The Natural Sciences in the University: Change and Variation over the 20th Century

Gabler, Jay; Frank, David John

doi:10.1177/003804070507800301

Cited by 26 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…The degree to which the current disciplinary structure has been endured historically is a question over which the theorists discussed above differ. Frank & Gabler (2006) document long-term shifts in the relative size of different academic fields (see also Gabler & Frank 2005). Their work is distinctive in emphasizing the global nature of these trends: Their analysis draws on data they compiled on universities in 89 countries spanning the course of a century.…”

Section: The Rise Of Professional and Applied Departmentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Interdisciplinarity: A Critical Assessment

2009

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This article draws together disparate research and theorizing on interdisciplinarity. We first describe widespread efforts to promote interdisciplinarity in U.S. universities and critically examine the assumptions underlying these initiatives. Next, we present a cross-sectional view of interdisciplinary communication, knowledge diffusion, research assessment, and interdisciplinary research centers. We then describe research and theories that provide historical perspectives on the disciplinary system, interdiscipline formation, applied and professional fields, and institutional fragmentation. We present original findings on the prevalence of research centers, faculty hiring patterns in hybrid fields, and the diffusion of research across disciplines in the humanities and social sciences. The review concludes with a critical summary and suggestions for future research.

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Section: The Rise Of Professional and Applied Departmentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Interdisciplinarity: A Critical Assessment

2009

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“…Also, there is much ontology-based change, as knowledge in the form of inert substantive facts ("what is" knowledge) gets rearranged into process-oriented abstract principles, suited to the capacities of activated individuals ("how to" knowledge). This shift is clearly apparent in the retreat of taxonomic frameworks in the natural sciences and the onrush of actor-directed experimentation (Gabler and Frank 2005;McEneaney 2003).…”

Section: Changes In the Theory Of Knowledgementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Exactly the same thing is now underway even more intensely, with recent rates of university creation and expansion exceeding those of the earlier Modern period (Riddle 1989;Schofer and Meyer 2005). In a sample of British Commonwealth universities, for example, the mean number of university faculty spiraled upward between 1955 and 1995 -from 270 to 711 (Gabler and Frank 2005).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

University expansion and the knowledge society

2007

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For centuries, the processes of social differentiation associated with Modernity have often been thought to intensify the need for site-specific forms of role training and knowledge production, threatening the university's survival either through fragmentation or through failure to adapt. Other lines of argument emphasize the extent to which the Modern system creates and relies on an integrated knowledge system, but most of the literature stresses functional differentiation and putative threats to the university. And yet over this period the university has flourished. In our view, this seeming paradox is explained by the fact that modern society rests as much on universalistic cosmological bases as it does on differentiation. The university expands over recent centuries because -as it has from its religious origins -it casts cultural and human materials in universalistic terms. Our view helps explain empirical phenomena that confound standard accounts: the university's extraordinary expansion and global diffusion, its curricular and structural isomorphism, and its relatively unified structure. All of this holds increasingly true after World War II, as national state societies made up of citizens are increasingly embedded in a world society constituted of empowered individuals. The redefinition of society in global and individual terms reduces nationally bounded models of nature and culture, extends the pool of university beneficiaries and investigators, and empowers the human persons who are understood to root it all. The changes intensify universalization and the university's rate of worldwide growth. For the university's knowledge and "knowers," and for the pedagogy that joins them together, the implications are many. The emerging societal context intensifies longstanding processes of cultural rationalization and ontological elaboration, yielding great expansions in what can and should be known, and in who can and should know. These changes in turn alter the menu of approved techniques for joining knowledge and knower as one. The "knowledge society" that results is distinguished by the extraordinary degree to which the university is linked to society. But it is also distinguished by the degree to Theor Soc (2007) 36:287-311 which society is organized around the university's abstracted and universalized understandings of the world and its degree-certified graduates.In this article, we examine the contemporary development of the university around the world. Over recent decades, higher education has amassed a large and rapidly increasing population of young persons thought eligible for study, the great majority of whom attend university-level institutions rather than more limited or specialized schools. Now approximately 20% of the relevant age cohort is enrolled in higher education worldwide (Altbach 1998;Schofer and Meyer 2005; UNESCO 2005). Not only are more people involved in tertiary schooling but also more kinds of people are understood to be appropriate candidates (some once stigmatized, as with females o...

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“…Earlier, the revised conception of nature from a chaotic wild or divine creation to a lawful realm ordered by abstract principles catalyzed the rise of the natural sciences in the university (Gabler and Frank 2005). Subsequently, the reimagination of society along comparable lines spurred the explosion of the social sciences (Wong 1991 Frank and Gabler 2006).…”

Section: Argumentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…See, e.g.,Ramirez and Boli (1987),Benavot et al (1991),Baker and LeTendre (2005),Gabler and Frank (2005),Cole (2006),Suárez (2007), andRobinson (2011). This content downloaded from 128.163.2.206 on Thu, 16 Jun 2016 23:44:12 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms…”

mentioning

confidence: 97%