Abstract
Combining work from the related but distinct fields of sociology of knowledge and sociology of education, we explore the effects of the changing landscape of higher education on the academic knowledge production system. Drawing on 100 interviews with faculty members from 34 disciplines at an elite private research university, we show that faculty members perceive exponentially increasing pressures to produce, and identify the ways that those pressures can negatively impact the knowledge creation process. We then examine the ways those pressures to produce influence how faculty evaluate their colleagues’ work, leading faculty to extend the benefit of the doubt, rely on reputation, and emphasize the peer review process, even as they simultaneously critique its weaknesses. Finally, we show that faculty members ultimately reconcile their perceptions of weaknesses in the current knowledge production system with their belief in that system by emphasizing their own and their colleagues’ commitment to resisting structural pressures to produce. While much of the existing body of scholarship on the changing higher education landscape has focused on teaching and learning outcomes, this study contributes to our understanding of how those changes impact the research process, underscoring the relationship between institutional structures and evaluative processes.
Highlights
The sociology of education and the sociology of knowledge—related but distinct fields with surprisingly little overlap (Hermanowicz 2012)—both examine how information is created and disseminated
Research on the changing nature of the modern academy and the identification of increasing pressures to produce is not new, we introduce here an analysis of the specific ways pressures to produce impact how faculty members go about the knowledge production process
Our findings show that across arts and humanities, social sciences, and STEM fields, there are multiple points in the academic research system at which ever-increasing pressures to produce have a significant impact on knowledge creation and evaluation
Summary
The sociology of education and the sociology of knowledge—related but distinct fields with surprisingly little overlap (Hermanowicz 2012)—both examine how information is created and disseminated. In the sociology of education, the sociology of higher education focuses on exploring educational processes, policies, and experiences in the context of colleges and universities (Clark 1973; Deem 2004; Gumport 2007; Stevens et al 2008). In recent years, increasing attention has been paid by sociologists of higher education to the changing nature of the modern academy (e.g., Ginsberg 2011; Neumann 2009; Tuchman 2009, 2011). Across higher education, there has been an increasing corporatization of colleges and universities (Cote and Allahar 2011; Ginsberg 2011; Hermanowicz 2016b; Herrmann 2017). Fourth—and especially at research-oriented colleges and universities—faculty members are under ever-escalating pressures to produce (Finkelstein et al 2016; Hermanowicz 2016a).
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