The Academic Caste System
Prestige Hierarchies in PhD Exchange Networks
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 5014357 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Val Burris (University of Oregon, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2004 |
| Volume | 69 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 239-264 |
| Publication date | 2004-04-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | American Sociological Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0003-1224 • E-ISSN: 1939-8271 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/000312240406900205 |
| OpenAlex | W2007567350 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 232 |
| References cited | 69 |
The prestige of academic departments is commonly understood as rooted in the scholarly productivity of their faculty and graduates. I use the theories of Weber and Bourdieu to advance an alternative view of departmental prestige, which I show is an effect a department's position within networks of association and social exchange-that is, it is a form of social capital. The social network created by the exchange of PhDs among departments is the most important network of this kind. Using data on the exchange of PhDs among sociology departments, I apply network analysis to investigate this alternative conception of departmental prestige and to demonstrate its superiority over the conventional view. Within sociology, centrality within interdepartmental hiring networks explains 84 percent of the variance in departmental prestige. Similar findings are reported for history and political science. This alternative understanding of academic prestige helps clarify anomalies-e.g., the variance in prestige unconnected to scholarly productivity, the strong association between department size and prestige, and the long-term stability of prestige rankings-encountered in research that is based on the more conventional view
Centrality · Economic growth · Economics · Occupational prestige · Prestige · Productivity · Social science · Sociology · Statistics · Variance (accounting · Contemporary Sociological Theory and Practice · Demography · Social and Cultural Dynamics · Social Capital and Networks
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Considerable inequality in faculty hiring networks of German universities
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Systematic inequality and hierarchy in faculty hiring networks
Navel Gazing
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Prestige-biased social learning
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Clientelism and Universalism
Organizational Context and Scientific Productivity
Productivity and Academic Position in the Scientific Career
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Quality of Department of Doctoral Training and Research Productivity
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Social Capital
Stratification in American Science
Networks as the Pipes and Prisms of the Market
Generalized Exchange
Careers in Print
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| Unique citing works | 232 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 10,55 |
| Citation span | 2004 - 2026 (23) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | Yes |
| Citation types | Neutral: 229 |