还依赖于一系列基于档案研究的案例研究。该项目将以几种方式促进社会学知识。首先，它将确定在解释高等教育制度变迁中最重要的因素。其次，它将增加机构内社会运动这一相对研究不足的领域。第三，这将是第一个社会科学研究，使用所谓的模糊集定性比较分析的相对较新的方法技术。最后，它将增加社会学家对所研究的跨学科领域的知识储备。更广泛的影响：该项目的结果将通过会议介绍和期刊出版物以及通过将提供给参与该研究的每个机构的结果执行摘要而广泛传播。这个项目的结果可以帮助高等教育管理人员更好地理解和管理自己的机构内发生的变化过程。

SES: 0622299PI: Jeff GoodwinCO-PI: Mikaila Mariel Lemonik ArthurThis project explores how new fields of interdisciplinary academic inquiry become institutionalized in American higher education. It asks two main questions. First, what mechanisms and processes have lead to curricular transformations, specifically the development of new interdisciplinary courses and programs? In seeking to answer this question, the project will compare and test explanations based on the market, institutional characteristics, diffusion, faculty pressure, and student movements. Hypothesizing that student movements are of key importance in understanding when, where, and how such programs have emerged, the project poses a second question: How can we understand the dynamics of social movements within institutions of higher education and within institutions more generally? To answer these questions, the project relies on a multi-methods research strategy, including an original data set on sixty randomly selected institutions of higher education. This data will be analyzed through qualitative comparative analysis as well as through statistical methods. The project also relies on a series of case studies based on archival research. This project will advance sociological knowledge in several ways. First, it will determine the factors that are of most importance in explaining institutional changes in higher education. Second, it will add to the relatively under-studied field of social movements within institutions. Third, it will be one of the first social-scientific studies to use the relatively new methodological technique of so-called Fuzzy-Set Qualitative Comparative Analysis. Finally, it will add to the store of knowledge sociologists have developed about the interdisciplinary areas studied. Broader Impacts: The results of this project will be widely disseminated through conference presentations and journal publications, as well as through an executive summary of the results that will be made available to each institution that has participated in this research. The results of this project may help higher-education administrators to understand and manage better processes of change occurring within their own institutions.