Reconstructing the University : Worldwide Shifts in Academia in the 20th Century / David John Frank, Jay Gabler.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Frank, David John, Author.

Gabler, Jay, Author.

Contributor:

Meyer, John W., Contributor.

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource (272 p.) : 22 tables, 17 figures

Place of Publication:

Stanford, CA : Stanford University Press, [2022]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

Current conversations on the state of academia contain a broad sense of crisis over changes in the body of university knowledge—the decline of literature, the unbridling of ethnic studies, the growth of various applied programs, and so on. Much of the concern revolves around a perceived deterioration of the academic core in which, the thinking goes, the university's teaching and research priorities are increasingly compromised by external financial and political interests. With data on faculty and course composition over the twentieth century for a global sample of universities, this book provides an examination unprecedented in scope and scale of changes in academia. The authors document the changing emphases accorded the branches of learning, the applied and basic divisions, and the disciplinary fields. They find deep transformations, as anticipated, but offer a new explanation for these shifts. Changes in academic focus are less the work of outside interest groups, but instead are cultural maps to the altering features of globally institutionalized understandings of reality.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Acknowledgments

Foreword

Introduction: The Ongoing Reconstruction of the University

1. The Branches of Learning and the Basic and Applied Divisions

2. The Humanities

3. The Social Sciences

4. The Natural Sciences

5. The Subject Matters of History

6. Conclusion: Universities and the Global-Institutional Frame

Appendix A: Faculty Composition Data – Nation-States Sampled by Time Period

Appendix B: Course Composition Data – Nation-States Sampled by Time Period

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 31. Jan 2022)

ISBN:

1-5036-2585-0

OCLC:

1294424885