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

SES: 0622299PI: Jeff GoodwinCO-PI: Mikaila Mariel Lemonik arthur该项目探讨了跨学科学术探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了课程的转变，特别是新的跨学科课程和项目的发展？为了回答这个问题，该项目将比较和测试基于市场、制度特征、扩散、教师压力和学生运动的解释。假设学生运动对于理解这些项目的出现时间、地点和方式至关重要，该项目提出了第二个问题：我们如何理解高等教育机构内部和更广泛的机构内部的社会运动动态？为了回答这些问题，该项目依赖于多方法研究策略，包括随机选择的60所高等教育机构的原始数据集。这些数据将通过定性比较分析和统计方法进行分析。该项目还依赖于基于档案研究的一系列案例研究。这个项目将在几个方面促进社会学知识的发展。首先，它将确定在解释高等教育制度变化时最重要的因素。其次，它将增加对机构内社会运动的研究相对不足的领域。第三，它将是第一批使用相对较新的所谓模糊集定性比较分析方法的社会科学研究之一。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演讲和期刊出版物以及将向参与这项研究的每个机构提供的结果执行摘要的方式广泛传播。这个项目的结果可以帮助高等教育管理者更好地理解和管理他们自己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.