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

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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.