http://decasia.org/academic_culture/2009/08/doctoral-production-in-anthropology-and-the-social-sciences/ an anthropological look at universities in france and the united states Fri, 10 Sep 2010 22:55:08 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 http://decasia.org/academic_culture/2009/08/doctoral-production-in-anthropology-and-the-social-sciences/comment-page-1/#comment-1481 eli Sun, 22 Nov 2009 22:11:45 +0000 http://decasia.org/academic_culture/?p=821#comment-1481 I didn't mean to say anything about "tastes" or, for that matter, administrators' thought processes in general. My comment was meant to be simply about the direction of causality between disciplinary size and administrative decision-making. Yes, of course there are various ways of analyzing the processes by which these decisions get made, some of which would have to do with taste or personal pique, some with money, some with (ill-defined and problematic) ideas about prestige... certainly prestige matters, but I think attempted prestige maximization is but one of many important causal factors and not a kind of central lynchpin of the system. How would you go about doing more analysis of this, though? I didn’t mean to say anything about “tastes” or, for that matter, administrators’ thought processes in general. My comment was meant to be simply about the direction of causality between disciplinary size and administrative decision-making. Yes, of course there are various ways of analyzing the processes by which these decisions get made, some of which would have to do with taste or personal pique, some with money, some with (ill-defined and problematic) ideas about prestige… certainly prestige matters, but I think attempted prestige maximization is but one of many important causal factors and not a kind of central lynchpin of the system. How would you go about doing more analysis of this, though?

]]> http://decasia.org/academic_culture/2009/08/doctoral-production-in-anthropology-and-the-social-sciences/comment-page-1/#comment-1479 Michael Bishop Sun, 22 Nov 2009 21:30:54 +0000 http://decasia.org/academic_culture/?p=821#comment-1479 I don't think that its particularly helpful to refer to administrators' tastes in explaining the relative size of academic disciplines. They are trying to secure, federal and private sources of funding, satisfy undergraduates and secure their tuition, satisfy current faculty. To an under-appreciated extent, the desire for prestige drives the preferences of undergraduates, graduates, faculty, administrators, board members, etc. This deserves more analysis. I don’t think that its particularly helpful to refer to administrators’ tastes in explaining the relative size of academic disciplines. They are trying to secure, federal and private sources of funding, satisfy undergraduates and secure their tuition, satisfy current faculty. To an under-appreciated extent, the desire for prestige drives the preferences of undergraduates, graduates, faculty, administrators, board members, etc. This deserves more analysis.

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