Academic pathfinders : knowledge creation and feminist scholarship / Patricia J. Gumport.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gumport, Patricia J.

Series:

Greenwood studies in higher education.

Greenwood studies in higher education, 1531-8087

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Women college teachers.

Women college students.

Women in higher education.

Feminism and education.

Learning and scholarship.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (217 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Distribution:

London : Bloomsbury Publishing, 2024

Place of Publication:

Westport, Conn. : Praeger, 2002.

Summary:

From the 1960s to the 1980s, a range of academic possibilities for women developed, as their career histories and intellectual biographies reveal. Some women sought to generate a new knowledge specialty in their disciplines, often explicitly defying admonishments that the subject matter was an oxymoron. Others pursued academic paths that disregarded these new opportunities and developments. Together their accounts portray how feminist scholarship emerged and was facilitated by historically specific conditions: a critical mass of like-minded women, a national political movement, an abundance of financial support for doctoral candidates, a tolerance from established faculty for students to pursue the margins of disciplinary scholarship, and an organizational capacity to add new academic categories for courses, programs, academic positions, and extra-departmental groups. That historical era has since been supplanted by feminist infighting and backlash, as well as more cost-conscious academic management practices, which have altered the academic landscape for knowledge creation. Analyzing the accounts of academic women during this era yields a conceptual framework for understanding how new knowledge is created on multiple levels-through personal reflection on life experiences, disciplinary legacies, local organizational contexts, and wider societal expectations.

Contents:

Cover

Academic Pathfinders

Contents

Series Foreword

Preface

Introduction

ORGANIZATION OF THE BOOK

1 The Dynamic Nature of Academic Knowledge

THE CENTRALITY OF KNOWLEDGE TO HIGHER EDUCATION

PRIOR LITERATURE ON ACADEMIC KNOWLEDGE

Historical Understandings of Curricular Change

Rise of Departmental/Disciplinary Organization

Factors Involved in the Emergence of New Fields

Mainstream Fields

Marginal Fields

Interdisciplinary Fields

The Organizational Factors That Constrain or Permit Change

The Views of Sociologists of Science

CRITIQUE OF PRIOR CONCEPTUALIZATIONS

A PROPOSAL FOR AN ALTERNATIVE FRAMEWORK

Disciplinary Paradigms

Organizational Paradigms

The Relevance of External Politics

2 Academic Feminism: Antecedents, Initiatives, and Unresolved Issues

POLITICAL CATALYSTS

ORGANIZATIONAL INITIATIVES

Women's Studies Programs

INTELLECTUAL ADVANCES

UNRESOLVED ISSUES

3 Investigating Knowledge Creation

THE RATIONALE FOR THE DESIGN

THE CORE SAMPLE AND THE INTERVIEW DATA

THE ANALYSIS BY GENERATION

Each Generation in Context

4 The Pathfinders' Breakthroughs

STARTING POINTS: GOING TO GRADUATE SCHOOL

Career Options for Women

Political Interests

POLITICAL ORIENTATIONS

FEMINIST AWAKENINGS

Sources of Feminist Awakenings

Forming Networks for Change

INTELLECTUAL CONTRIBUTIONS

Generating Feminist Questions

Extending Political Concerns

Finding Organizational Opportunities

Identifying Unexplored Terrain

5 Knowledge Creation in the Disciplines: History, Sociology, and Philosophy

HISTORY

SOCIOLOGY

PHILOSOPHY

DISCIPLINARY DIFFERENCES

6 Alternative Academic Pursuits: The Pathtakers and Forerunners

THE PATHTAKERS

THE FORERUNNERS

SUMMARY

7 Changing Conditions for Knowledge Creation.

THE CHANGING POLITICAL CONDITIONS

THE CHANGING CONDITIONS IN UNIVERSITIES

THE ORGANIZATION OF ACADEMIC KNOWLEDGE

Appendix: Notes on the Research Design and Methods

INTERVIEWS WITH THE CORE SAMPLE

Interview Guide for Primary Informants

Section 1: Career History

Section 2: Intellectual Biography

Section 3: Reflections on Feminist Perspectives in Academia

DATA ANALYSIS PROCEDURES

METHODOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS AND LIMITATIONS

Linking the Framework with Data

Utility of Interpretive Analysis

Bibliography

Index

About the Author.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (p. [179]-191) and index.

ISBN:

9798400606403

9786610468706

9781280468704

128046870X

9780313011047

0313011044

OCLC:

52768150