Agnes Callard — Publish and Perish

This post is a recent essay by philosopher Agnes Callard about the problems with academic writing.  It was published in The Point.   In this essay, she explores the way that professionalization has ruined scholarly writing.  The need to sound professional and publish in the kinds of serious journals that are the route to tenure and …

How NOT to Defend the Private Research University

This post is a piece I published today in the Chronicle Review.  It's about an issue that has been gnawing at me for years.  How can you justify the existence of institutions of the sort I taught at for the last two decades -- rich private research universities?  These institutions obviously benefit their students and faculty, …

Clare Coffey — Closing Time: We’re All Counting Bodies

This is a lovely essay by Clare Coffey from the summer issue of Hedgehog Review.  In it she explores the extremes in contemporary American life through the medium of two recent books:  those who have been shunted aside in the knowledge economy and destined to deaths of despair, and those who occupy the flashiest reaches …

How Credentialing Theory Explains the Extraordinary Growth in US Higher Ed in the 19th Century

Today I am posting a piece I wrote in 1995. It was the foreword to a book by David K. Brown, Degrees of Control: A Sociology of Educational Expansion and Occupational Credentialism.   I have long been interested in credentialing theory, but this is the only place where I ever tried to spell out in detail …

Public Schools for Private Gain: The Declining American Commitment to Serving the Public Good

This post is a piece I published in Kappan in November, 2018.  Here's a link to the original. Public schools for private gain: The declining American commitment to serving the public good When schooling comes to be viewed mainly as a source of private benefit, both schools and society suffer grave consequences. By David F. …

Academic Writing Issues #8 — Getting Off to a Fast Start

The introduction to a paper is critically important.  This is where you try to draw in readers, tell them what you're going to address, and show why this issue is important.  It's also a place to show a little style, demonstrating that you're going to take readers on a fun ride.  Below are two exemplary …

From Citizens to Consumers — Abbreviated Version with New Conclusion about Why We Keep Trying to Reform Schools

This is an updated and abbreviated version of the lecture I posted on December 2.  It makes for an easier read, plus I've added a piece at the end trying to answer the question: Why do we keep trying to reform schools? Here's the new conclusion about the endless efforts to reform schools:   This …

Research Universities and the Public Good

This post is a review essay of a new book called Research Universities and the Public Good.  It appeared in the current issue of American Journal of Sociology.  Here's a link to a PDF of the original. Research Universities and the Public Good: Discovery for an Uncertain Future By Jason Owen-Smith. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University …

Academic Writing Issues #6 — Mangling Metaphors

Metaphor is an indispensable tool for the writer.  It carries out an essential function by connecting what you're talking about with other related issues that the reader already recognizes.  This provides a comparative perspective, which gives a richer context for the issue at hand.  Metaphor also introduces a playful characterization of the issue by making …

US Higher Education and Inequality: How the Solution Became the Problem

This post is a paper I wrote last summer and presented at the University of Oslo in August.  It's a patchwork quilt of three previously published pieces around a topic I've been focused on a lot lately:  the role of US higher education -- for better and for worse -- in creating the new American …