I posted about UNC-CH being "hellish". I heard this from a person I know who is no longer there; I have no first-hand knowledge. I heard they do not support junior faculty or students well except for a handful of "superstars".
I was in grad school at Indiana. It is a wonderful environment for both students and faculty.
9:44, if you read through, you can see that people are posting positive comments, as well. i agree that "department-bashing" for the sake of rationalizing failure is unproductive. however, legitimate requests for anonymous insider information otherwise unavailable is not.
UNC alum here. I'd say it's probably a fine place (as an assistant). the 70's building is inherently depressing and faculty largely keep to themselves (beyond the perpetually awkward holiday party & spring picnic), but on the plus side, it's not wracked by the kinds of internal divisions that many other places experience, and people are pretty friendly in general. publishing expectations are pretty high though.
I may decide to go for an assistant program officer position at a top foundation. It would pay more than an academic job, but the hours wouldn't be as flexible. Any idea how this would affect me in a couple of years if I chose to go on the academic job market?
Just when I am sending out applications, the AAUP sends out a 'Newsletter on Job Security for Part-time Faculty.' Here's are two depressing sentences... Although they that contextualize a lot of our personal woes in C. Wright fashion:
"In 1975, tenured and tenure-track faculty together constituted 57 percent of faculty nationwide. By 2005, the latest year for which figures are available, that combined group had been whittled down to merely 32 percent. Contingent faculty had meanwhile grown from 43 percent to 68 percent of the professoriate."
They even offer a chart (http://www.aaup.org/NR/rdonlyres/9218E731-A68E-4E98-A378-12251FFD3802/0/Facstatustrend7505.pdf) and suggest putting it on your office door!
6:59 - in my view this is not the most enlightening way of looking at the issue. What would matter more for me is the percentage of class-hours being delivered by contingent faculty. If you base it on the % of everyone involved - i.e., the number of individuals - then you don't know whether the load taken by contingent faculty has simply been spread among a larger number of individuals.
I realize that the figures you gave relate to the change over time, so there would have to be different rates of change for my comment to be relevant. So perhaps it's more a matter of presentation than of disagreeing with your conclusion.
12:45 : Other than finding it depressing, these are the AAUP's conclusions and presentation of information, not mine. I agree that the sort of information you are curious abt would be helpful and interesting... I'm just throwing it into the mix/midst...
I'm trying to figure out whether there is a trend here; are there some people out there with multiple "hits" (xs, nibbles, bites, interviews), regardless of whether at top institutions or not, and others with basically none? I'm from a top five, some publications, decent CV, and basically nothing from the over 20 jobs I applied to currently on Wiki! The dead silence is making me think that perhaps my pitching is off.
I think that's a good possibility (not for you, but for me). After I sent all my materials out, I had someone review them and he pointed out a TON of things that should have been done differently. Everything from the organization of my cv to the length of my cover letters and the phrasing of my my research description.
I am waiting until next year and trying this all again, but I know I made a LOT of mistakes in how I pitched myself and that's probably a big reason I got not nibbles. I am otherwise well-credentialed.
It's definitely the case that a wealthy few are sharing most of the spoils. That's the dynamic every year. From a system perspective, it's irrational (not to mention unfair). But from the perspective of each department, it's rational. Each department picks who it wants, irrespective of what other departments are doing. And many, many departments want the candidates with ASR/AJS/SF pubs and from top programs. Just look at the "events" pages of the departments that are hiring. You can see the overlap. The system is clogged because there are no systemic sorting mechanisms (that would be the matching strategy noted by others to be in effect in medicine).
I disagree. I don't think it is necessarily the case that there are a "wealthy" few that are taking up all the slots. I do think that there are a handful of candidates that are highly sought after, but there are also A LOT of really good, solid candidates out there, who are not necessarily "super stars". Schools have to make difficult decisions from an extremely strong applicant pool. A lot of good candidates have to be rejected. It's an issue of too many good applicants. The fact that there are a handful of amazing candidates does not help but I think the real problem is that there are just too many of us. And when the competition is that tight, small insignificant things start to matter and creep into the decision process making everything seem capricious.
First, I've been in ASR and AJS, and I wasn't complaining about the preference for them. I said it was rational. So take your sarcasm and shove it. Second, the question was whether there were a few people with a lot of market interest and a lot of other people with none. I think it's clearly the case, and that has a lot to do with whether a candidate has published in top journals.
Benny here. I posted my stats in another thread, so I won't repeat here. I applied to nearly 80 schools, with a rather well-put-together app. I've gotten 5 solid "nibbles" (short list, phone interview, campus interview), all slightly more teaching oriented, but certainly places I would like to be. I think the primary reason that I've gotten this type of feedback is because I sent out so many apps. I'm not a super star, and I'm not being pursued by top schools, but I'm happy. As one prof keeps telling me, you simply never know which schools are going to be interested, so apply widely.
And to second Karl, let's play nice, since none of us need extra stress from a blog. Keep in mind that tone often gets lost in writing, so be explicit, even if that means a well-placed "lol" or ":)".
Just curious: Did you all know how excruciating getting a job would be when you first decided to go to grad school? I had no idea. And no one told me-- not even the ABD folks who were going through it. Why has this culture of secrecy developed?
Interesting that we're all on here commiserating with one another over how much job-hunting stinks, yet we're also competing with one another for jobs. Sort of like Proletarians who know the economic system is exploitive and alienating, but in order to put food on the table, happily compete with each other for jobs.
I had no idea, and if you could do it all again, I would never go to grad school. Degree from top school and all. I'm just frustrated that dpts. keep churning out more people with useless degrees.
I'm nervous about my prospects in academia, but I definitely don't regret going to grad school. I've learned so much about myself, about my research interests, and I feel especially great about my research training and improved analytical skills. I come from a very poor family, and even if I don't get an academic job, the PhD will open so many more doors that would not have otherwise been available.
there are some really good people at iupui. i don't know about the teaching load, but there are plenty of resources to go around if you are motivated. indy isn't bad, either.
I did my undergrad at IUPUI and LOVED IT! I spent some time at the Bloomington campus of IU also, and while I liked IU a lot I really felt at home at IUPUI (I was in soc). The faculty were very involved with students - I did my first conference presentation as an undergrad at the urging of one of my professors. The small classes are great and you won't find any politics or problems among faculty.
I can't say enough good things about IUPUI. And don't discount the caliber of students either. A lot of really great students go there, especially non-traditional students. I wound up at a top-5 grad program out of IUPUI and I'm not the only person I know who id that either.
Oh, and as I remember it they do a great job of balancing research and teaching expectations for faculty.
an interesting question, about what we knew going in to grad school.
i think i did know how difficult the job market was. i certainly knew that there are a lot more graduates than jobs. but back when i started, i assumed that i wouldn't have much trouble climbing to the top of the pile (please forgive my arrogance; i was young and stupid). i figured i would just work hard and since i was at a top department it would all just be fine. i knew that it would be hard for some people, but i didn't know i would end up being one of those people!
i would do it again in a heartbeat though. for better or worse, i am not a sociologist because i thought it would bring me fame an fortune. i got in to this business because i really do love the research i do and i think it does matter. i can't imagine doing anything else.
When I came to grad school I was pretty naive about how this all worked. But I was under the impression that there weren't too many tenure track jobs and that adjunct positions were more likely.
I have to say I'm pleasantly surprised now that I'm on the market that there are as many jobs as there seem to be. It's nothing like other disciplines like English, or Ethnic Studies or American Studies. Sociology appears to be a growing field, not contracting just yet.
*Applause* to cpl! It's edifying to know there are more of us out there.
I had no idea it would be difficult to get a job. Nor did I care. I went to graduate school because I wanted to live and breathe sociology, not because I wanted a job.
Pre-grad school, I had little idea that decent jobs would receive 200+, and in some cases 300+, applications! I will be on the market next year, and am already stressing. I've been thinking about looking into other job fields, 9-5s, as semi-backups, though some of them seem more appealing than some of the academic positions out there. Anyone else with similar thoughts about the future?
People, do not discount jobs outside academia. I am also keeping my options open. The process of professionalizing people into sociology also means giving them a blinkered view of the possibilities. Do try the academic job market; then try the non-academic job market. Millions of people on this planet make a living, to paraphrase a famous sociologist, but not under conditions of their own choosing. Why not you?
Dear Jibbers, I'm not discounting these options; I just don't know where to look for them. Hey folks, start posting ideas/leads on the appropriate thread for these non acadmeic jobs!
Check out the NYTimes Jobs section under Education. For example, in this Sunday's Week in Review there's a posting for an Assistant Director of Research at the Institute for Children and Poverty to research family homelessness. It sounds perfect for a Soc Ph.D.
I think it's wrong to think that 5 or 6 candidates are getting all the interviews at all the jobs. My guess is that maybe 5 or 6 are getting lots of interviews at Top 25, maybe Top 50 schools. There's probably another pool getting a lot of interviews mostly in the Top 30-100 schools. Then another pool getting more of the SLAC interviews.
yes, i too am in the no interviews crowd and am somewhat surprised about it... maybe not shocked, but still surprised... trying now to be hopeful about the interdisciplinary jobs i applied for... maybe they'll like me more than the soc departments :)
10:19 here; assuming your gender representation isn't fake, we seem to be in the same boat--interdisciplinary interests for women STILL don't bode well for sociologists. Good luck to us both...
I don't know quite what to make of the market, either. I've got one fly-out, but absolutely nothing else. No nibbles, nothing. Silence. I applied to 35 schools.
When I entered grad school, our DGS told me that 98% of our grads leave with a job. Unfortunately I didn't ask him/her to elaborate on how many of those jobs were in fast food....
I had one phone interview that didn't bring about a flyout. I applied to 40+ jobs, most of which are now on Wiki, though have about 10 in interd. dpts. I'm at a top five.
I'm at a top 10 and I know at least a couple of our ABDs have multiple interviews (at different places). They will have to make decisions by the end of Nov, which makes me hopeful for the rest of us who might have made it to a shortlist somewhere...
I'm at a top 10, as well. There are five of us on the market. One of us has four interviews, three have two, and one has been shortlisted at a couple of places. Unless all of these "5-6" lucky candidates happen to be in my department, it may be a little more spread out than we think. Maybe I'm wrong...just wanted to disclose what little info I have about the situation.
Yah, I haven't heard anything either. The people around me have, though, one interview or more each.
I keep reminding myself that it really is still early. The people I've known who got jobs by Thanksgiving, say, were the type of candidates who spent their fall bouncing from interview to interview, the ones that held up the process for everyone else their year.
thanks for the humor! yea, everyone in my department gets a job. but i never thought to ask "a job in what?"
i'm at a top-5 and have been met with total silence. really, not a single word. out of everyone on the market in my department, only one person i know has landed an interview. then again, students in my department don't keep in touch much.
I don't know why people keep saying "I'm at a top 5." Most of the variability in market outcomes is within schools rather than between them. Someone with good publications at, say, UC Irvine or CUNY is going to have much better outcomes than someone from Wisconsin, Michigan, or UNC with none or only minor ones. Strangely, this seems like an underappreciated empirical fact...
"Strangely, this seems like an underappreciated empirical fact..."
I think the issue is that we're unconvinced that this is indeed an "empirical fact." I've heard several arguments that insitutional prestige matter more than publications and found them very compelling. I've seen no data on the matter.
The Academic Caste System: Prestige Hierarchies in PhD Exchange Networks
Author: Burris V.
Source: American Sociological Review, Volume 69, Number 2, 1 April 2004 , pp. 239-264(26)
Publisher: American Sociological Association
Abstract:
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.
Since Burris is at Oregon, they are hiring, and he signed the acknowledgement of application letter, it will be interesting to see if he confirms the findings of his own research.
Thanks for posting the Burris piece. Very interesting. Still doesn't explain why my phone isn't ringing off the hook although I can enhance dpt's prestige bringing in my top 5 clout, and I'm really willing to "marry down"
Don’t forget to read Shin-Kap Han’s fascinating comparative analysis of “buying and selling” new Ph.D.’s in the journal Social Networks (2003, vol. 25, pp. 251-80).
“Tribal regimes in academia: a comparative analysis of market structure across discipline”
Abstract: A systematic comparative analysis of the market structure in various academic disciplines—in terms of the pattern of “buying” and “selling” of new Ph.D.’s—is presented. Based on the parameters estimated to delineate the macro-structural features along the dimensions of differentiation and integration, I show that embeddedness permeates unevenly across different domains, and locate the disciplinary regimes in a map along with their expected operational outcomes. The emerging pictures show a common organizing principle—“the prestige principle”—across the disciplines in their broad outlines, yet they differ significantly from one another in that the regimes that are characterized by clear hierarchy and tight solidarity are the ones in which the workings of the prestige principle are the most efficacious.
For those who haven't gotten interviews - last year I went on the market ABD and had one VAP interview at a SLAC in March. I landed a decent enough post doc, and did only eight applications this year (b/c I have funding for two years). My pubs record has barely changed - book chapter, stuff under review - but I have two fly-outs scheduled for this month. I think the difference between ABD and PhD can be pretty big in the eyes of search committees, particularly if you don't have a strong publication record. (On the other hand, I'm extrapolating from a sample of one...)
The Burris piece is a non sequitur. The fact that top depts mostly hire from top 5's doesn't mean that those from top 5's are mostly hired by top depts.
12:40 is exactly right. Also, there seems to be an extremely elitist assumption here that you SHOULD earn lots of interviews and a top job simply because you are at a Top 5 or Top 10 school (which generally also equates to the largest number of grad students). There are generally MANY students at the top schools, and not all of them shine brightly, when compared to peers at their school OR when compared to someone at a "lesser" program who can clearly become THE star in their place. Being third or fourth author on an ASR or AJS as a grad student won't necessarily be viewed as favorably as six or seven solid pubs and really strong recommendations from faculty members who actually seem to know you! Just some other variables to add to the mix.
Even still, it doesnt negate the fact that most people hired at the best schools come from the top 5, meaning that grads from non-top 5s have much lower odds of landing that top-5 job.
Very true... of course many don't last at those top placements as they burn out pre-tenure. And, it never ceases to amaze me how functionalist many sociologists are when it comes to their own personal job prospects and lives.
It's not a question of functionalism, it's a question of the accumulation of social, symbolic, and intellectual capital. The people who get good jobs have usually accumulated a good deal of all three and realized what they were doing as they did it.
What's remarkable here is that people are surprised when they DON'T get good jobs. Doesn't the surprise itself reflect something about the sociological imagination of those who are surprised? :-) Are we capable of extending our sociological imaginations beyond conspiracy theories and theories of victimhood?
I think that most of us are not shocked when Stanford, Chicago, or Berkeley don't call. But many of us are disconcerted when places like Oregon, UConn, Amherst don't.
This discussion is beginning to remind me of white men who gripe that Affirmative Action is 'reverse discrimination'. Sounds as if there's an underlying assumption that everyone from top schools is better than everyone else.
9:51 summed it up perfectly! And yes, it was functionalism before Bourdieu and others expanded it (go back and read the Tumin/Davis and Moore debates)! I hope that clarification puts to rest the myth of my lack of intellectual capital, simply because I came from a lower tier program. :-)
7:19... the whole process is disconcerting. However, since we've heard that there were 400+ applications for UMass, I'm not really any more surprised that they didn't call me.
I have a question about typical teaching loads at research universities versus liberal arts colleges (I should know this, but sadly, I don't) and other places...what's the range? I had a phone interview at a place where the teaching load is 3/3, but they said that one's research is not suffocated and is also considered important. My friends at research universities have teaching loads of 2/1 or 2/2 I think. Are there liberal arts colleges with 2/2 loads, or is 3/3 pretty much standards at non-R1s? I want to know what I should expect at various places...I guess I was hoping for a 2/2 or 2/1 load but I'm not sure how typical this is. Does anyone (esp. those with 1-2 kids) find time for their own research while teaching 3/3 and also feeling relatively sane? Is a teaching/research balance possible?!
A 3-3 load (or sometimes 3-4 or 4-4) is pretty typical for non-R1s (and some lower tier doctoral institutions). The research expectations that go along with that load can vary widely. I've talked to people at 3-3 institutions that expect 6-8 peer-reviewed articles at tenure review, and I've talked with 3-3 schools that expect "research activity," conference presentations, book reviews, chapters, and not necessarily peer-reviewed articles.
As for having enough time, I've been teaching a 3-3 for the last 4 years (but don't have kids). The first year or two are tough because prep time is so high, but once you've got the classes in the can, it's definitely a job that you can fit in a flexible 40-hour week. I think it's actually much more family friendly than a full-time 9-5 job, because the hours are at least partly flexible.
I have found the discussion of expectations and prestige very interesting. I can think of several reasons why people at top-ranked institutions would fare better on the job market, but department prestige is only one. Also, the assumption by SCs of a department prestige-candidate caliber relationship would also be one. After all, it doesn't matter whether such a relationship is "true" or not, what matters is whether people doing the hiring think it is true. If it is real in its consequences...
Also, keep in mind that while research has documented the relationship between graduate department prestige and job market success, we are still talking about a distribution and not an absolute relationship. As I tell my undergrads: it is true that a person has a greater chance of becoming involved in street crime if he/she is poor, there are very long tails in the distribution and a whole lot of cases that do not fit the pattern. And you'd have a better chance of being right if you guessed someone was not involved in crime, poor or otherwise.
Finally, I would be curious whether the expectations of people and how they attribute their outcomes varies in predictable ways. Fundamental Attribution Error, anyone? If I get a good job, I may think that my graduate department's high rank really meant something, but if i don't get a good job than I assume I was judged only on the strength (or weakness) of my individual merits. By that logic, people with jobs may also be the people who assume prestige matters so we could have some real selection bias among sociologists employed in good jobs (whatever those may be).
In some ways, it is akin to a grad student I knew a few years ago who was on the market. Whenever he did not get an offer after an interview, he assumed that the person who got the offer got it because they were a minority or female. But when he did get an offer, he never thought it could be because he was a white male. Not that I am suggesting anyone here is racist or would think like that. My point is just that it is very difficult to know what does and does not matter when trying to attribute outcomes to individuals.
5:57 raises some great issues. I also really wonder how "good" the job market is in terms of available jobs versus number of viable candidates. I think there are significant structural constraints (many existing faculty lines not being re-upped, more instructors being hired, etc.) that have affected most disciplines in the last ten to fifteen years. With seemingly ever increasing numbers of grads out on the market, along with the postdocs and the "grass is greener" assistants, it seems that things are remarkably tight and ultra competitive. With that said, good luck to all on the market (except for the positions I'm most interested in). :-)
For the person asking about teaching loads, the more prestigious lib arts schools do offer 2/2 or 3/2 loads, and it seems they do have considerable research expectations. However, in my experience, you are often better served in those places to focus on books versus top tier journals. Again, good luck all!
1) Affirmative action is reverse discrimination. There may be an argument for doing it, but that's what it is.
2) One doesn't really need to "assume" that those from better programs tend to be better candidates. There is every reason to believe that this is the case, considering we went through a first stage selection process upon application to grad school. So to the extent that some aspects of job-relevant ability are carried into and through graduate school, those from "top" departments will TEND TO BE better candidates objectively. Of course, mistakes are made in evaluation at all stages, so this assertion is PROBABILISTIC rather than absolute.
(For those of you who cling stubbornly to the idea that there is no correlation between ability and admissions, please get back to us after you've served on a graduate admissions committee...)
2:12, there are several falacies to your statements, but I will just stick with one. Where you end up going to grad school has almost everything to do with where you got your Bachelor's degree. Where you go for undergraduate school has almost everything to do with your parents' social class. Some of the brightest people I know came from working class backgrounds and had to attend state colleges (where there were indeed professors from Harvard, Chapel Hill, Berkeley, Wisconsin). They got no less of an education than those who attended the private schools. They did, on the other hand, learn how to work while they were in college. Not only did they hold down part-time and even full-time jobs, but they managed to pull off GPAs at or near 4.00. Regardless, because they graduated from a less than prestigious university, they ended up at a lower ranked graduate school. I am not even talking about being ranked in the 50s. I am talking about being ranked in the top 25. How are these people any less deserving/intelligent/competent than somebody whose parents could afford to send them to a prestigious undergraduate institution?
Leaving aside for the moment that there is no evidence for your assertion, I will offer my own anecdotal evidence/impressions. In my experience on admissions committees, GRE scores are the biggest "wow" factor, probably followed by the content of rec letters. So assuming really smart state school kids can score as well on the GRE and get to know their professors as well as the kids from Harvard, their disadvantage should be minimized. Certainly at the school where I teach (a prestigious one), we have grad students from a number of schools. And the best students do NOT tend to come from places like Harvard, fwiw.
Finally, there is an enormous tendency among sociologists to regard parental class as destiny, when in fact it explains only a very modest amount of one's future trajectory. (I'm sure I'm about to be straw manned here, so in my defense: class does "matter" but it is hardly determinative of grad school placement.) I know some faculty at very prestigious places who were the first in their families to go to college, etc. Do you all really think that the Soc grad programs at Wisconsin, Chicago, Michigan, Indiana, etc. are all filled with kids from Princeton and Swarthmore? Hardly. Those kids are off doing investment banking anyway... :-)
Since my conflict theory of the soc job market has nevertheless been labeled "functionalist," you can refer to me as Talcott.
Not all of us went to the highest ranked program to which we were accepted. For me, rank didn't play into my decision. I had funding at Berkeley and Wisconsin, but I didn't pick a top 10. Would I do this again? Probably. Would I recommend it as a strategy? Probably not.
Talcott, If I am not mistaken, GRE scores are also a reflection of one's cultural capital. What a pity they're the wow grabbers in SOC departments. The same goes for getting to know one's professors; as a GSI/instructor at a top public program, my impression has always been that the more priveleged kids had easier access to professors--during class, at office hours, over email. They had an aura of entitlement about them, a confidence, that helped establish such connections (that later translate into letters, etc) that others--perhaps equally smart kids--did not have.
Let's not forget about *quality* of education either, shall we? People who go to stronger schools - at both the bachelor and PhD levels (though arguably for different reasons)- are likely to be better candidates because they are likely to have had a better education. I certainly hope that all of you who are aspiring to be *educators* are not forgetting about the power - the actual intellectual power, not the political power - of a quality education. If, as newly minted PHDs, a Berkeley grad isn't any better qualified than a (insert lower-tier school here) grad, then something is terribly amiss at Berkeley, folks. The same goes for undergrad, at the teaching level: I certainly *hope* a Bowdoin student is a better candidate for graduate school than a Salem State College student.
9:11 (aka Talcott?), have you read the exchanges on this website? Those of us with degrees from places like Berkeley ARE teaching at Salem State and their likes—out of necessity, in most cases. We’re desperate for jobs at places like Bowdoin (in fact, we’ve been chastised for inferring that we “deserve” them). But there aren’t enough good jobs to go around!
Point being, of course, that the Salem kids have access to top dpts. grads--assuming that this is indeed a factor in undergrad education. I'm sure grads of (fill in the blank) will disagree with that assumption.
On a completely different topic - does anyone have any suggestions for getting out of an interview if I've already said yes to it? It's at a decent enough school, but (a) I don't think it's somewhere I want to be professionally or personally, (b) it'd destroy my home life (ie, my partner has already said we'd be living on different coasts if I take it) and (c) doing the interview (on the specific date) will really screw other things up for me. That said, I feel like a jerk for wanting to back out, although on the plus side, I'm sure they'd call someone else in, and I'd be happy for my interview slot to go to someone much more excited about the position. Any ideas? Thanks!
10:48, I strongly encourage you to post your question on the Chronicle forum! You'll get a good idea of what the potential damage to you might be, but yes, you might give someone else a shot - and sooner - which could make all the difference.
10:48 - I would definitely encourage you to back out now, especially if you know that you would never take the job. This sort of thing happens more often than many of us realize. I would tell them that for personal reasons you will be unable to interview for the position. Be very gracious and thank them for their time and energy etc.
Thanks for the suggestion, 10:59. I am afraid that canceling my interview might have repercussions - I have only one other interview as of today, so I'd hate it if backing out cast a nasty pallor over my candidacy elsewhere...
Talcott, 9:51 here. Others have done a great job of pouncing on your other comments, so I'll just address your remark about Affirmative Action. You seem to buy into the popular 'wisdom' that Affirmative Action is about quotas, which might or might not be accurately called reverse discrimination. There are very few AA programs that actually use any kind of quota system; most, instead, merely require that opportunities are widely publicized so that people from a variety of backgrounds can learn of them and apply (see, for example, the work of L. Bobo and J. Kluegel). A way of defeating the Old Boy network, so to speak. These aren't by any stretch discriminatory. If 400 of us apply for a job, chances are good that more than one of us meets the stated requirements. Some will be white and some not. Some will be male and some not. As the affirmative action officer at my school pointed out to my students, school and job openings don't 'belong' to anyone. A cry of 'reverse discrimination' when someone other than a white man is hired is tantamount to saying that white men are always more highly qualified than other types of candidates.
I think you paint an incomplete picture of AA. It's true that most programs do not use a quota system. It's also true that AA is often simply taken to mean that positions should be widely advertised, and that a large, diverse pool of applicants should be sought. As I understand it, that's the point of the anonymous EOE cards we've all been filling out.
However, there are also times when departments want to 'increase their diversity.' I've seen this on search committees I've been on, as well as had it come up in interviews. In these cases, minority status on some demographic characteristic becomes a 'qualification' for the job. I think it is these cases that can appropriately be called reverse discrimination.
Hey, wait, I thought I got branded Talcott by the bleeding-heart patrol for suggesting that better schools might just create better candidates...now the one who had the gall to publicly declare that Affirmantive Action is discrimatory gets to be Talcott? No fair!
The only thing we can stay for certain is that “better” (or rather, higher ranked) schools create better "candidates" because of the peculiar system of status and rewards of the academy. They are better candidates precisely because they can abide by and reproduce this system—they will be the next generation of professional and intellectual gatekeepers. But this does not mean that higher ranked schools produce better teachers, scholars, or public intellectuals.
12:40 or whomever wishes to answer: I'll ignore the "bleeding heart patrol" comment, but would like to ask a follow-up. Empirically and without using U.S. News rankings, what measures demonstrate that the so-called top schools are "better schools" and that the students there are "better students?" This is a very simple question (perhaps reflecting my fundamental lack of intelligence since I earned a Ph.D. from a "worse" school).
I think, 1:02, you strike at the heart of the problem: we have a complete lack of adequate measures concerning what constitutes a "good" school or candidate. Even with a sociological imagination strapped on tightly, without any consistent measurement of "value," how can we ascertain quality? To me the question is can we either devise a system (that somehow gets actually implemented) of measurement, or can we do something about the weighting of perceived indicators of value (ie., change the symbolic weight current imperfect measures have)? Unless we can do one of these things, all the arguing in the world about good schools and top candidates is pointless.
If we re-read the Burris article, those from "top" programs do not seem to be any more productive than those trained elsewhere, nor are they more likely to be any more influential within the discipline. (read the article for indicators)
Schools outside the elite programs, according to the article, likely hire "elite-trained" graduates with the hope of collecting a little something-something (cultural capital) and thus gain some prestige. According to the article, this does not seem to occur. In fact, the bottom of the pile from elite programs are as crappy as the bottom of the pile elsewhere (burn out?).
This is not to put down those who conferred degrees from top programs. Good for you (us). It's the idiotic quest for departmental status, grants, joint ventures, and a good website that seems to to be the basis of much frustration.
In a land with many PhDs in hand, and strong publication records, those with the extra cultural capital are in a better position to land a job. Thus, the point of the "academic caste system."
Solution: when you land a job and are in a position to hire someone, convince your department to forget status and hire someone you imagine would be fun at parties, a good friend at meetings, and a fellow traveler at coferences.
2:17 and 3:18, neither of you answered my very simple question. Please explicate what makes your schools and/or you personally "better" than someone who went to a lower ranked school. Actually, strike the last part. It becomes too reductionist, and leads us down the path of "pissing contests" of my vita is bigger than your vita, etc. Please just discuss the institutional differences if you would be so kind. Thank you.
I also fail to understand what this has to do with the "bleeding heart brigade," unless my hunch is correct that this comment reflects that assumption that anyone who gets an interview or a job yet dared to come from a school ranked lower than yours is a diversity hire.
Just call me The Troglodyte (since I'm from a lowly ranked school).
3:28 - I (3:18) am from a lowly ranked school, lower, I'm sure, than yours. And unpublished. Your assumptions that only someone from a top school would make the arguments I'm making are *exactly* the problem.
I'd love to engage further after this, but I really need to be spending my time trying to make myself competitive with people who, at the very least, recieved better training than I because they were at a better school.
Move beyond the essentialist boogey trap in which you appear to be stuck, and the argument will be clearer. Scroll back through the threads on this blog and they make themselves. The top schools are better schools for all sorts of reasons that have nothing to do with GRE Scores or US News Rankings or any other politically-loaded measure. They've got more money and faculty who are more productive and better at playing the game of our profession.
And yes, generally, the pick of undergrad applicants in the first place, by all those problematic measures. Anyone who's ever taught a course in more than one school knows that the preparation of undergrads varies widely, and whether they can, oh...I don't know...read, for example, is certainly reflected in their GRE scores.
part of the problem here is that there are exceptions to every trend, but it is very hard to know whether you are an exception or not. so when we start trying to make generalizations from our own experience, we run the risk of assuming we are representative (or not) when we are not (or are). in my case, i got my undergrad degree from an anonymous community college and my rec letters for grad school were all written by non-academics (including one from a family friend who drives a school bus!). i got in everywhere i applied, received fellowship finding, and will graduate this spring from a top-5 school. i know i'm the exception, but i still can't tell you why i got in.
maybe it was just that someone on the admissions committee, one single person, thought that my research interests were really cool. which brings me to the issue of what makes a "good candidate". i agree with those who say that just being at a "top department" does not infuse one with some superior abilities. on the other hand, we know that being a "top candidate" means you have some set of skills and experience that SCs want.
from what i can see, it looks like the things SCs want are: strong quantitative skills, potential collaborative connections with well-known people, publications, and the ability to bring in grant money. i am not discounting qual work at all (i do it), but based on job postings it looks like a lot of SCs want the quant people.
i do think that if you come from a place like Michigan or Wisconsin or Carolina, you are more likely to know advanced quantitative methods and to have learned them from leading researchers in the field. if you are at a "top department" (keeping in mind that department rankings are partially based on grant $$$ brought in), you are more likely to have had the opportunity to work on grant proposals and sponsored research. and if you are at a department with well-known professors, you have more lucrative network ties.
i think that advantage is very contextual. and the pathways to that advantage are varied. none of us can know the degree to which our own experience deviates from the norm. we can't know the size of our residual, for the quant folks!
finally, i can't pass up the comments about "reverse discrimination". discrimination is when a person or group with power allocates a resource unequally based on a group rather than individual characteristic. so really, disadvantaged groups cannot discriminate by definition because they are not in positions of power. furthermore, i think very few SCs would select a candidate they felt was not as strong as another candidate because the person was a minority, female, veteran, older, jewish, whatever. as for selecting among equally-qualified candidates, i have no problem with SCs giving preference to historically disadvantaged groups. if anyone has a better idea, let me know. but it seems like "white=better" has been played out enough.
I understand where you're coming from when you say that "disadvantaged groups cannot discriminate by definition because they are not in positions of power." But, in the case of AA policies, the majority & most powerful group are those who believe like you (or pretend to), namely, that AA policties are good and beneficial. The pro-AA group is not disadvantaged when it comes to deciding how to approach hiring decisions. So, I think that AA policies can be (i.e. are) discriminatory.
You also state that "i have no problem with SCs giving preference to historically disadvantaged groups." I understand, and I think a lot of people would agree with you here. But, your comment makes it plainly clear that AA practices are, by definition, discriminatory. If a case ever arose (and I doubt it does) where two candidates were equally qualified, then why not flip a coin? THAT would be Equal Opportunity Employment. Trouble is, EOE and AA are mutually exclusive hiring strategies.
I'm glad this issue is being seriously discussed, because I think it is important and worthy of open consideration. Plus, someone should work on an article based on this dialogue!
7:56 (originally 3:18), I probably do come from a lower ranked school than you (think bottom ten on the lists that are floating out there). I did however work my way up from a small town h.s. to a small state university to a top 20 program, but left there because I thought that the emphasis of the education was all wrong (yes, I personally refer more activist/public/whatever the hot term is sociology over "objective," I'm the researcher and I decide what is worthy of consideration sociology). However, that does not mean I discount the value of what higher ranked programs have to offer.
I really wasn't making a "boogey" argument or anything of the sort. I was really interested in having people STATE what they think are the reasons why "top" schools and "top" students are ranked as such, instead of keeping such designations mystified. You are absolutely correct that resources (money in particular) are much more plentiful at the "top" schools. And yes, the students do have higher GRE scores (whatever that means). Average GPA is probably not that much different, though that can be problematized as well. The connections with well-known and well-heeled people and networks are what I think is most critical, but each of these factors (and probably some others I omit for space) is important.
Responding to another of your comments, I have taught in a variety of contexts (from community colleges to small lib arts colleges and state schools to large public research universities), and yes, when describing undergrads, their test scores do somewhat predict things like whether they can read or think in a way that is more complex than simply regurgitation of information presented to them. However, I would HOPE that by the time people get to grad school, those problems have been weeded out through the admission process (or in all likelihood they will not make it through basic grad seminars). I could be wrong about this, and perhaps there are some seriously intellectually deficient people who are on the job market and perhaps reading this posting.
I would point out that there are some lower ranked or lesser well known departments offering excellent quantitative courses or theory sequences. Generally, yes, your overall education at a Michigan, Wisconsin, Cal-Berkeley, Harvard, etc. will be better than one of the bottom schools; however there are exceptions and these should be noted and treated as such.
However, and this is crucial, for INDIVIDUALS to bitch and moan about a situation that is somewhat structurally-determined, is pointless. Either there should be a totally blind screening process (i.e. you get a job based solely on your anonymous vita, research and teaching materials, and the quality of your letters NOT letter writers), which is impossible, or we should all be able to admit that the game is rigged, at least to a certain extent. "Name" matters, and I'm not talking about your name! And this was my original point. That is all... Good night and good luck. The Troglodyte
My point all along has been that these processes should be visible to sociologists who are attuned to their own position in the field. I constantly hear grad students bemoaning how faculty "don't think sociologically" about the workings of their departments, but then these same grad students are the most amazed when they see what the job market is like. Whoops. I guess somebody forgot to "think sociologically" about their own career! Did no one realize in year one that if all the top schools are admitting 10-20 people per year that there wouldn't be enough R1 jobs for everyone? Didn't anyone realize that networking and prestige are important and then act accordingly? Or do grad students ignore these factors in their decision making process because they "shouldn't" matter? I'm confused.
Talcott, It really takes a while to realize that to survive in this profession networking skills are as important as intellectual aptitude. By the time you develop the analytical skills to figure out the politics of academia out, you're knee deep in the program. I'm at a top 3, and no, I didn't realize this until it was way too late. I now try to warn incoming students (or aspiring students), but I realize they're too young to grasp this, plus they don't have a context. Perhaps this should be worked into departments' pro-seminars? (Do you tell students, and I mean really, really tell them that if they don’t work the backrooms, receptions, work only with professors who can teach them how to get grants they don’t stand a chance?) Knowing what I know now, I would have left early on--or better yet, never entered. Lastly, yes, some of us refuse to act in certain ways as we think the profession shouldn't work in this way. Of course, we’re the ones who pay the price, because the structures of the profession are such that our protest is mute, never heard in the great halls of prestige. And, of course, it is all political--learning to navigate the halls of prestige and building networks requires a certain cultural sophistication that not all of us possess coming into grad school, in part in due to personality inclinations, and in part due to, gasp, our SES backgrounds and other similar factors. Thank you all for this illuminating discussion; it reminds me why I wanted to be a sociologist.
Talcott, your assumptions that one can so easily "act accordingly" reek of privilege. It seems that you, like the rest of us, forget to use your sociological imagination to think about your own position in all of this.
Even if I don't get a job this year, or next, I'm glad I'll have a PhD and I'll keep working to understand the various structures that reproduce inequality. Hopefully my publications will remind some people of the many privileges they pretend don't exist.
this is a blog, so hyperbole abounds. the PhD's from top departments are either entitled, privileged social butterflies who were born on third base, or they pulled themselves up out of intellectual mediocrity by their bootstraps. Obviously neither picture is accurate.
Take a look at the "PhD's on the market" sections at the top-10 schools. I haven't looked this year, but last year you would have found 15-25 people with downright *scary* CV's. People with huge grants, sole-authored ASR's, AJS's, SF's. Did they "earn" it? Who knows. But it's certainly not the case that they suck up all the jobs just because their advisers know people.
It's true that you have little chance of getting a job at the University of Chicago unless you got your PhD from Harvard, or, well, Chicago. But Michigan, UNC, and Berkeley--all top-5 places--currently employ people from the likes of SUNY-SB, Maryland, Texas, Minnesota, and even UCSD for goodness sakes. You hardly need to have graduated from Phillips Andover to get into those universities.
I'd argue that the intercollegiate networking is trivial, and only rarely makes a difference for a candidate. However, intra-departmental networking is *hugely* important.
People with top-50 jobs come from a really wide range (in terms of prestige) of departments. But what virtually all of them have in common is that they got in with the right professor in their department, and worked hard to please that person. Obviously, at lower-ranked departments there may be fewer "right" professors, but then, there's probably weaker competition for their attention. So don't worry so much about candidates from your "rival" university, and focus on the ones sitting next to you in the grad lounge...
The issue of class seems to keep popping up in this discussion. Whether or not someone "earned" a good job or started out on third base seems like an interesting discussion (granted, well "earn" our achievements, but some need to work a bit harder than others to earn them). The implied message I've drawn from some of this discussion is that we need stronger supports for sociologists from working class or near-poor backgrounds. I am one of those sociologists, at a decent, but not a top-10 program, and I know that in terms of funding, it would be appreciated. When some of my colleagues' assistantships ran out, they were able to support themselves for a term or two, while they applied for grants or made other financial arrangements. I knew that wasn't an option for me. Sure, there are loans, but some folks have substantial loans left from undergrad and face an uncertain job market. I'd hate it if the ABD stage were a place where working class sociologists are systematically weeded out because of financial concerns.
2:42, I agree. I am also at a top 25, and I am from a working class background. Funding is extremely important, especially in college cities that tend to have inflated rents and higher costs of living. While there were some people that came into my program with a bit of a financial cushion, others knew their only source of income was that assistantship (or some additional part time job that they were not even supposed to have). Once that funding ran out, more than a few people have taken to teaching 2-3 classes just to get by, while others have taken full times jobs while they continue to work on their dissertations. Needless to say, they ability to publish is less than slightly inhibited by working full time. Not to say that it can't be done...it can. But, boy is it all a whole lot easier if you dont have to worry about paying the bills...Lets not forget that graduate school is not like it was in the 70s. It costs more to live these days relative to what the dollar is worth. People have found creative ways to get by- these tend to be the working class folks who have always found creative ways to pay the bills. In terms of the grants issues, some will say that you need to find a mentor and get on his/her grant. Easier said than done, especially in departments when those folks are few and far between and may be doing research no where near your specialty areas.
5:39 - in a broad sense, AA is not discriminatory because of the power dynamic. the issue is not whether the people in power are pro-AA or anti-AA, it is whether they are historically disadvantaged. To be very blunt, white men giving preference to white men = people in positions of power and influence allocating resources unequally to their own. Given that unequal opportunity based on race/gender/religion/sexual orientation still exists, granting preference to people who are disadvantaged amounts to equality, not discrimination.
To go off and be sociological for a minute...I went on a field trip with my 2nd grader's class last week. The class has 20 kids. 9 white kids, 6 blacks, 3 Hispanics, and 2 Asians. I had never met any of these kids before except for my daughter's 2 best friends. After the first hour, it was obvious that there were differences in how the kids behaved and were treated by the teacher, and those differences tended to play out along racial lines.
My feeling is that I think it is totally fair to give preference to a minority candidate on the job market, given that preference is given to non-minority students throughout much of the education system. Before calling foul over AA, spend some time in a first or second grade classroom and see how race and gender matter there. Not in the eyes of the students, but to the teacher. Being given the upper-hand among equally-qualified candidates doesn't even begin to account for the disadvantage that people experience in academia as soon as they start school if they happen to be black, Hispanic, poor, or an obvious religious minority. And white folks crying "discrimination!" in the face of AA disavows all recognition of how biased our educational system is.
I'm not saying that affirmative action is egalitarian. but i am saying that it is a small step towards rectifying the gross inequalities that exist in our society. i know that it sucks on an individual level for a white man to not get a job just because he is white and male when he is equally qualified as a minority candidate. however, it was equally as sucky for the minority candidate to have spent twelve years in a school system that gives preference to while males.
point being...it is hard to separate the individual from the structural. and as for "fairness", i think we just do the best we can. as my mama told me, the fair only comes 'round once a year.
i am also from a working-class, no make that poor, background. when you add that to being a single parent, things get pretty tight. i am lucky in that i have managed to land a fellowship that pays well, and i also teach a night class. so i manage to keep everyone fed. barely.
however, i have been totally blown away by the financial resources that some of my fellow graduate students have at their disposal. having rich parents seems to provide a very nice grad student lifestyle, as does marrying wealthy.
there are significant class differences in how much time we have to devote to finding money as opposed to doing our own research.
I've seen exactly what you're talking about in elementary schools. The American primary education system is in shambles, not the least of which is driven by those sorts of racial inequalities. But hiring at the college level is not the right place to address inequalities in the 2nd grade. Doing so will simply decrease the quality of the American university system too - causing it to reflect the same inequalities we see at lower grade levels.
Still, that being said, I understand that many (most?) agree that, as you say, "Being given the upper-hand among equally-qualified candidates" is acceptable. So, I would propose that when this type of AA comes into play, the non-minority candidates who were not offered employment recieve a rejection letter that reads, in part:
Dear Applicant,
Thank you for your interest in our position. You were just as qualified for the position as the person we have decided to hire. Unfortunately, at this time we are unable to offer you employment because of your race and/or gender. We feel that discriminating against you individually is the best way to address structural and historical inequalities. Again, we thank you for your interest, and wish you the best of luck.
How about this for a letter to other well-deserving candidates who don't get a job for some reason: "Dear Applicant,
Thank you for your interest in our position. You were just as qualified for the position as the person we have decided to hire. Unfortunately, at this time we are unable to offer you employment because the person we hired had better social networks. In other words, he/she has professors who drink/associate/publish with people in this department. Obviously, this has nothing to do with that candidate OR your qualifications, but given these indirect social ties, we went with this candidate. We do not consider this discrimination, because this is the "way things have been done" since time immemorial, and well, we can do nothing about it. Again, we thank you for your interest, and wish you the best of luck."
I'm with GoHeels and 8:47. 5:25, don't you see that your own assumption that "Doing so will simply decrease the quality of the American university system" reeks of the kind of prejudice that perpetuates and feeds inequality? Why else would you assume that a person of color or woman is a lesser candidate and that a white man not chosen in this position has been screwed? Later in your own post you refer to choosing between equally qualified candidates, but that seems to contradict what you said earlier. By your logic, if a white man is chosen, it's because he's the best candidate. If someone else is chosen, well, the poor white guy was still the best candidate and is a victim of discrimination. WTF?! Any time a hiring decision is made, there are applicants rejected of the same race and gender as the person chosen. What is your excuse when a highly qualified white man loses out to another highly qualified white man? If you find that no excuse is needed here, perhaps none is needed in the other situation either. Of course, we've all overlooked the fact that sometimes the person who would seem to us to look the best on paper is NOT the best fit for the department. Maybe the hiring committee realizes that a certain candidate offers something special and more desirable than the obvious paper choice. Or maybe the paper choice annoys them with his sense of superiority and entitlement.
Again, some of you really overestimate the importance of your advisers networks. This is 10:50 again--call me Maude. I came from a top-5 dept. and got a job at a top 30 R1. I've served on search committees, and have tried to "network" on behalf of our students.
I'm telling you: aside from old-boys clubs like Chicago, adviser networking will not get you a job. It *might make a difference in the case of a tie (CV-wise), but usually that will mean that the dept. invites both candidates out for an interview. And once you get to that stage, all bets are off.
Again, where networking really does matter is within your department, which is how you build your CV. Some professors are much better mentors and collaborators than others, and their students come out with better CVs.
I suspect that it's more comfortable to use "smoky back room" imagery to explain job outcomes, but departments are always divided, and SC's have to justify fly-outs on their merits. Generally, your CV gets you the interview, and candidates are ranked (explicitly or implicitly) before they get there. The top candidate can certainly screw things up for herself on the interview, but barring that it would take heroic interviewing skills for a lower-ranked candidate to come out with an offer.
Oh--one exception where intercollegiate networks really matter is on the negative side. Faculty will call people they know at the candidate's department. You don't want people saying bad shit about you, as it's a lot easier to knock a candidate off the list than put one on it. Few CV's are so perfect that they couldn't be ruled out for some reason.
call it "unsociological" or whatever, but it's mostly about your CVs, not your adviser's friends.
I "assume that a person of color or woman is a lesser candidate" because GoHeels' argument implies this. If minorities are really treated badly in lower grades, and this results in them recieving a poorer education, then we have every reason to believe that *on average* they will be lesser candidates.
Now, make no mistake, this is a huge problem. But, the inequality is being generated *at the lower grade levels*. Hiring at the college/university level is the wrong place to try to correct this problem. I'm all for increasing equality in elementary and secondary education, on race lines, yes, but I think more importantly on class lines. But, I don't think AA in the cases we're talking about here is part of the solution. Instead, it may be part of the problem.
In the case of the oft cited 'two equally or highly qualified candidates': my only point is that, when such a decision arises, if there really are no merit criteria that distinguish them, the decision should be made by a coin toss. Race (or gender, sexual orientation, marital status, etc.) should never be a reason for chosing one candidate over another. These categories are (or, should be) irrelevant to the selection process. That is, at least as I understand it, what equality is all about.
I agree with 10:10's final paragraph, that is what equality SHOULD be about. It is of course NOT about that, however.
So, another stupid question is looming: how do we determine the comparative ranking of one CV versus another? I have some obvious thoughts on the subject, but I think we should be clear about it, and I want to know what some of you others think are the criteria used by SCs to "rank" applicants based on their CVs.
Across the board, sole-authored pubs in AJS or ASR really set a candidate apart from others. After that, it's mushy. some would prefer sole-authored work regardless of outlet, others credit collaborative stuff in prestige journals. And of course, the dissertation topic is important for branding a candidate. Obviously some topics have more general appeal than others, and those candidates will be preferred (assuming they fit into the advertised slot).
But some of it comes down to the subcultures of the department--there are generally divides in a department, and members of the SC will place you on one side or another, which will definitely affect your candidacy. If you do get the interview, it would make sense to put extra effort into assuring the opposing side that you are someone they could tolerate.
I'm amazed that so many of you assume that scholars of color are really getting positions through AA and that we're taking the white males' positions. First of all, there are so few scholars of color getting PhDs, that we're really not that great of a threat. Secondly, just because job ads state that they would like to increase diversity does not mean they will actually do anything about it. Typically, the job ad is as far as that effort goes. Just look around in your departments - especially the prestigious ones - scholars of color are a rarity.
YOU STATED: "Now, make no mistake, this is a huge problem. But, the inequality is being generated *at the lower grade levels*. Hiring at the college/university level is the wrong place to try to correct this problem."
******************
The generation of inequality does not start or stop at the lower grade levels. Inequality is generated and perpetuated throughout one's lifetime, including (and perhaps especially) at institutions of higher learning.
Am I the only one who is depressed that a debate about inequality using these sorts of gross generalizations is taking place on a list of sociologists? I shouldn't be surprised given the sort of things I heard faculty members say when I was in grad school. But still, it's depressing.
It's all good and well to critique privilege until yours is threatened.
right on. it IS depressing to hear sociologists demand absolute "equality" on the job market in spite of the gross inequalities in virtually every institution that leads one to be here on the job market.
yes, it would suck to be on the losing end of a job decision just because you are white or male. however, it sucks just as much to be on the losing end of a hundred advantages up until now because you are non-white or female.
as sociologists, i think we have a responsibility to look at our own loves sociologically. if you are white and/or male and/or not poor in this country, you ARE in a position of privilege.
no one is saying that you haven't worked hard or that you don't deserve to be rewarded for your work. nor is anyone saying that you have accomplished X or Y because of your institutional privilege. but you do have a responsibility to acknowledge your privilege. and to recognize the disadvantage that others experience because of their race, gender, and social class (income).
i'm willing to bet that i can count on one hand the number of white people who are passed over for an academic job in favor of an equally-qualified non-white candidate, if it even happens at all. but all of us put together wouldn't have enough fingers to count the number of non-white kids who never even have the opportunity to go to college simply because of structural inequalities along racial lines.
Since this has turned into another affirmative action blog..
Not to mention the difference that (identity- and/or experience-relevant) minority faculty can make for undergraduates and graduate students--both because of how professors treat their students and from students' perspectives. Anyone read the New York Times? Interesting blog posting today from a white teacher in a predominantly black high school, which addresses it from a different side than 11/7 8:45. I don't actually think these processes stop at the 2nd-grade or high-school level: WillOkun'sblog
In addition, as future faculty I'm all for departments seeking out candidates from under-represented groups. It doesn't help me on the job market, but as a sociologist in particular I'm much more interested in places where I'll have not only good colleagues, but colleagues with more varied backgrounds and identities than white men from upper-middle-class and middle-class backgrounds.
Since this has turned into another affirmative action blog..
Not to mention the difference that (identity- and/or experience-relevant) minority faculty can make for undergraduates and graduate students--both because of how professors treat their students and from students' perspectives. Anyone read the New York Times? Interesting blog posting today from a white teacher in a predominantly black high school, which addresses it from a different side than 11/7 8:45. I don't actually think these processes stop at the 2nd-grade or high-school level: WillOkun'sblog
In addition, as future faculty I'm all for departments seeking out candidates from under-represented groups. It doesn't help me on the job market, but as a sociologist in particular I'm much more interested in places where I'll have not only good colleagues, but colleagues with more varied backgrounds and identities than white men from upper-middle-class and middle-class backgrounds.
A lot of job postings say "members of underrepresented groups encouraged to apply" but I'm left wondering if that includes sociologists from working-class or poor backgrounds. I doubt it. I think it would be looked at as quite odd if someone were to mention their poor upbringing in their cover letter. I tend to think that should be fixed. Class may not be as visible as gender or race/ethnicity, but it's at least as potentially disadvantageous. Maybe it's left out because it is hard to prove? Then again, anyone could claim to self-identify as black or a woman, just the same. I don't know; should class count in hiring?
My department will be hiring next year, and it's pretty much understood that the successful candidate will be something other than a white male.
Anyway, as long as we're talking about what-should-be, rather than what-is, my own view is that it would be preferable to address racial and socioeconomic inequalities earlier in the life course, rather than applying quotas at the final stages of education. But my own view as a female sociologist is that such AA policies are not dissimilar from hiring in certain subject areas. It's not controversial if a Department wants to hire a China scholar, but it is if they want to hire a person of color. The critics assume, wrongly IMO, that color is just skin deep, when in fact there are real and meaningful cultural differences that often accompany skin color. I don't think it's unreasonable to want some cultural diversity, particularly when we're talking about a fundamentally interpretive social science like sociology. It's not like we're a plastic surgery department handing out scalpels to the nearest black woman.
I really appreciate this conversation. I think that we need much more aggressive affirmative action in faculty hiring, esp. by race and class.
On a totally different topic: I have interviewed at two different schools where faculty have referred to quantitative research as "empirical research." And that makes qualitative research... anecdotal story-telling? C'mon people! Get it together!
i think it is a good point that economic class is not something anyone would consider in hiring, but it probably matters as much, if not more, than race or gender in shaping one's opportunities.
I also agree that there are meaningful cultural differences associated with different racial identities. The same holds for economic class differences. As some from a flat-out poor family (my household income was 11K a year for 5 people the year I started college), I have always been very aware of the differences in world views between myself and my peers from middle- and upper-class backgrounds.
It is not just optimal but essential for sociology departments to include people from a wide range of backgrounds: racial, economic, gender, sexual orientation, religion, whatever. I dislike having to rely on affirmative action to provide that diversity, but until unequal opportunity is rectified in other areas then AA might be the only solution we have. And I'm not willing to sacrifice diversity just because the means to achieve it is sub-par.
A professor named Grimes at LSU wrote a book a few years ago about sociologists from working-class backgrounds (not very widely read). His conclusion: No matter the level of achievement the sociologist reach (publications, title, pay), they never really feel like they truly belong in academia. They're always the cultural outsiders and are never able to bridge the gap, even if their peers see them as equals.
358, that is so true. Cultural capital, as Bourdieu argued, is not something that one can simply acquire. Cultural capital is something that individuals embody from a very young age if they belong to the dominant group. Even when academics with working-class origins start to accumulate some of the trappings of the middle class, they will never fully feel that they belong. In my own experience, this is right on.
Does anyone else find it difficult to figure out how to explain this to other sociologists. I mean, social class is not visible in the same way that race and gender are.
I have mentioned my poor background to some of my peers and have heard things like, "Yea, my family was like that too" when they had a nice middle-class income of $40,000 a year or more. Or even more difficult, the people I meet with two working professional parents who must easily make six-figures who tell me that they understand because "even though my parents had money it's not like they gave use anything we wanted."
That's just so different from doing your back-to-school shopping every year at Goodwill and being embarrassed to have friends over for dinner lest they see the black-and-white government food labels in your pantry.
I think that in addition to class mattering very much in so many ways, it is also invisible in many contexts and therefore easier to overlook, misunderstand, or dismiss. I have no problem teaching my students about racial and gender stratification, but I always struggle when it comes to class because it is so subjective in the eye of the beholder.
It is also something that you can never leave behind even when you can't see it anymore.
I hear you. I'm white, but am completely comfortable talking about race and racism with people of color. it does not create any anxiety for me. talking about class with people whose origins were above or below mine, however, is not something I think I'd be able to do easily.
Classism (unlike racism) is still quite acceptable in mainstream culture, and there is no end to jokes at the expense of poor and working class folks. grad student friends of mine held "white trash parties", there are websites devoted to "mullet hunting", not to mention all the redneck humor (in some ways, Jeff Foxworthy's origins are beside the point, but I wonder whether he didn't grow up the son of a dentist or something).
I can imagine that it's tough to go from working class to the educated elite. Such mobility is probably even more difficult in any other field (except, perhaps, professional poker).
5:20, have you seen the PBS documentary on social class? I use it in my class, and it's a great way to get students thinking about all of the intangible markers of class. (I think it's called Social Class in America.)
The insider/outsider perspective that my experiences in a poor single-parent family afford gives me a unique view of class and sociology. There is a certain sense of discomfort that accompanies social mobility, whether downward or upward. I'd love to see more studies of academics from w-c and poor backgrounds.
Even among stratification scholars, discussions of how social class operates in our own lives are often stilted and awkward. Americans hate to acknowledge social class, whether they study it as an academic subject or not.
I also come from a working class background and perhaps it's easier to discuss these issues because since I'm also Latina, people automatically assume I was poor. One strategy that has worked well with my students is to have them think about it at the individual level. They talk about some of the experiences parents might face if they only had a high school education versus a college education. As they discuss it, they think about vocabulary, exposure to literature, social networks, access to information, access to jobs, what the wages will translate into as far as neighborhood, extracurricar activities for the kids, extra academic help for kids. Most of my students are privileged, so it's wonderful to see them struggling with these ideas and although not all of them "get it," many do seem to begin to understand their privilege and to break down the notion of meritocracy.
I would recommend Lareau's Unequal Childhoods as a great starting point for these kinds of discussions.
I come from a priveleged background and I recognize that I have had a lot of lucky breaks in life. However, recently I have felt prejudice and discrimination in academia and on the job market for something that I have chosen to do - have kids. No one is talking about the disadvantages that parents (particularly mothers) face when trying to get a job in this field. There have been many discussions about why women drop out of the "science pipeline," but little recognition that women are often pushed out of science (usually the discussion is about hard science) because it is so hard to balance family and work. We academics are given little time to have children, take time off for maternity leave or deal with difficult pregnancies. Instead mothers are usually expected to be on the same timeline as non-mothers, and it is generally recommended that we hide family life or be seen as "not serious." Considering that Sociology is trying to be a discipline that recognizes diversity, it seems that there should be more recognition of the difficulty parents have in the hiring/tenure process.
6:29, this is a common feeling. I felt it too. In fact, I felt I had to "prove" that I was still a serious scholar in grad school--by working harder than everyone else--and I think I did--but to the detriment of my relationship with my first child. I'm on the TT now at an R1, and trying to do things a little differently now--and I am--but, I'm still trying to get tenure! There are no good answers.
People Like Us is the documentary from PBS referred to earlier. Very good to use in class, segments run 10-20 minutes and it covers many issues and also allows for discussions of intersectionality.
My perception is that post docs and junior faculty itching to move up are a large part of the available labor pool, so that ABD's have to be incredibly polished to have a shot at any of them-- even more than last year where a couple people with few pub's landed plum jobs.
That said, it does not seem that there are clear "superstars" like last year who are landing 10+ interviews at top R1's. It seems that even the best are getting more like 3-5 at this point; if you look at job talks on websites it seems there is a lot of variation in terms of who is getting the talks. But not in terms of their productivity.
Seems the top schools will all be wrapped up before Christmas- inteviews wrapped up around Thanksgiving.
I wonder if that has to do with the schools that are hiring this year as much as the candidates. Last year there seemed to be more "top" or near-top schools hiring (i.e., UCSD, U of WA-Seattle, Harvard, etc.) It may have been more clear where "star" candidates would apply and interview last year than this year because of that. Just a thought.
I know someone who has 2 offers from schools on the "top departments hiring" list. This person also has 2 more interviews scheduled at schools on that list.
I don't think anyone was being a "crybaby". I love that sociologists are discussing how issues or race and class play out in the academic job market. I also appreciate the discussion about how to approach these issues with our students.
It has been my experience that most people who dismiss talking about these topics as "crybaby-ing" are people who don't want to have to reflect on their own structural position of privilege.
If people really think that "structural privilege" is job market destiny, why did they bother to finish grad school? Does the analysis of job market inequalities help ease the pain of unfulfilled expectations? Or does it make it worse because, as a sociologist, you really should have known better than to expect that sweet job?
A separate question: Is there anyone out there thinking, "Man, I really should have spent less time at happy hour," rather than bemoaning the structure of the system? Is there anyone out there willing to take even a tiny bit of responsibility for things not turning out well? I doubt it, but I'm just curious.
Leap of logic alert! Acknowledging structural privilege doesn't mean that you equate it with job market destiny nor that you abdicate responsibility for your own situation. It's rather unimaginative to view this as an either-or situation. I, for one, wouldn't fit into either of those poles; I've worked my butt off in grad school and have several bites and a couple of interviews lined up. I also am aware that I have benefitted from both white privilege and social class privilege.
my goodness, i can't believe how status-hungry all of these soc phds are!
one of the things that attracted me to sociology was the chance to CRITICALLY examine the structures of privilege and status in our society.
now, i want a good job like the rest of you do. but what is a "good job"?? Do any of you consider the incredibly high tenure-denial rates at some of these 'top 5' (and top 10, and top 20) schools?
I for one plan to have a life of ENGAGED scholarship, i.e. i'd like to have enough time in my day to engage with the society i plan to research. too many professors stuck in their offices 24/7. why on earth would that be appealing??
and as to the theory that someone like me, critical of the establishment, can't hack it: baloney. i turned down doing a PhD in the Ivy league: why?? because i wanted the best education, and sometimes, the best and the highest status are just not the same thing!!
Wow, Elena. I wish I could be as awesome as you. It must be nice to know that, while you are so unfortunate as to be surrounded by idiots, at least YOU understand the important things in life!
Hey Elena, I second your sentiments. I did go to a top 5 grad school but have turned down multiple job offers that others have considered very good jobs precisely because I want a work/life balance.
And to 9:05, I've got great friends who teach a 4/4 and still do research they enjoy and manage to have a fun and fulfilling personal life. It's amazing what being at a university where people don't live eat breath status does for ones sense of self worth.
So chill out ya'll. People have many different meanings about what a "perfect" job entails and it's sad to see this status discourse about departments reified on this list. Face it, no one cares about departmental rankings except for sociologists. It's kind of pitiful actually, the status wars and anxiety that I've seen manifested by both faculty and grad students. There are much bigger issues to get worked up about, than one's position in a teeny and, in the end, not very influential world of scholars.
acknowledging advantage and accepting personal responsibility are not mutually exclusive. I don't think anyone denies that the stars, or any successful job candidate for that matter, work hard. Whether hard work and talent alone can explain all the variation in job outcomes is a different matter, however.
I recall that a little while ago there was a discussion of whether one can realistically take a non-academic position and hope to get an academic job later. I'd really like to hear from someone "in the know" about this issue.
I'm thinking about taking a position with a research center for the next 4-6 years and then going on the academic job market. I will be doing research in my sub-field and will be able to publish as much as I would as an assistant professor. However, I will approaching 40 years old by the time I would go on the academic market.
I'd really like to hear from people involved in hiring as to what my chances on the market might be under those circumstances.
3:07, at my university we had a person who worked for the Census for most of his career. He decided to get an academic job after several years at the Census. He is now at a top-25 R1.
If you check out the CVs of these four people (who appear to be scheduled for job talks at Cornell), it is clear that they have a ton of pubs, awards, and grants. One of these guys in particular looks to have already had interviews at 4-5 of the top schools (based on his list of invited presentations on his CV). I wonder how many stars there are like these 4 floating around the market this year.
i just can't see why status is the most important thing. i would add time, collegiality, campus atmosphere, interesting city, to the top criteria on my list. oh, and salary of course!!
and we'll see who's smiling in 5 years when i get tenure and a bunch of those at R1 schools get their buts kicked to the curb.
SCs act in mysterious ways... 2 differently composed SCs from the same institution can produce very different short lists of candidates from the same pool of applicants. the most important thing is to find a place where you can go and do YOUR WORK. whatever that combination is, of teaching or research or service, everyone has a different personal 'top 25' which may or may not include any of the 'top 25' that gets tossed around so frequently (as far as i'm concerned, if those were really the top 25 programs, all of their grad students WOULD be getting 'prestigious' jobs, but that is not the case. there is plenty of mediocre work to go around). it doesn't matter how prestigious the school, if your work is not well-supported there, it is a lousy job for you.
Thanks! That really helps. I've been really apprehensive about the thought of trying to enter academia at age 40, but the non-academic opportunity I have been offered it exactly what I want to be doing.
the jealousy is turning venemous. This happened once before, and the spirit of the blog is not to single people out or name names. In effect, a few posts have done that, and it's pretty despicable.
Let's calm down and worry about our own job prospects.
If the date in which review will commence has passed (a month ago)and you see a recent ad for the same position, does this mean that all (or most) of the original applicants for the position were not qualified?
Of much greater interest to me about the Cornell search is that all four are men. Who was it that was arguing that men (especially white men) are discriminated against in academia?
good point 5:50. And, I don't see any harm in pointing out who is being interviewed. After all, aren't we all wondering about the CVs of the people we're competing with? This blog is supposed to be about the open and free exchange of information. There were attempts before the censor it. Lets not go there again. I for one want to know when the job talks at the top schools are and who is being called in to do them. If one person has taken out the time to look up the information, posting it here saves others time from doing the same thing.
good point 5:50. And, I don't see any harm in pointing out who is being interviewed. After all, aren't we all wondering about the CVs of the people we're competing with? This blog is supposed to be about the open and free exchange of information. There were attempts before the censor it. Lets not go there again. I for one want to know when the job talks at the top schools are and who is being called in to do them. If one person has taken out the time to look up the information, posting it here saves others time from doing the same thing.
following up on 5:50's post: with the exception of David Harris and Victor Nee (both extremely famous sociologists in their fields), the rest of the faculty in the soc. department at Cornell are white men or white women. There are a total of 10 men and 6 women. No women of color. Hmmmmm....
5:50 and later: Don't jump to conclusions. Cornell is interviewing six this year. The first two have already interviewed, so their names have been removed from the list. Not all are men.
RE: Reposted ads: If the date in which review will commence has passed (a month ago)and you see a recent ad for the same position, does this mean that all (or most) of the original applicants for the position were not qualified?
I think that if the ad has been re-posted, it likely means they did not like any of the candidates who applied the first time around. Maybe they are hoping to get applications this time from people who didn't apply the first time because they were only applying to their top schools?
However, if a school's deadline passed months ago and they have not re-posted, they are probably waiting until after the first of the year to contact people so they don't waste their time on candidates who have already accepted offers.
Re: Cornell. I don't think people were jumping to conclusions. It is true that most of the people who have landed interview in top jobs have a "wow" inducing CV (when I read their CVs, I "got it"--they exist in an entirely different job market than I). In a sense, they "earned" it. The problem, of course, is in the status and rewards system of our profession and in the type of work, methodologies, networks, epistemologies that gets noticed as "wow" inducing. THAT is what many of us are criticizing (or mourning). If you're engaged in a large ethnographic study, there is just no way in hell that you're going to graduate with that kind of CV. And, what do you know--Cornell, Penn, and some other "top" places have few (if any) folks who do this kind of work.
2:03 Yes, of course. But that "killer CV" is the exception, and not the rule, don't you think? That is precisely the reason many of us are psyched about it.
Don't forget the guy who's name keeps showing up on all the job talk boards who studies "fuzzy sets". His cv is pretty "killer" but it doesn't look like straight quant to me.
I also personally know a couple of people who are doing well enough on the market this year who do ethnographic research (I hesitate to mention their topics since that's pretty identifying and their names aren't on a public job talk lise that I've seen somewhere). These are people who have spent 3-4 years on an in-depth ethnographic research study.
I'm not ignoring that the market may be biased towards quant people (or maybe there are more of us so we get more jobs overall).
Definitely. Those CVs are not strictly quantitative. It appears that the most successful candidates are those who have shown that they can use different methods, or combine them somehow.
There's some research on the job market for new assistant professors of sociology. The general finding is it takes publications to get considered for an R-1 job, but among the people who are considered, pedigree matters a great deal. That seems to be consistent with some of the postings on this list.
There's some old research on this question by Allison & Long, but the best and most recent research is an unpublished dissertation by Andrew Cognard-Black. The title is "Nice Work if You Can Get It."
geez folks, let's be realistic here.... it's the QUALITY of the work that matters... quant, qual, pigeons, warthogs, whatever.... CV gazing is meaningless unless you have seen the work.
7:22 - I respectfully disagree. The bottom line is that there are a LOT of people on the job market whose work meets the minimum threshold of being "quality". Doing quality work is a necessary but not sufficient qualification.
A LOT of things matter here. But we're not operating in a pure meritocracy. While "cv gazing" doesn't tell the full story, it tells a lot of the story when you are gazing at the cv's of people who are being invited to give job talks at top schools.
Remember a while back there was mention of people being rejected by schools to which they had not applied? I got an empty envelope from one such school. What would you do in this case - just ignore it?
Regarding relisted ads, no it doesn't mean they have already passed you over. I know of a position that was reopened more because the dept had been focused on other searches. I imagine they realized they weren't going to be able to invite people for search C until January, having scheduled job talks for searches A & B for Nov & early Dec. Given this change in time line, would make sense to allow additional applications, and they may have done very little in terms of screening applicants for the reopened search.
7:22 here.... not making the claim that quality is the only thing that matters (i thought that had already been established here), but unless i have served on some unusual SCs, we were interested in the quality of the actual product (certainly not minimum threshold quality), which is the best predictor of potential for future contributions to the discipline. this is why CVs are not a very reliable indicator, especially for early career folks and for ethnographers... i can think of many instances when CV gazing would not have told a coherent story...
Come on guys, remember not all "ethnography" is the same. Many people do qualitative work and call it ethnography. The extensiveness of the ethnographic work really varies. And, I disagree...most of the stuff out there is crap, we are taught to produce crap and publish crap and that is what gets rewarded...dont you all read our top journals?
I'm sorry, but I think you're missing something if you think that the research that gets published in our top journals is "crap." Most of the experts in our field publish in those journals, including the best ethnographers (including the editors of those journals, by the way). I don't know if you are criticizing them because you feel left out or what, but it takes a lot of careful work to get something published in those journals. I think we should respect each other's work and each other's methods.
I never actually read all the articles in journals, but I always find at least one article that is interesting enough to capture my attention. I bet I'd say the same about the rest of them if I read them.
You may not care for the research questions, topics, or methods because they just don't interest you. But I doubt if there are too many articles in top journals that are flawed enough to qualify as "crap".
I'll be the first to say that the peer-review process is not blind and different authors with the same paper would have different chances of getting published. But that doesn't mean their papers are bad, just that the process is flawed.
Whether you like the articles or not is one thing, but saying they are all crap indicates a lack of knowledge about what goes into these articles. The reviewers are generally phenomenal- people send to ASR and AJS just to get the reviews. The R and R's are merciless but seriously take your work to the next level, and they consider it necessary to have a theoretically and empirically strong piece that also speaks to a general audience. And they reject 93% of their manuscripts, including from top people.
I agree that for me, as an urban ethnographer, what is usually in there is not what I am interested in- substantively or methodologically. But crap? Where do we find the "good" articles? And I don't mean because they are exciting, but empirically rigorous and theoretically innovative.
A related question: what do you see as the top journals for ethnography? AJS, ASR seem heavily biased towards quantitative work. Where are the best places to submit qual. work?
Well, "best place" for ethnography is a tricky answer. ASR and AJS are in a league of their own, so it's a whole other matter in terms of prestige/getting a job/tenure than if you publish in outlets specifically for Qualitative work (I think the best still ranks in the 40s overall).
Over the past decade, AJS has actually shown a willingness to publish ethnography, and they have other qualitative stuff like coparative/historical. The new editors at ASR are committed to putting more ethnography/qual in the journal. If you look at the december issue it has 2 ethnographic pieces.
Down on the list, the same holds true whether quant/qual: Social Forces, Social Problems...
If you want specific qualitative outlets, Qualitative Sociology is the "best," followed by Journal of Contemporary Ethnography and Ethnography. But keep in mind that if you are trying to publish in a venue to help you land a great job or get tenure at a high ranked school, ASR/AJS should still be the goal- not for every article but to put one piece in.
With all this discussion of the "best" journals, can someone post a list of the rankings for sociology journals? I know these exist, but being at a small place, I don't have access to them, and I think it may inform all of us as we proceed. Thanks!
I hate to be reflexive again, but the field as a whole creates and perpetuates these systems of status. If you want a journal to pop up on the "top" list, then you should do everything you can to: publish in it, encourage others to publish in it, advertise those publications, circulate articles from it to your peers, and cite it more frequently, offer to be a reviewer, etc. Because there is more awarenesss of and submissions to the top journals, the standards can be more stringent and so people take those articles more seriously.
828 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 401 – 600 of 828 Newer› Newest»I posted about UNC-CH being "hellish". I heard this from a person I know who is no longer there; I have no first-hand knowledge. I heard they do not support junior faculty or students well except for a handful of "superstars".
I was in grad school at Indiana. It is a wonderful environment for both students and faculty.
9:44, if you read through, you can see that people are posting positive comments, as well. i agree that "department-bashing" for the sake of rationalizing failure is unproductive. however, legitimate requests for anonymous insider information otherwise unavailable is not.
Not all the departments people have posted about are hiring, for what its worth.
6:51-I can't figure out which dept you're thinking of. This all seems relevant.
UNC alum here. I'd say it's probably a fine place (as an assistant). the 70's building is inherently depressing and faculty largely keep to themselves (beyond the perpetually awkward holiday party & spring picnic), but on the plus side, it's not wracked by the kinds of internal divisions that many other places experience, and people are pretty friendly in general. publishing expectations are pretty high though.
I just got an email from UNLV - they just got approval to hire for 3 positions. See the "positions" thread for details...
I may decide to go for an assistant program officer position at a top foundation. It would pay more than an academic job, but the hours wouldn't be as flexible. Any idea how this would affect me in a couple of years if I chose to go on the academic job market?
4:44-The key thing is to keep publishing as though you never academia.
Hear, hear, 6:42. Hear, hear.
No, I take that back. Sociology is just fine; it's the f***ing sociologists.
I'm with you, 6:42.
Just when I am sending out applications, the AAUP sends out a 'Newsletter on Job Security for Part-time Faculty.' Here's are two depressing sentences... Although they that contextualize a lot of our personal woes in C. Wright fashion:
"In 1975, tenured and tenure-track faculty together constituted 57 percent of faculty nationwide. By 2005, the latest year for which figures are available, that combined group had been whittled down to merely 32 percent. Contingent faculty had meanwhile grown from 43 percent to 68 percent of the professoriate."
They even offer a chart (http://www.aaup.org/NR/rdonlyres/9218E731-A68E-4E98-A378-12251FFD3802/0/Facstatustrend7505.pdf) and suggest putting it on your office door!
6:59 - in my view this is not the most enlightening way of looking at the issue. What would matter more for me is the percentage of class-hours being delivered by contingent faculty. If you base it on the % of everyone involved - i.e., the number of individuals - then you don't know whether the load taken by contingent faculty has simply been spread among a larger number of individuals.
I realize that the figures you gave relate to the change over time, so there would have to be different rates of change for my comment to be relevant. So perhaps it's more a matter of presentation than of disagreeing with your conclusion.
12:45 : Other than finding it depressing, these are the AAUP's conclusions and presentation of information, not mine. I agree that the sort of information you are curious abt would be helpful and interesting... I'm just throwing it into the mix/midst...
I'm trying to figure out whether there is a trend here; are there some people out there with multiple "hits" (xs, nibbles, bites, interviews), regardless of whether at top institutions or not, and others with basically none? I'm from a top five, some publications, decent CV, and basically nothing from the over 20 jobs I applied to currently on Wiki! The dead silence is making me think that perhaps my pitching is off.
I think that's a good possibility (not for you, but for me). After I sent all my materials out, I had someone review them and he pointed out a TON of things that should have been done differently. Everything from the organization of my cv to the length of my cover letters and the phrasing of my my research description.
I am waiting until next year and trying this all again, but I know I made a LOT of mistakes in how I pitched myself and that's probably a big reason I got not nibbles. I am otherwise well-credentialed.
It's definitely the case that a wealthy few are sharing most of the spoils. That's the dynamic every year. From a system perspective, it's irrational (not to mention unfair). But from the perspective of each department, it's rational. Each department picks who it wants, irrespective of what other departments are doing. And many, many departments want the candidates with ASR/AJS/SF pubs and from top programs. Just look at the "events" pages of the departments that are hiring. You can see the overlap. The system is clogged because there are no systemic sorting mechanisms (that would be the matching strategy noted by others to be in effect in medicine).
9:50 thanks for the comments, that was eye opening. Yes, AJS/AR/SF rule, and with them quant methods!
I disagree. I don't think it is necessarily the case that there are a "wealthy" few that are taking up all the slots. I do think that there are a handful of candidates that are highly sought after, but there are also A LOT of really good, solid candidates out there, who are not necessarily "super stars". Schools have to make difficult decisions from an extremely strong applicant pool. A lot of good candidates have to be rejected. It's an issue of too many good applicants. The fact that there are a handful of amazing candidates does not help but I think the real problem is that there are just too many of us. And when the competition is that tight, small insignificant things start to matter and creep into the decision process making everything seem capricious.
10:34,
First, I've been in ASR and AJS, and I wasn't complaining about the preference for them. I said it was rational. So take your sarcasm and shove it. Second, the question was whether there were a few people with a lot of market interest and a lot of other people with none. I think it's clearly the case, and that has a lot to do with whether a candidate has published in top journals.
Let's play nice, all.
-karl
Benny here. I posted my stats in another thread, so I won't repeat here. I applied to nearly 80 schools, with a rather well-put-together app. I've gotten 5 solid "nibbles" (short list, phone interview, campus interview), all slightly more teaching oriented, but certainly places I would like to be. I think the primary reason that I've gotten this type of feedback is because I sent out so many apps. I'm not a super star, and I'm not being pursued by top schools, but I'm happy. As one prof keeps telling me, you simply never know which schools are going to be interested, so apply widely.
Does anyone know anything about IUPUI? How are the students? (It's a master's only program.) What's the teaching loads, resources, etc.?
And to second Karl, let's play nice, since none of us need extra stress from a blog. Keep in mind that tone often gets lost in writing, so be explicit, even if that means a well-placed "lol" or ":)".
~Benny
Just curious: Did you all know how excruciating getting a job would be when you first decided to go to grad school? I had no idea. And no one told me-- not even the ABD folks who were going through it. Why has this culture of secrecy developed?
I had no idea either. I got vague hints here and there, but it wasn't until reading this blog that it hit me how depressing the situation is.
Interesting that we're all on here commiserating with one another over how much job-hunting stinks, yet we're also competing with one another for jobs. Sort of like Proletarians who know the economic system is exploitive and alienating, but in order to put food on the table, happily compete with each other for jobs.
I definitely didn't know.
I had no idea, and if you could do it all again, I would never go to grad school. Degree from top school and all. I'm just frustrated that dpts. keep churning out more people with useless degrees.
I'm nervous about my prospects in academia, but I definitely don't regret going to grad school. I've learned so much about myself, about my research interests, and I feel especially great about my research training and improved analytical skills. I come from a very poor family, and even if I don't get an academic job, the PhD will open so many more doors that would not have otherwise been available.
there are some really good people at iupui. i don't know about the teaching load, but there are plenty of resources to go around if you are motivated. indy isn't bad, either.
I did my undergrad at IUPUI and LOVED IT! I spent some time at the Bloomington campus of IU also, and while I liked IU a lot I really felt at home at IUPUI (I was in soc). The faculty were very involved with students - I did my first conference presentation as an undergrad at the urging of one of my professors. The small classes are great and you won't find any politics or problems among faculty.
I can't say enough good things about IUPUI. And don't discount the caliber of students either. A lot of really great students go there, especially non-traditional students. I wound up at a top-5 grad program out of IUPUI and I'm not the only person I know who id that either.
Oh, and as I remember it they do a great job of balancing research and teaching expectations for faculty.
an interesting question, about what we knew going in to grad school.
i think i did know how difficult the job market was. i certainly knew that there are a lot more graduates than jobs. but back when i started, i assumed that i wouldn't have much trouble climbing to the top of the pile (please forgive my arrogance; i was young and stupid). i figured i would just work hard and since i was at a top department it would all just be fine. i knew that it would be hard for some people, but i didn't know i would end up being one of those people!
i would do it again in a heartbeat though. for better or worse, i am not a sociologist because i thought it would bring me fame an fortune. i got in to this business because i really do love the research i do and i think it does matter. i can't imagine doing anything else.
-cpl
When I came to grad school I was pretty naive about how this all worked. But I was under the impression that there weren't too many tenure track jobs and that adjunct positions were more likely.
I have to say I'm pleasantly surprised now that I'm on the market that there are as many jobs as there seem to be. It's nothing like other disciplines like English, or Ethnic Studies or American Studies. Sociology appears to be a growing field, not contracting just yet.
*Applause* to cpl! It's edifying to know there are more of us out there.
I had no idea it would be difficult to get a job. Nor did I care. I went to graduate school because I wanted to live and breathe sociology, not because I wanted a job.
Pre-grad school, I had little idea that decent jobs would receive 200+, and in some cases 300+, applications! I will be on the market next year, and am already stressing. I've been thinking about looking into other job fields, 9-5s, as semi-backups, though some of them seem more appealing than some of the academic positions out there. Anyone else with similar thoughts about the future?
People, do not discount jobs outside academia. I am also keeping my options open. The process of professionalizing people into sociology also means giving them a blinkered view of the possibilities. Do try the academic job market; then try the non-academic job market. Millions of people on this planet make a living, to paraphrase a famous sociologist, but not under conditions of their own choosing. Why not you?
--Jibbers
Dear Jibbers,
I'm not discounting these options; I just don't know where to look for them. Hey folks, start posting ideas/leads on the appropriate thread for these non acadmeic jobs!
Check out the NYTimes Jobs section under Education. For example, in this Sunday's Week in Review there's a posting for an Assistant Director of Research at the Institute for Children and Poverty to research family homelessness. It sounds perfect for a Soc Ph.D.
I think it's wrong to think that 5 or 6 candidates are getting all the interviews at all the jobs. My guess is that maybe 5 or 6 are getting lots of interviews at Top 25, maybe Top 50 schools. There's probably another pool getting a lot of interviews mostly in the Top 30-100 schools. Then another pool getting more of the SLAC interviews.
Then there are those who are getting NO interviews. Very depressing. Anyone else out there as shocked as I am?
I'm shocked too. This is a brutally painful and demoralizing process (for me, at least).
yes, i too am in the no interviews crowd and am somewhat surprised about it... maybe not shocked, but still surprised... trying now to be hopeful about the interdisciplinary jobs i applied for... maybe they'll like me more than the soc departments :)
-emily (my first post with the fake name!)
Emily,
10:19 here; assuming your gender representation isn't fake, we seem to be in the same boat--interdisciplinary interests for women STILL don't bode well for sociologists. Good luck to us both...
I don't know quite what to make of the market, either. I've got one fly-out, but absolutely nothing else. No nibbles, nothing. Silence. I applied to 35 schools.
-karl
When I entered grad school, our DGS told me that 98% of our grads leave with a job. Unfortunately I didn't ask him/her to elaborate on how many of those jobs were in fast food....
I had one phone interview that didn't bring about a flyout. I applied to 40+ jobs, most of which are now on Wiki, though have about 10 in interd. dpts. I'm at a top five.
I'm at a top 10 and I know at least a couple of our ABDs have multiple interviews (at different places). They will have to make decisions by the end of Nov, which makes me hopeful for the rest of us who might have made it to a shortlist somewhere...
I'm at a top 10, as well. There are five of us on the market. One of us has four interviews, three have two, and one has been shortlisted at a couple of places. Unless all of these "5-6" lucky candidates happen to be in my department, it may be a little more spread out than we think. Maybe I'm wrong...just wanted to disclose what little info I have about the situation.
Yah, I haven't heard anything either. The people around me have, though, one interview or more each.
I keep reminding myself that it really is still early. The people I've known who got jobs by Thanksgiving, say, were the type of candidates who spent their fall bouncing from interview to interview, the ones that held up the process for everyone else their year.
12:06 -
thanks for the humor! yea, everyone in my department gets a job. but i never thought to ask "a job in what?"
i'm at a top-5 and have been met with total silence. really, not a single word. out of everyone on the market in my department, only one person i know has landed an interview. then again, students in my department don't keep in touch much.
sally
(also my first fake-name post!)
I don't know why people keep saying "I'm at a top 5." Most of the variability in market outcomes is within schools rather than between them. Someone with good publications at, say, UC Irvine or CUNY is going to have much better outcomes than someone from Wisconsin, Michigan, or UNC with none or only minor ones. Strangely, this seems like an underappreciated empirical fact...
"Strangely, this seems like an underappreciated empirical fact..."
I think the issue is that we're unconvinced that this is indeed an "empirical fact." I've heard several arguments that insitutional prestige matter more than publications and found them very compelling. I've seen no data on the matter.
The Academic Caste System: Prestige Hierarchies in PhD Exchange Networks
Author: Burris V.
Source: American Sociological Review, Volume 69, Number 2, 1 April 2004 , pp. 239-264(26)
Publisher: American Sociological Association
Abstract:
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.
Since Burris is at Oregon, they are hiring, and he signed the acknowledgement of application letter, it will be interesting to see if he confirms the findings of his own research.
Thanks for posting the Burris piece. Very interesting. Still doesn't explain why my phone isn't ringing off the hook although I can enhance dpt's prestige bringing in my top 5 clout, and I'm really willing to "marry down"
Don’t forget to read Shin-Kap Han’s fascinating comparative analysis of “buying and selling” new Ph.D.’s in the journal Social Networks (2003, vol. 25, pp. 251-80).
“Tribal regimes in academia: a comparative analysis of market structure across discipline”
Abstract:
A systematic comparative analysis of the market structure in various academic disciplines—in terms of the pattern of “buying” and “selling” of new Ph.D.’s—is presented. Based on the parameters estimated to delineate the macro-structural features along the dimensions of differentiation and integration, I show that embeddedness permeates unevenly across different domains, and locate the disciplinary regimes in a map along with their expected operational outcomes. The emerging pictures show a common organizing principle—“the prestige principle”—across the disciplines in their broad outlines, yet they differ significantly from one another in that the regimes that are characterized by clear hierarchy and tight solidarity are the ones in which the workings of the prestige principle are the most efficacious.
For those who haven't gotten interviews - last year I went on the market ABD and had one VAP interview at a SLAC in March. I landed a decent enough post doc, and did only eight applications this year (b/c I have funding for two years). My pubs record has barely changed - book chapter, stuff under review - but I have two fly-outs scheduled for this month. I think the difference between ABD and PhD can be pretty big in the eyes of search committees, particularly if you don't have a strong publication record. (On the other hand, I'm extrapolating from a sample of one...)
The Burris piece is a non sequitur. The fact that top depts mostly hire from top 5's doesn't mean that those from top 5's are mostly hired by top depts.
Y-->X is not the same as X-->Y
12:40 is exactly right. Also, there seems to be an extremely elitist assumption here that you SHOULD earn lots of interviews and a top job simply because you are at a Top 5 or Top 10 school (which generally also equates to the largest number of grad students). There are generally MANY students at the top schools, and not all of them shine brightly, when compared to peers at their school OR when compared to someone at a "lesser" program who can clearly become THE star in their place. Being third or fourth author on an ASR or AJS as a grad student won't necessarily be viewed as favorably as six or seven solid pubs and really strong recommendations from faculty members who actually seem to know you! Just some other variables to add to the mix.
Even still, it doesnt negate the fact that most people hired at the best schools come from the top 5, meaning that grads from non-top 5s have much lower odds of landing that top-5 job.
Very true... of course many don't last at those top placements as they burn out pre-tenure. And, it never ceases to amaze me how functionalist many sociologists are when it comes to their own personal job prospects and lives.
It's not a question of functionalism, it's a question of the accumulation of social, symbolic, and intellectual capital. The people who get good jobs have usually accumulated a good deal of all three and realized what they were doing as they did it.
What's remarkable here is that people are surprised when they DON'T get good jobs. Doesn't the surprise itself reflect something about the sociological imagination of those who are surprised? :-) Are we capable of extending our sociological imaginations beyond conspiracy theories and theories of victimhood?
I think that most of us are not shocked when Stanford, Chicago, or Berkeley don't call. But many of us are disconcerted when places like Oregon, UConn, Amherst don't.
This discussion is beginning to remind me of white men who gripe that Affirmative Action is 'reverse discrimination'. Sounds as if there's an underlying assumption that everyone from top schools is better than everyone else.
9:51 summed it up perfectly! And yes, it was functionalism before Bourdieu and others expanded it (go back and read the Tumin/Davis and Moore debates)! I hope that clarification puts to rest the myth of my lack of intellectual capital, simply because I came from a lower tier program. :-)
7:19... the whole process is disconcerting. However, since we've heard that there were 400+ applications for UMass, I'm not really any more surprised that they didn't call me.
I have a question about typical teaching loads at research universities versus liberal arts colleges (I should know this, but sadly, I don't) and other places...what's the range? I had a phone interview at a place where the teaching load is 3/3, but they said that one's research is not suffocated and is also considered important. My friends at research universities have teaching loads of 2/1 or 2/2 I think. Are there liberal arts colleges with 2/2 loads, or is 3/3 pretty much standards at non-R1s? I want to know what I should expect at various places...I guess I was hoping for a 2/2 or 2/1 load but I'm not sure how typical this is. Does anyone (esp. those with 1-2 kids) find time for their own research while teaching 3/3 and also feeling relatively sane? Is a teaching/research balance possible?!
A 3-3 load (or sometimes 3-4 or 4-4) is pretty typical for non-R1s (and some lower tier doctoral institutions). The research expectations that go along with that load can vary widely. I've talked to people at 3-3 institutions that expect 6-8 peer-reviewed articles at tenure review, and I've talked with 3-3 schools that expect "research activity," conference presentations, book reviews, chapters, and not necessarily peer-reviewed articles.
As for having enough time, I've been teaching a 3-3 for the last 4 years (but don't have kids). The first year or two are tough because prep time is so high, but once you've got the classes in the can, it's definitely a job that you can fit in a flexible 40-hour week. I think it's actually much more family friendly than a full-time 9-5 job, because the hours are at least partly flexible.
I have found the discussion of expectations and prestige very interesting. I can think of several reasons why people at top-ranked institutions would fare better on the job market, but department prestige is only one. Also, the assumption by SCs of a department prestige-candidate caliber relationship would also be one. After all, it doesn't matter whether such a relationship is "true" or not, what matters is whether people doing the hiring think it is true. If it is real in its consequences...
Also, keep in mind that while research has documented the relationship between graduate department prestige and job market success, we are still talking about a distribution and not an absolute relationship. As I tell my undergrads: it is true that a person has a greater chance of becoming involved in street crime if he/she is poor, there are very long tails in the distribution and a whole lot of cases that do not fit the pattern. And you'd have a better chance of being right if you guessed someone was not involved in crime, poor or otherwise.
Finally, I would be curious whether the expectations of people and how they attribute their outcomes varies in predictable ways. Fundamental Attribution Error, anyone? If I get a good job, I may think that my graduate department's high rank really meant something, but if i don't get a good job than I assume I was judged only on the strength (or weakness) of my individual merits. By that logic, people with jobs may also be the people who assume prestige matters so we could have some real selection bias among sociologists employed in good jobs (whatever those may be).
In some ways, it is akin to a grad student I knew a few years ago who was on the market. Whenever he did not get an offer after an interview, he assumed that the person who got the offer got it because they were a minority or female. But when he did get an offer, he never thought it could be because he was a white male. Not that I am suggesting anyone here is racist or would think like that. My point is just that it is very difficult to know what does and does not matter when trying to attribute outcomes to individuals.
It has been an interesting discussion - thanks!
5:57 raises some great issues. I also really wonder how "good" the job market is in terms of available jobs versus number of viable candidates. I think there are significant structural constraints (many existing faculty lines not being re-upped, more instructors being hired, etc.) that have affected most disciplines in the last ten to fifteen years. With seemingly ever increasing numbers of grads out on the market, along with the postdocs and the "grass is greener" assistants, it seems that things are remarkably tight and ultra competitive. With that said, good luck to all on the market (except for the positions I'm most interested in). :-)
For the person asking about teaching loads, the more prestigious lib arts schools do offer 2/2 or 3/2 loads, and it seems they do have considerable research expectations. However, in my experience, you are often better served in those places to focus on books versus top tier journals. Again, good luck all!
9:51,
1) Affirmative action is reverse discrimination. There may be an argument for doing it, but that's what it is.
2) One doesn't really need to "assume" that those from better programs tend to be better candidates. There is every reason to believe that this is the case, considering we went through a first stage selection process upon application to grad school. So to the extent that some aspects of job-relevant ability are carried into and through graduate school, those from "top" departments will TEND TO BE better candidates objectively. Of course, mistakes are made in evaluation at all stages, so this assertion is PROBABILISTIC rather than absolute.
(For those of you who cling stubbornly to the idea that there is no correlation between ability and admissions, please get back to us after you've served on a graduate admissions committee...)
2:12, there are several falacies to your statements, but I will just stick with one. Where you end up going to grad school has almost everything to do with where you got your Bachelor's degree. Where you go for undergraduate school has almost everything to do with your parents' social class. Some of the brightest people I know came from working class backgrounds and had to attend state colleges (where there were indeed professors from Harvard, Chapel Hill, Berkeley, Wisconsin). They got no less of an education than those who attended the private schools. They did, on the other hand, learn how to work while they were in college. Not only did they hold down part-time and even full-time jobs, but they managed to pull off GPAs at or near 4.00. Regardless, because they graduated from a less than prestigious university, they ended up at a lower ranked graduate school. I am not even talking about being ranked in the 50s. I am talking about being ranked in the top 25. How are these people any less deserving/intelligent/competent than somebody whose parents could afford to send them to a prestigious undergraduate institution?
6:26,
Leaving aside for the moment that there is no evidence for your assertion, I will offer my own anecdotal evidence/impressions. In my experience on admissions committees, GRE scores are the biggest "wow" factor, probably followed by the content of rec letters. So assuming really smart state school kids can score as well on the GRE and get to know their professors as well as the kids from Harvard, their disadvantage should be minimized. Certainly at the school where I teach (a prestigious one), we have grad students from a number of schools. And the best students do NOT tend to come from places like Harvard, fwiw.
Finally, there is an enormous tendency among sociologists to regard parental class as destiny, when in fact it explains only a very modest amount of one's future trajectory. (I'm sure I'm about to be straw manned here, so in my defense: class does "matter" but it is hardly determinative of grad school placement.) I know some faculty at very prestigious places who were the first in their families to go to college, etc. Do you all really think that the Soc grad programs at Wisconsin, Chicago, Michigan, Indiana, etc. are all filled with kids from Princeton and Swarthmore? Hardly. Those kids are off doing investment banking anyway... :-)
Since my conflict theory of the soc job market has nevertheless been labeled "functionalist," you can refer to me as Talcott.
Warm regards,
Talcott
Not all of us went to the highest ranked program to which we were accepted. For me, rank didn't play into my decision. I had funding at Berkeley and Wisconsin, but I didn't pick a top 10. Would I do this again? Probably. Would I recommend it as a strategy? Probably not.
Talcott,
If I am not mistaken, GRE scores are also a reflection of one's cultural capital. What a pity they're the wow grabbers in SOC departments. The same goes for getting to know one's professors; as a GSI/instructor at a top public program, my impression has always been that the more priveleged kids had easier access to professors--during class, at office hours, over email. They had an aura of entitlement about them, a confidence, that helped establish such connections (that later translate into letters, etc) that others--perhaps equally smart kids--did not have.
Let's not forget about *quality* of education either, shall we? People who go to stronger schools - at both the bachelor and PhD levels (though arguably for different reasons)- are likely to be better candidates because they are likely to have had a better education. I certainly hope that all of you who are aspiring to be *educators* are not forgetting about the power - the actual intellectual power, not the political power - of a quality education. If, as newly minted PHDs, a Berkeley grad isn't any better qualified than a (insert lower-tier school here) grad, then something is terribly amiss at Berkeley, folks. The same goes for undergrad, at the teaching level: I certainly *hope* a Bowdoin student is a better candidate for graduate school than a Salem State College student.
9:11 (aka Talcott?), have you read the exchanges on this website? Those of us with degrees from places like Berkeley ARE teaching at Salem State and their likes—out of necessity, in most cases. We’re desperate for jobs at places like Bowdoin (in fact, we’ve been chastised for inferring that we “deserve” them). But there aren’t enough good jobs to go around!
Point being, of course, that the Salem kids have access to top dpts. grads--assuming that this is indeed a factor in undergrad education. I'm sure grads of (fill in the blank) will disagree with that assumption.
There is at least one thing terribly amiss at Berkeley. It is flooding the market with way too many PhDs
I agree with 9:39, and the same goes for Wisconsin and Princeton.
On a completely different topic - does anyone have any suggestions for getting out of an interview if I've already said yes to it? It's at a decent enough school, but (a) I don't think it's somewhere I want to be professionally or personally, (b) it'd destroy my home life (ie, my partner has already said we'd be living on different coasts if I take it) and (c) doing the interview (on the specific date) will really screw other things up for me. That said, I feel like a jerk for wanting to back out, although on the plus side, I'm sure they'd call someone else in, and I'd be happy for my interview slot to go to someone much more excited about the position. Any ideas? Thanks!
10:48, I strongly encourage you to post your question on the Chronicle forum! You'll get a good idea of what the potential damage to you might be, but yes, you might give someone else a shot - and sooner - which could make all the difference.
10:48 - I would definitely encourage you to back out now, especially if you know that you would never take the job. This sort of thing happens more often than many of us realize. I would tell them that for personal reasons you will be unable to interview for the position. Be very gracious and thank them for their time and energy etc.
Thanks for the suggestion, 10:59. I am afraid that canceling my interview might have repercussions - I have only one other interview as of today, so I'd hate it if backing out cast a nasty pallor over my candidacy elsewhere...
Talcott,
9:51 here. Others have done a great job of pouncing on your other comments, so I'll just address your remark about Affirmative Action. You seem to buy into the popular 'wisdom' that Affirmative Action is about quotas, which might or might not be accurately called reverse discrimination. There are very few AA programs that actually use any kind of quota system; most, instead, merely require that opportunities are widely publicized so that people from a variety of backgrounds can learn of them and apply (see, for example, the work of L. Bobo and J. Kluegel). A way of defeating the Old Boy network, so to speak. These aren't by any stretch discriminatory.
If 400 of us apply for a job, chances are good that more than one of us meets the stated requirements. Some will be white and some not. Some will be male and some not. As the affirmative action officer at my school pointed out to my students, school and job openings don't 'belong' to anyone. A cry of 'reverse discrimination' when someone other than a white man is hired is tantamount to saying that white men are always more highly qualified than other types of candidates.
11:28,
I think you paint an incomplete picture of AA. It's true that most programs do not use a quota system. It's also true that AA is often simply taken to mean that positions should be widely advertised, and that a large, diverse pool of applicants should be sought. As I understand it, that's the point of the anonymous EOE cards we've all been filling out.
However, there are also times when departments want to 'increase their diversity.' I've seen this on search committees I've been on, as well as had it come up in interviews. In these cases, minority status on some demographic characteristic becomes a 'qualification' for the job. I think it is these cases that can appropriately be called reverse discrimination.
11.28:
Thank you.
Hey, wait, I thought I got branded Talcott by the bleeding-heart patrol for suggesting that better schools might just create better candidates...now the one who had the gall to publicly declare that Affirmantive Action is discrimatory gets to be Talcott? No fair!
The only thing we can stay for certain is that “better” (or rather, higher ranked) schools create better "candidates" because of the peculiar system of status and rewards of the academy. They are better candidates precisely because they can abide by and reproduce this system—they will be the next generation of professional and intellectual gatekeepers. But this does not mean that higher ranked schools produce better teachers, scholars, or public intellectuals.
12:40 or whomever wishes to answer: I'll ignore the "bleeding heart patrol" comment, but would like to ask a follow-up. Empirically and without using U.S. News rankings, what measures demonstrate that the so-called top schools are "better schools" and that the students there are "better students?" This is a very simple question (perhaps reflecting my fundamental lack of intelligence since I earned a Ph.D. from a "worse" school).
I think, 1:02, you strike at the heart of the problem: we have a complete lack of adequate measures concerning what constitutes a "good" school or candidate. Even with a sociological imagination strapped on tightly, without any consistent measurement of "value," how can we ascertain quality? To me the question is can we either devise a system (that somehow gets actually implemented) of measurement, or can we do something about the weighting of perceived indicators of value (ie., change the symbolic weight current imperfect measures have)? Unless we can do one of these things, all the arguing in the world about good schools and top candidates is pointless.
Give me a break. No wonder Soc is such a low prestige discipline. Bleeding heart brigade indeed...
If we re-read the Burris article, those from "top" programs do not seem to be any more productive than those trained elsewhere, nor are they more likely to be any more influential within the discipline. (read the article for indicators)
Schools outside the elite programs, according to the article, likely hire "elite-trained" graduates with the hope of collecting a little something-something (cultural capital) and thus gain some prestige. According to the article, this does not seem to occur. In fact, the bottom of the pile from elite programs are as crappy as the bottom of the pile elsewhere (burn out?).
This is not to put down those who conferred degrees from top programs. Good for you (us). It's the idiotic quest for departmental status, grants, joint ventures, and a good website that seems to to be the basis of much frustration.
In a land with many PhDs in hand, and strong publication records, those with the extra cultural capital are in a better position to land a job. Thus, the point of the "academic caste system."
Solution: when you land a job and are in a position to hire someone, convince your department to forget status and hire someone you imagine would be fun at parties, a good friend at meetings, and a fellow traveler at coferences.
Hear, hear 2:17...
Forget quant/qual - let's fight about whether we're activists or scientists!
2:17 and 3:18, neither of you answered my very simple question. Please explicate what makes your schools and/or you personally "better" than someone who went to a lower ranked school. Actually, strike the last part. It becomes too reductionist, and leads us down the path of "pissing contests" of my vita is bigger than your vita, etc. Please just discuss the institutional differences if you would be so kind. Thank you.
I also fail to understand what this has to do with the "bleeding heart brigade," unless my hunch is correct that this comment reflects that assumption that anyone who gets an interview or a job yet dared to come from a school ranked lower than yours is a diversity hire.
Just call me The Troglodyte (since I'm from a lowly ranked school).
3:28 - I (3:18) am from a lowly ranked school, lower, I'm sure, than yours. And unpublished. Your assumptions that only someone from a top school would make the arguments I'm making are *exactly* the problem.
I'd love to engage further after this, but I really need to be spending my time trying to make myself competitive with people who, at the very least, recieved better training than I because they were at a better school.
Move beyond the essentialist boogey trap in which you appear to be stuck, and the argument will be clearer. Scroll back through the threads on this blog and they make themselves. The top schools are better schools for all sorts of reasons that have nothing to do with GRE Scores or US News Rankings or any other politically-loaded measure. They've got more money and faculty who are more productive and better at playing the game of our profession.
And yes, generally, the pick of undergrad applicants in the first place, by all those problematic measures. Anyone who's ever taught a course in more than one school knows that the preparation of undergrads varies widely, and whether they can, oh...I don't know...read, for example, is certainly reflected in their GRE scores.
part of the problem here is that there are exceptions to every trend, but it is very hard to know whether you are an exception or not. so when we start trying to make generalizations from our own experience, we run the risk of assuming we are representative (or not) when we are not (or are). in my case, i got my undergrad degree from an anonymous community college and my rec letters for grad school were all written by non-academics (including one from a family friend who drives a school bus!). i got in everywhere i applied, received fellowship finding, and will graduate this spring from a top-5 school. i know i'm the exception, but i still can't tell you why i got in.
maybe it was just that someone on the admissions committee, one single person, thought that my research interests were really cool. which brings me to the issue of what makes a "good candidate". i agree with those who say that just being at a "top department" does not infuse one with some superior abilities. on the other hand, we know that being a "top candidate" means you have some set of skills and experience that SCs want.
from what i can see, it looks like the things SCs want are: strong quantitative skills, potential collaborative connections with well-known people, publications, and the ability to bring in grant money. i am not discounting qual work at all (i do it), but based on job postings it looks like a lot of SCs want the quant people.
i do think that if you come from a place like Michigan or Wisconsin or Carolina, you are more likely to know advanced quantitative methods and to have learned them from leading researchers in the field. if you are at a "top department" (keeping in mind that department rankings are partially based on grant $$$ brought in), you are more likely to have had the opportunity to work on grant proposals and sponsored research. and if you are at a department with well-known professors, you have more lucrative network ties.
i think that advantage is very contextual. and the pathways to that advantage are varied. none of us can know the degree to which our own experience deviates from the norm. we can't know the size of our residual, for the quant folks!
finally, i can't pass up the comments about "reverse discrimination". discrimination is when a person or group with power allocates a resource unequally based on a group rather than individual characteristic. so really, disadvantaged groups cannot discriminate by definition because they are not in positions of power. furthermore, i think very few SCs would select a candidate they felt was not as strong as another candidate because the person was a minority, female, veteran, older, jewish, whatever. as for selecting among equally-qualified candidates, i have no problem with SCs giving preference to historically disadvantaged groups. if anyone has a better idea, let me know. but it seems like "white=better" has been played out enough.
-cpl
3:28 - my vita is bigger than your vita!
cpl,
I understand where you're coming from when you say that "disadvantaged groups cannot discriminate by definition because they are not in positions of power." But, in the case of AA policies, the majority & most powerful group are those who believe like you (or pretend to), namely, that AA policties are good and beneficial. The pro-AA group is not disadvantaged when it comes to deciding how to approach hiring decisions. So, I think that AA policies can be (i.e. are) discriminatory.
You also state that "i have no problem with SCs giving preference to historically disadvantaged groups." I understand, and I think a lot of people would agree with you here. But, your comment makes it plainly clear that AA practices are, by definition, discriminatory. If a case ever arose (and I doubt it does) where two candidates were equally qualified, then why not flip a coin? THAT would be Equal Opportunity Employment. Trouble is, EOE and AA are mutually exclusive hiring strategies.
I'm glad this issue is being seriously discussed, because I think it is important and worthy of open consideration. Plus, someone should work on an article based on this dialogue!
7:56 (originally 3:18), I probably do come from a lower ranked school than you (think bottom ten on the lists that are floating out there). I did however work my way up from a small town h.s. to a small state university to a top 20 program, but left there because I thought that the emphasis of the education was all wrong (yes, I personally refer more activist/public/whatever the hot term is sociology over "objective," I'm the researcher and I decide what is worthy of consideration sociology).
However, that does not mean I discount the value of what higher ranked programs have to offer.
I really wasn't making a "boogey" argument or anything of the sort. I was really interested in having people STATE what they think are the reasons why "top" schools and "top" students are ranked as such, instead of keeping such designations mystified. You are absolutely correct that resources (money in particular) are much more plentiful at the "top" schools. And yes, the students do have higher GRE scores (whatever that means). Average GPA is probably not that much different, though that can be problematized as well. The connections with well-known and well-heeled people and networks are what I think is most critical, but each of these factors (and probably some others I omit for space) is important.
Responding to another of your comments, I have taught in a variety of contexts (from community colleges to small lib arts colleges and state schools to large public research universities), and yes, when describing undergrads, their test scores do somewhat predict things like whether they can read or think in a way that is more complex than simply regurgitation of information presented to them. However, I would HOPE that by the time people get to grad school, those problems have been weeded out through the admission process (or in all likelihood they will not make it through basic grad seminars). I could be wrong about this, and perhaps there are some seriously intellectually deficient people who are on the job market and perhaps reading this posting.
I would point out that there are some lower ranked or lesser well known departments offering excellent quantitative courses or theory sequences. Generally, yes, your overall education at a Michigan, Wisconsin, Cal-Berkeley, Harvard, etc. will be better than one of the bottom schools; however there are exceptions and these should be noted and treated as such.
However, and this is crucial, for INDIVIDUALS to bitch and moan about a situation that is somewhat structurally-determined, is pointless. Either there should be a totally blind screening process (i.e. you get a job based solely on your anonymous vita, research and teaching materials, and the quality of your letters NOT letter writers), which is impossible, or we should all be able to admit that the game is rigged, at least to a certain extent. "Name" matters, and I'm not talking about your name! And this was my original point. That is all... Good night and good luck. The Troglodyte
My point all along has been that these processes should be visible to sociologists who are attuned to their own position in the field. I constantly hear grad students bemoaning how faculty "don't think sociologically" about the workings of their departments, but then these same grad students are the most amazed when they see what the job market is like. Whoops. I guess somebody forgot to "think sociologically" about their own career! Did no one realize in year one that if all the top schools are admitting 10-20 people per year that there wouldn't be enough R1 jobs for everyone? Didn't anyone realize that networking and prestige are important and then act accordingly? Or do grad students ignore these factors in their decision making process because they "shouldn't" matter? I'm confused.
-Talcott
Wow, so many rats in this cage! When do we begin to eat each other?
Talcott,
It really takes a while to realize that to survive in this profession networking skills are as important as intellectual aptitude. By the time you develop the analytical skills to figure out the politics of academia out, you're knee deep in the program. I'm at a top 3, and no, I didn't realize this until it was way too late. I now try to warn incoming students (or aspiring students), but I realize they're too young to grasp this, plus they don't have a context. Perhaps this should be worked into departments' pro-seminars? (Do you tell students, and I mean really, really tell them that if they don’t work the backrooms, receptions, work only with professors who can teach them how to get grants they don’t stand a chance?) Knowing what I know now, I would have left early on--or better yet, never entered.
Lastly, yes, some of us refuse to act in certain ways as we think the profession shouldn't work in this way. Of course, we’re the ones who pay the price, because the structures of the profession are such that our protest is mute, never heard in the great halls of prestige. And, of course, it is all political--learning to navigate the halls of prestige and building networks requires a certain cultural sophistication that not all of us possess coming into grad school, in part in due to personality inclinations, and in part due to, gasp, our SES backgrounds and other similar factors.
Thank you all for this illuminating discussion; it reminds me why I wanted to be a sociologist.
Talcott, your assumptions that one can so easily "act accordingly" reek of privilege. It seems that you, like the rest of us, forget to use your sociological imagination to think about your own position in all of this.
Even if I don't get a job this year, or next, I'm glad I'll have a PhD and I'll keep working to understand the various structures that reproduce inequality. Hopefully my publications will remind some people of the many privileges they pretend don't exist.
this is a blog, so hyperbole abounds. the PhD's from top departments are either entitled, privileged social butterflies who were born on third base, or they pulled themselves up out of intellectual mediocrity by their bootstraps. Obviously neither picture is accurate.
Take a look at the "PhD's on the market" sections at the top-10 schools. I haven't looked this year, but last year you would have found 15-25 people with downright *scary* CV's. People with huge grants, sole-authored ASR's, AJS's, SF's. Did they "earn" it? Who knows. But it's certainly not the case that they suck up all the jobs just because their advisers know people.
It's true that you have little chance of getting a job at the University of Chicago unless you got your PhD from Harvard, or, well, Chicago. But Michigan, UNC, and Berkeley--all top-5 places--currently employ people from the likes of SUNY-SB, Maryland, Texas, Minnesota, and even UCSD for goodness sakes. You hardly need to have graduated from Phillips Andover to get into those universities.
I'd argue that the intercollegiate networking is trivial, and only rarely makes a difference for a candidate. However, intra-departmental networking is *hugely* important.
People with top-50 jobs come from a really wide range (in terms of prestige) of departments. But what virtually all of them have in common is that they got in with the right professor in their department, and worked hard to please that person. Obviously, at lower-ranked departments there may be fewer "right" professors, but then, there's probably weaker competition for their attention. So don't worry so much about candidates from your "rival" university, and focus on the ones sitting next to you in the grad lounge...
The issue of class seems to keep popping up in this discussion. Whether or not someone "earned" a good job or started out on third base seems like an interesting discussion (granted, well "earn" our achievements, but some need to work a bit harder than others to earn them). The implied message I've drawn from some of this discussion is that we need stronger supports for sociologists from working class or near-poor backgrounds. I am one of those sociologists, at a decent, but not a top-10 program, and I know that in terms of funding, it would be appreciated. When some of my colleagues' assistantships ran out, they were able to support themselves for a term or two, while they applied for grants or made other financial arrangements. I knew that wasn't an option for me. Sure, there are loans, but some folks have substantial loans left from undergrad and face an uncertain job market. I'd hate it if the ABD stage were a place where working class sociologists are systematically weeded out because of financial concerns.
Does anyone else see these issues as problematic?
2:42, I agree. I am also at a top 25, and I am from a working class background. Funding is extremely important, especially in college cities that tend to have inflated rents and higher costs of living. While there were some people that came into my program with a bit of a financial cushion, others knew their only source of income was that assistantship (or some additional part time job that they were not even supposed to have). Once that funding ran out, more than a few people have taken to teaching 2-3 classes just to get by, while others have taken full times jobs while they continue to work on their dissertations. Needless to say, they ability to publish is less than slightly inhibited by working full time. Not to say that it can't be done...it can. But, boy is it all a whole lot easier if you dont have to worry about paying the bills...Lets not forget that graduate school is not like it was in the 70s. It costs more to live these days relative to what the dollar is worth. People have found creative ways to get by- these tend to be the working class folks who have always found creative ways to pay the bills. In terms of the grants issues, some will say that you need to find a mentor and get on his/her grant. Easier said than done, especially in departments when those folks are few and far between and may be doing research no where near your specialty areas.
5:39 - in a broad sense, AA is not discriminatory because of the power dynamic. the issue is not whether the people in power are pro-AA or anti-AA, it is whether they are historically disadvantaged. To be very blunt, white men giving preference to white men = people in positions of power and influence allocating resources unequally to their own. Given that unequal opportunity based on race/gender/religion/sexual orientation still exists, granting preference to people who are disadvantaged amounts to equality, not discrimination.
To go off and be sociological for a minute...I went on a field trip with my 2nd grader's class last week. The class has 20 kids. 9 white kids, 6 blacks, 3 Hispanics, and 2 Asians. I had never met any of these kids before except for my daughter's 2 best friends. After the first hour, it was obvious that there were differences in how the kids behaved and were treated by the teacher, and those differences tended to play out along racial lines.
My feeling is that I think it is totally fair to give preference to a minority candidate on the job market, given that preference is given to non-minority students throughout much of the education system. Before calling foul over AA, spend some time in a first or second grade classroom and see how race and gender matter there. Not in the eyes of the students, but to the teacher. Being given the upper-hand among equally-qualified candidates doesn't even begin to account for the disadvantage that people experience in academia as soon as they start school if they happen to be black, Hispanic, poor, or an obvious religious minority. And white folks crying "discrimination!" in the face of AA disavows all recognition of how biased our educational system is.
I'm not saying that affirmative action is egalitarian. but i am saying that it is a small step towards rectifying the gross inequalities that exist in our society. i know that it sucks on an individual level for a white man to not get a job just because he is white and male when he is equally qualified as a minority candidate. however, it was equally as sucky for the minority candidate to have spent twelve years in a school system that gives preference to while males.
point being...it is hard to separate the individual from the structural. and as for "fairness", i think we just do the best we can. as my mama told me, the fair only comes 'round once a year.
-GoHeels!
i am also from a working-class, no make that poor, background. when you add that to being a single parent, things get pretty tight. i am lucky in that i have managed to land a fellowship that pays well, and i also teach a night class. so i manage to keep everyone fed. barely.
however, i have been totally blown away by the financial resources that some of my fellow graduate students have at their disposal. having rich parents seems to provide a very nice grad student lifestyle, as does marrying wealthy.
there are significant class differences in how much time we have to devote to finding money as opposed to doing our own research.
-cpl
GoHeels,
I've seen exactly what you're talking about in elementary schools. The American primary education system is in shambles, not the least of which is driven by those sorts of racial inequalities. But hiring at the college level is not the right place to address inequalities in the 2nd grade. Doing so will simply decrease the quality of the American university system too - causing it to reflect the same inequalities we see at lower grade levels.
Still, that being said, I understand that many (most?) agree that, as you say, "Being given the upper-hand among equally-qualified candidates" is acceptable. So, I would propose that when this type of AA comes into play, the non-minority candidates who were not offered employment recieve a rejection letter that reads, in part:
Dear Applicant,
Thank you for your interest in our position. You were just as qualified for the position as the person we have decided to hire. Unfortunately, at this time we are unable to offer you employment because of your race and/or gender. We feel that discriminating against you individually is the best way to address structural and historical inequalities. Again, we thank you for your interest, and wish you the best of luck.
How about this for a letter to other well-deserving candidates who don't get a job for some reason:
"Dear Applicant,
Thank you for your interest in our position. You were just as qualified for the position as the person we have decided to hire. Unfortunately, at this time we are unable to offer you employment because the person we hired had better social networks. In other words, he/she has professors who drink/associate/publish with people in this department. Obviously, this has nothing to do with that candidate OR your qualifications, but given these indirect social ties, we went with this candidate. We do not consider this discrimination, because this is the "way things have been done" since time immemorial, and well, we can do nothing about it. Again, we thank you for your interest, and wish you the best of luck."
I'm with GoHeels and 8:47.
5:25, don't you see that your own assumption that "Doing so will simply decrease the quality of the American university system" reeks of the kind of prejudice that perpetuates and feeds inequality? Why else would you assume that a person of color or woman is a lesser candidate and that a white man not chosen in this position has been screwed? Later in your own post you refer to choosing between equally qualified candidates, but that seems to contradict what you said earlier.
By your logic, if a white man is chosen, it's because he's the best candidate. If someone else is chosen, well, the poor white guy was still the best candidate and is a victim of discrimination. WTF?!
Any time a hiring decision is made, there are applicants rejected of the same race and gender as the person chosen. What is your excuse when a highly qualified white man loses out to another highly qualified white man? If you find that no excuse is needed here, perhaps none is needed in the other situation either.
Of course, we've all overlooked the fact that sometimes the person who would seem to us to look the best on paper is NOT the best fit for the department. Maybe the hiring committee realizes that a certain candidate offers something special and more desirable than the obvious paper choice. Or maybe the paper choice annoys them with his sense of superiority and entitlement.
Again, some of you really overestimate the importance of your advisers networks. This is 10:50 again--call me Maude. I came from a top-5 dept. and got a job at a top 30 R1. I've served on search committees, and have tried to "network" on behalf of our students.
I'm telling you: aside from old-boys clubs like Chicago, adviser networking will not get you a job. It *might make a difference in the case of a tie (CV-wise), but usually that will mean that the dept. invites both candidates out for an interview. And once you get to that stage, all bets are off.
Again, where networking really does matter is within your department, which is how you build your CV. Some professors are much better mentors and collaborators than others, and their students come out with better CVs.
I suspect that it's more comfortable to use "smoky back room" imagery to explain job outcomes, but departments are always divided, and SC's have to justify fly-outs on their merits. Generally, your CV gets you the interview, and candidates are ranked (explicitly or implicitly) before they get there. The top candidate can certainly screw things up for herself on the interview, but barring that it would take heroic interviewing skills for a lower-ranked candidate to come out with an offer.
Oh--one exception where intercollegiate networks really matter is on the negative side. Faculty will call people they know at the candidate's department. You don't want people saying bad shit about you, as it's a lot easier to knock a candidate off the list than put one on it. Few CV's are so perfect that they couldn't be ruled out for some reason.
call it "unsociological" or whatever, but it's mostly about your CVs, not your adviser's friends.
-Maude.
9:41,
I "assume that a person of color or woman is a lesser candidate" because GoHeels' argument implies this. If minorities are really treated badly in lower grades, and this results in them recieving a poorer education, then we have every reason to believe that *on average* they will be lesser candidates.
Now, make no mistake, this is a huge problem. But, the inequality is being generated *at the lower grade levels*. Hiring at the college/university level is the wrong place to try to correct this problem. I'm all for increasing equality in elementary and secondary education, on race lines, yes, but I think more importantly on class lines. But, I don't think AA in the cases we're talking about here is part of the solution. Instead, it may be part of the problem.
In the case of the oft cited 'two equally or highly qualified candidates': my only point is that, when such a decision arises, if there really are no merit criteria that distinguish them, the decision should be made by a coin toss. Race (or gender, sexual orientation, marital status, etc.) should never be a reason for chosing one candidate over another. These categories are (or, should be) irrelevant to the selection process. That is, at least as I understand it, what equality is all about.
I agree with 10:10's final paragraph, that is what equality SHOULD be about. It is of course NOT about that, however.
So, another stupid question is looming: how do we determine the comparative ranking of one CV versus another? I have some obvious thoughts on the subject, but I think we should be clear about it, and I want to know what some of you others think are the criteria used by SCs to "rank" applicants based on their CVs.
Across the board, sole-authored pubs in AJS or ASR really set a candidate apart from others. After that, it's mushy. some would prefer sole-authored work regardless of outlet, others credit collaborative stuff in prestige journals. And of course, the dissertation topic is important for branding a candidate. Obviously some topics have more general appeal than others, and those candidates will be preferred (assuming they fit into the advertised slot).
But some of it comes down to the subcultures of the department--there are generally divides in a department, and members of the SC will place you on one side or another, which will definitely affect your candidacy. If you do get the interview, it would make sense to put extra effort into assuring the opposing side that you are someone they could tolerate.
--the above was posted by me, maude.
I'm amazed that so many of you assume that scholars of color are really getting positions through AA and that we're taking the white males' positions. First of all, there are so few scholars of color getting PhDs, that we're really not that great of a threat. Secondly, just because job ads state that they would like to increase diversity does not mean they will actually do anything about it. Typically, the job ad is as far as that effort goes. Just look around in your departments - especially the prestigious ones - scholars of color are a rarity.
10:10,
YOU STATED: "Now, make no mistake, this is a huge problem. But, the inequality is being generated *at the lower grade levels*. Hiring at the college/university level is the wrong place to try to correct this problem."
******************
The generation of inequality does not start or stop at the lower grade levels. Inequality is generated and perpetuated throughout one's lifetime, including (and perhaps especially) at institutions of higher learning.
Maude,
Thank you for taking the time to enlighten us. Do continue!
Am I the only one who is depressed that a debate about inequality using these sorts of gross generalizations is taking place on a list of sociologists? I shouldn't be surprised given the sort of things I heard faculty members say when I was in grad school. But still, it's depressing.
It's all good and well to critique privilege until yours is threatened.
1:49 I totally agree, and I count myself as endowed with many markers of privelege
Thank you 2:16 - it's good to know that I'm (1:49 that is...) not alone in feeling this way!
1:49 & 2:16 -
right on. it IS depressing to hear sociologists demand absolute "equality" on the job market in spite of the gross inequalities in virtually every institution that leads one to be here on the job market.
yes, it would suck to be on the losing end of a job decision just because you are white or male. however, it sucks just as much to be on the losing end of a hundred advantages up until now because you are non-white or female.
as sociologists, i think we have a responsibility to look at our own loves sociologically. if you are white and/or male and/or not poor in this country, you ARE in a position of privilege.
no one is saying that you haven't worked hard or that you don't deserve to be rewarded for your work. nor is anyone saying that you have accomplished X or Y because of your institutional privilege. but you do have a responsibility to acknowledge your privilege. and to recognize the disadvantage that others experience because of their race, gender, and social class (income).
i'm willing to bet that i can count on one hand the number of white people who are passed over for an academic job in favor of an equally-qualified non-white candidate, if it even happens at all. but all of us put together wouldn't have enough fingers to count the number of non-white kids who never even have the opportunity to go to college simply because of structural inequalities along racial lines.
Since this has turned into another affirmative action blog..
Not to mention the difference that (identity- and/or experience-relevant) minority faculty can make for undergraduates and graduate students--both because of how professors treat their students and from students' perspectives. Anyone read the New York Times? Interesting blog posting today from a white teacher in a predominantly black high school, which addresses it from a different side than 11/7 8:45. I don't actually think these processes stop at the 2nd-grade or high-school level: WillOkun'sblog
In addition, as future faculty I'm all for departments seeking out candidates from under-represented groups. It doesn't help me on the job market, but as a sociologist in particular I'm much more interested in places where I'll have not only good colleagues, but colleagues with more varied backgrounds and identities than white men from upper-middle-class and middle-class backgrounds.
Since this has turned into another affirmative action blog..
Not to mention the difference that (identity- and/or experience-relevant) minority faculty can make for undergraduates and graduate students--both because of how professors treat their students and from students' perspectives. Anyone read the New York Times? Interesting blog posting today from a white teacher in a predominantly black high school, which addresses it from a different side than 11/7 8:45. I don't actually think these processes stop at the 2nd-grade or high-school level: WillOkun'sblog
In addition, as future faculty I'm all for departments seeking out candidates from under-represented groups. It doesn't help me on the job market, but as a sociologist in particular I'm much more interested in places where I'll have not only good colleagues, but colleagues with more varied backgrounds and identities than white men from upper-middle-class and middle-class backgrounds.
A lot of job postings say "members of underrepresented groups encouraged to apply" but I'm left wondering if that includes sociologists from working-class or poor backgrounds. I doubt it. I think it would be looked at as quite odd if someone were to mention their poor upbringing in their cover letter. I tend to think that should be fixed. Class may not be as visible as gender or race/ethnicity, but it's at least as potentially disadvantageous. Maybe it's left out because it is hard to prove? Then again, anyone could claim to self-identify as black or a woman, just the same. I don't know; should class count in hiring?
My department will be hiring next year, and it's pretty much understood that the successful candidate will be something other than a white male.
Anyway, as long as we're talking about what-should-be, rather than what-is, my own view is that it would be preferable to address racial and socioeconomic inequalities earlier in the life course, rather than applying quotas at the final stages of education. But my own view as a female sociologist is that such AA policies are not dissimilar from hiring in certain subject areas. It's not controversial if a Department wants to hire a China scholar, but it is if they want to hire a person of color. The critics assume, wrongly IMO, that color is just skin deep, when in fact there are real and meaningful cultural differences that often accompany skin color. I don't think it's unreasonable to want some cultural diversity, particularly when we're talking about a fundamentally interpretive social science like sociology. It's not like we're a plastic surgery department handing out scalpels to the nearest black woman.
-maude
-maude
I really appreciate this conversation. I think that we need much more aggressive affirmative action in faculty hiring, esp. by race and class.
On a totally different topic: I have interviewed at two different schools where faculty have referred to quantitative research as "empirical research." And that makes qualitative research... anecdotal story-telling? C'mon people! Get it together!
- "Terry"
i think it is a good point that economic class is not something anyone would consider in hiring, but it probably matters as much, if not more, than race or gender in shaping one's opportunities.
I also agree that there are meaningful cultural differences associated with different racial identities. The same holds for economic class differences. As some from a flat-out poor family (my household income was 11K a year for 5 people the year I started college), I have always been very aware of the differences in world views between myself and my peers from middle- and upper-class backgrounds.
It is not just optimal but essential for sociology departments to include people from a wide range of backgrounds: racial, economic, gender, sexual orientation, religion, whatever. I dislike having to rely on affirmative action to provide that diversity, but until unequal opportunity is rectified in other areas then AA might be the only solution we have. And I'm not willing to sacrifice diversity just because the means to achieve it is sub-par.
A professor named Grimes at LSU wrote a book a few years ago about sociologists from working-class backgrounds (not very widely read). His conclusion: No matter the level of achievement the sociologist reach (publications, title, pay), they never really feel like they truly belong in academia. They're always the cultural outsiders and are never able to bridge the gap, even if their peers see them as equals.
That's what really needs to be addressed.
358, that is so true. Cultural capital, as Bourdieu argued, is not something that one can simply acquire. Cultural capital is something that individuals embody from a very young age if they belong to the dominant group. Even when academics with working-class origins start to accumulate some of the trappings of the middle class, they will never fully feel that they belong. In my own experience, this is right on.
Does anyone else find it difficult to figure out how to explain this to other sociologists. I mean, social class is not visible in the same way that race and gender are.
I have mentioned my poor background to some of my peers and have heard things like, "Yea, my family was like that too" when they had a nice middle-class income of $40,000 a year or more. Or even more difficult, the people I meet with two working professional parents who must easily make six-figures who tell me that they understand because "even though my parents had money it's not like they gave use anything we wanted."
That's just so different from doing your back-to-school shopping every year at Goodwill and being embarrassed to have friends over for dinner lest they see the black-and-white government food labels in your pantry.
I think that in addition to class mattering very much in so many ways, it is also invisible in many contexts and therefore easier to overlook, misunderstand, or dismiss. I have no problem teaching my students about racial and gender stratification, but I always struggle when it comes to class because it is so subjective in the eye of the beholder.
It is also something that you can never leave behind even when you can't see it anymore.
I hear you. I'm white, but am completely comfortable talking about race and racism with people of color. it does not create any anxiety for me. talking about class with people whose origins were above or below mine, however, is not something I think I'd be able to do easily.
Classism (unlike racism) is still quite acceptable in mainstream culture, and there is no end to jokes at the expense of poor and working class folks. grad student friends of mine held "white trash parties", there are websites devoted to "mullet hunting", not to mention all the redneck humor (in some ways, Jeff Foxworthy's origins are beside the point, but I wonder whether he didn't grow up the son of a dentist or something).
I can imagine that it's tough to go from working class to the educated elite. Such mobility is probably even more difficult in any other field (except, perhaps, professional poker).
--Maude
5:20, have you seen the PBS documentary on social class? I use it in my class, and it's a great way to get students thinking about all of the intangible markers of class. (I think it's called Social Class in America.)
The insider/outsider perspective that my experiences in a poor single-parent family afford gives me a unique view of class and sociology. There is a certain sense of discomfort that accompanies social mobility, whether downward or upward. I'd love to see more studies of academics from w-c and poor backgrounds.
Even among stratification scholars, discussions of how social class operates in our own lives are often stilted and awkward. Americans hate to acknowledge social class, whether they study it as an academic subject or not.
I also come from a working class background and perhaps it's easier to discuss these issues because since I'm also Latina, people automatically assume I was poor. One strategy that has worked well with my students is to have them think about it at the individual level. They talk about some of the experiences parents might face if they only had a high school education versus a college education. As they discuss it, they think about vocabulary, exposure to literature, social networks, access to information, access to jobs, what the wages will translate into as far as neighborhood, extracurricar activities for the kids, extra academic help for kids. Most of my students are privileged, so it's wonderful to see them struggling with these ideas and although not all of them "get it," many do seem to begin to understand their privilege and to break down the notion of meritocracy.
I would recommend Lareau's Unequal Childhoods as a great starting point for these kinds of discussions.
I come from a priveleged background and I recognize that I have had a lot of lucky breaks in life. However, recently I have felt prejudice and discrimination in academia and on the job market for something that I have chosen to do - have kids. No one is talking about the disadvantages that parents (particularly mothers) face when trying to get a job in this field. There have been many discussions about why women drop out of the "science pipeline," but little recognition that women are often pushed out of science (usually the discussion is about hard science) because it is so hard to balance family and work. We academics are given little time to have children, take time off for maternity leave or deal with difficult pregnancies. Instead mothers are usually expected to be on the same timeline as non-mothers, and it is generally recommended that we hide family life or be seen as "not serious." Considering that Sociology is trying to be a discipline that recognizes diversity, it seems that there should be more recognition of the difficulty parents have in the hiring/tenure process.
6:29, this is a common feeling. I felt it too. In fact, I felt I had to "prove" that I was still a serious scholar in grad school--by working harder than everyone else--and I think I did--but to the detriment of my relationship with my first child. I'm on the TT now at an R1, and trying to do things a little differently now--and I am--but, I'm still trying to get tenure! There are no good answers.
Boy, this thread has really turned into a who's who of crybabies.
Can we talk about "this year's job market" a bit on this blog instead of complaining about how all of us are discriminated against?
7:04am - If you have anything else to say about "this year's job market" (especially since it's so early in the game) - go for it!
People Like Us is the documentary from PBS referred to earlier. Very good to use in class, segments run 10-20 minutes and it covers many issues and also allows for discussions of intersectionality.
I am 7:04
Things to say:
My perception is that post docs and junior faculty itching to move up are a large part of the available labor pool, so that ABD's have to be incredibly polished to have a shot at any of them-- even more than last year where a couple people with few pub's landed plum jobs.
That said, it does not seem that there are clear "superstars" like last year who are landing 10+ interviews at top R1's. It seems that even the best are getting more like 3-5 at this point; if you look at job talks on websites it seems there is a lot of variation in terms of who is getting the talks. But not in terms of their productivity.
Seems the top schools will all be wrapped up before Christmas- inteviews wrapped up around Thanksgiving.
re: 7:04
I wonder if that has to do with the schools that are hiring this year as much as the candidates. Last year there seemed to be more "top" or near-top schools hiring (i.e., UCSD, U of WA-Seattle, Harvard, etc.) It may have been more clear where "star" candidates would apply and interview last year than this year because of that. Just a thought.
Among this year's star studded searches:
Wisconsin
Berkeley (2)
Northwestern (2)
Yale
Chicago (4)
Stanford (2)
Indiana
Cornell
Michigan
Irvine, NYU, Minnesota, etc...
Yeah, but some of those listed are either not straight soc searches (i.e., other departments, combo searches) or they are associate or above...
No,
They are ALL atraight soc searches. Yale just announced one in immigration and race, and all the rest were soc only, and ALL were junior or open.
Well, fwiw, I know someone with 8-10 job talks including almost all of the places on 3:02's list. So there is at least one star out there... :-)
I know someone who has 2 offers from schools on the "top departments hiring" list. This person also has 2 more interviews scheduled at schools on that list.
I don't think anyone was being a "crybaby". I love that sociologists are discussing how issues or race and class play out in the academic job market. I also appreciate the discussion about how to approach these issues with our students.
It has been my experience that most people who dismiss talking about these topics as "crybaby-ing" are people who don't want to have to reflect on their own structural position of privilege.
If people really think that "structural privilege" is job market destiny, why did they bother to finish grad school? Does the analysis of job market inequalities help ease the pain of unfulfilled expectations? Or does it make it worse because, as a sociologist, you really should have known better than to expect that sweet job?
A separate question: Is there anyone out there thinking, "Man, I really should have spent less time at happy hour," rather than bemoaning the structure of the system? Is there anyone out there willing to take even a tiny bit of responsibility for things not turning out well? I doubt it, but I'm just curious.
Leap of logic alert!
Acknowledging structural privilege doesn't mean that you equate it with job market destiny nor that you abdicate responsibility for your own situation. It's rather unimaginative to view this as an either-or situation.
I, for one, wouldn't fit into either of those poles; I've worked my butt off in grad school and have several bites and a couple of interviews lined up. I also am aware that I have benefitted from both white privilege and social class privilege.
my goodness, i can't believe how status-hungry all of these soc phds are!
one of the things that attracted me to sociology was the chance to CRITICALLY examine the structures of privilege and status in our society.
now, i want a good job like the rest of you do. but what is a "good job"?? Do any of you consider the incredibly high tenure-denial rates at some of these 'top 5' (and top 10, and top 20) schools?
I for one plan to have a life of ENGAGED scholarship, i.e. i'd like to have enough time in my day to engage with the society i plan to research. too many professors stuck in their offices 24/7. why on earth would that be appealing??
and as to the theory that someone like me, critical of the establishment, can't hack it: baloney. i turned down doing a PhD in the Ivy league: why?? because i wanted the best education, and sometimes, the best and the highest status are just not the same thing!!
elena
Wow, Elena. I wish I could be as awesome as you. It must be nice to know that, while you are so unfortunate as to be surrounded by idiots, at least YOU understand the important things in life!
Have fun being "engaged" while teaching your 4/4 load... :-)
Can everyone please just chill out and stop being such nasty a**holes?
Hey Elena, I second your sentiments. I did go to a top 5 grad school but have turned down multiple job offers that others have considered very good jobs precisely because I want a work/life balance.
And to 9:05, I've got great friends who teach a 4/4 and still do research they enjoy and manage to have a fun and fulfilling personal life. It's amazing what being at a university where people don't live eat breath status does for ones sense of self worth.
So chill out ya'll. People have many different meanings about what a "perfect" job entails and it's sad to see this status discourse about departments reified on this list. Face it, no one cares about departmental rankings except for sociologists. It's kind of pitiful actually, the status wars and anxiety that I've seen manifested by both faculty and grad students. There are much bigger issues to get worked up about, than one's position in a teeny and, in the end, not very influential world of scholars.
acknowledging advantage and accepting personal responsibility are not mutually exclusive. I don't think anyone denies that the stars, or any successful job candidate for that matter, work hard. Whether hard work and talent alone can explain all the variation in job outcomes is a different matter, however.
--maude
Question -
I recall that a little while ago there was a discussion of whether one can realistically take a non-academic position and hope to get an academic job later. I'd really like to hear from someone "in the know" about this issue.
I'm thinking about taking a position with a research center for the next 4-6 years and then going on the academic job market. I will be doing research in my sub-field and will be able to publish as much as I would as an assistant professor. However, I will approaching 40 years old by the time I would go on the academic market.
I'd really like to hear from people involved in hiring as to what my chances on the market might be under those circumstances.
3:07, at my university we had a person who worked for the Census for most of his career. He decided to get an academic job after several years at the Census. He is now at a top-25 R1.
If you check out the CVs of these four people (who appear to be scheduled for job talks at Cornell), it is clear that they have a ton of pubs, awards, and grants. One of these guys in particular looks to have already had interviews at 4-5 of the top schools (based on his list of invited presentations on his CV). I wonder how many stars there are like these 4 floating around the market this year.
http://www.soc.cornell.edu/events/
forgot the link...
well, i guess we just 'agree to disagree'
i just can't see why status is the most important thing. i would add time, collegiality, campus atmosphere, interesting city, to the top criteria on my list. oh, and salary of course!!
and we'll see who's smiling in 5 years when i get tenure and a bunch of those at R1 schools get their buts kicked to the curb.
elena
Rock on Elena! I am with you!
SCs act in mysterious ways... 2 differently composed SCs from the same institution can produce very different short lists of candidates from the same pool of applicants. the most important thing is to find a place where you can go and do YOUR WORK. whatever that combination is, of teaching or research or service, everyone has a different personal 'top 25' which may or may not include any of the 'top 25' that gets tossed around so frequently (as far as i'm concerned, if those were really the top 25 programs, all of their grad students WOULD be getting 'prestigious' jobs, but that is not the case. there is plenty of mediocre work to go around). it doesn't matter how prestigious the school, if your work is not well-supported there, it is a lousy job for you.
3:12 -
Thanks! That really helps. I've been really apprehensive about the thought of trying to enter academia at age 40, but the non-academic opportunity I have been offered it exactly what I want to be doing.
cpl
whoa,
the jealousy is turning venemous. This happened once before, and the spirit of the blog is not to single people out or name names. In effect, a few posts have done that, and it's pretty despicable.
Let's calm down and worry about our own job prospects.
can't we all just get along?
-karl
(not being sarcastic)
If the date in which review will commence has passed (a month ago)and you see a recent ad for the same position, does this mean that all (or most) of the original applicants for the position were not qualified?
Of much greater interest to me about the Cornell search is that all four are men. Who was it that was arguing that men (especially white men) are discriminated against in academia?
good point 5:50. And, I don't see any harm in pointing out who is being interviewed. After all, aren't we all wondering about the CVs of the people we're competing with? This blog is supposed to be about the open and free exchange of information. There were attempts before the censor it. Lets not go there again. I for one want to know when the job talks at the top schools are and who is being called in to do them. If one person has taken out the time to look up the information, posting it here saves others time from doing the same thing.
good point 5:50. And, I don't see any harm in pointing out who is being interviewed. After all, aren't we all wondering about the CVs of the people we're competing with? This blog is supposed to be about the open and free exchange of information. There were attempts before the censor it. Lets not go there again. I for one want to know when the job talks at the top schools are and who is being called in to do them. If one person has taken out the time to look up the information, posting it here saves others time from doing the same thing.
following up on 5:50's post: with the exception of David Harris and Victor Nee (both extremely famous sociologists in their fields), the rest of the faculty in the soc. department at Cornell are white men or white women. There are a total of 10 men and 6 women. No women of color. Hmmmmm....
5:50 and later: Don't jump to conclusions. Cornell is interviewing six this year. The first two have already interviewed, so their names have been removed from the list. Not all are men.
I'm very sympathetic to the goals and means of affirmative action, but please don't draw conclusions with N's like these. It looks ridiculous.
I dont think any conclusions were drawn. People were simply making observations. I am relatively familiar with Ithaca, NY - its pretty white!
RE: Reposted ads: If the date in which review will commence has passed (a month ago)and you see a recent ad for the same position, does this mean that all (or most) of the original applicants for the position were not qualified?
I think that if the ad has been re-posted, it likely means they did not like any of the candidates who applied the first time around. Maybe they are hoping to get applications this time from people who didn't apply the first time because they were only applying to their top schools?
However, if a school's deadline passed months ago and they have not re-posted, they are probably waiting until after the first of the year to contact people so they don't waste their time on candidates who have already accepted offers.
-cpl
Re: Cornell. I don't think people were jumping to conclusions. It is true that most of the people who have landed interview in top jobs have a "wow" inducing CV (when I read their CVs, I "got it"--they exist in an entirely different job market than I). In a sense, they "earned" it. The problem, of course, is in the status and rewards system of our profession and in the type of work, methodologies, networks, epistemologies that gets noticed as "wow" inducing. THAT is what many of us are criticizing (or mourning). If you're engaged in a large ethnographic study, there is just no way in hell that you're going to graduate with that kind of CV. And, what do you know--Cornell, Penn, and some other "top" places have few (if any) folks who do this kind of work.
cpl:
That's what I thought. I am a dead man.
except the one at Penn who
1. does ethnography
2. comes from a "2nd tier program"
3. writes about a bizarre topic- pigeons.
Like it or not, it does show that an ethnographer can have a killer CV
2:03 Yes, of course. But that "killer CV" is the exception, and not the rule, don't you think? That is precisely the reason many of us are psyched about it.
Don't forget the guy who's name keeps showing up on all the job talk boards who studies "fuzzy sets". His cv is pretty "killer" but it doesn't look like straight quant to me.
I also personally know a couple of people who are doing well enough on the market this year who do ethnographic research (I hesitate to mention their topics since that's pretty identifying and their names aren't on a public job talk lise that I've seen somewhere). These are people who have spent 3-4 years on an in-depth ethnographic research study.
I'm not ignoring that the market may be biased towards quant people (or maybe there are more of us so we get more jobs overall).
Definitely. Those CVs are not strictly quantitative. It appears that the most successful candidates are those who have shown that they can use different methods, or combine them somehow.
There's some research on the job market for new assistant professors of sociology. The general finding is it takes publications to get considered for an R-1 job, but among the people who are considered, pedigree matters a great deal. That seems to be consistent with some of the postings on this list.
There's some old research on this question by Allison & Long, but the best and most recent research is an unpublished dissertation by Andrew Cognard-Black. The title is "Nice Work if You Can Get It."
geez folks, let's be realistic here.... it's the QUALITY of the work that matters... quant, qual, pigeons, warthogs, whatever.... CV gazing is meaningless unless you have seen the work.
Can you point me to the dissertation of warthogs?
7:22 - I respectfully disagree. The bottom line is that there are a LOT of people on the job market whose work meets the minimum threshold of being "quality". Doing quality work is a necessary but not sufficient qualification.
A LOT of things matter here. But we're not operating in a pure meritocracy. While "cv gazing" doesn't tell the full story, it tells a lot of the story when you are gazing at the cv's of people who are being invited to give job talks at top schools.
Remember a while back there was mention of people being rejected by schools to which they had not applied?
I got an empty envelope from one such school.
What would you do in this case - just ignore it?
Regarding relisted ads, no it doesn't mean they have already passed you over. I know of a position that was reopened more because the dept had been focused on other searches. I imagine they realized they weren't going to be able to invite people for search C until January, having scheduled job talks for searches A & B for Nov & early Dec. Given this change in time line, would make sense to allow additional applications, and they may have done very little in terms of screening applicants for the reopened search.
7:22 here.... not making the claim that quality is the only thing that matters (i thought that had already been established here), but unless i have served on some unusual SCs, we were interested in the quality of the actual product (certainly not minimum threshold quality), which is the best predictor of potential for future contributions to the discipline. this is why CVs are not a very reliable indicator, especially for early career folks and for ethnographers... i can think of many instances when CV gazing would not have told a coherent story...
Come on guys, remember not all "ethnography" is the same. Many people do qualitative work and call it ethnography. The extensiveness of the ethnographic work really varies. And, I disagree...most of the stuff out there is crap, we are taught to produce crap and publish crap and that is what gets rewarded...dont you all read our top journals?
I'm sorry, but I think you're missing something if you think that the research that gets published in our top journals is "crap." Most of the experts in our field publish in those journals, including the best ethnographers (including the editors of those journals, by the way). I don't know if you are criticizing them because you feel left out or what, but it takes a lot of careful work to get something published in those journals. I think we should respect each other's work and each other's methods.
The old reverse snobbery rhetorical device. Love it. Mind naming any of those crappy articles in top journals?
I never actually read all the articles in journals, but I always find at least one article that is interesting enough to capture my attention. I bet I'd say the same about the rest of them if I read them.
You may not care for the research questions, topics, or methods because they just don't interest you. But I doubt if there are too many articles in top journals that are flawed enough to qualify as "crap".
I'll be the first to say that the peer-review process is not blind and different authors with the same paper would have different chances of getting published. But that doesn't mean their papers are bad, just that the process is flawed.
Yes,
Whether you like the articles or not is one thing, but saying they are all crap indicates a lack of knowledge about what goes into these articles. The reviewers are generally phenomenal- people send to ASR and AJS just to get the reviews. The R and R's are merciless but seriously take your work to the next level, and they consider it necessary to have a theoretically and empirically strong piece that also speaks to a general audience. And they reject 93% of their manuscripts, including from top people.
I agree that for me, as an urban ethnographer, what is usually in there is not what I am interested in- substantively or methodologically. But crap? Where do we find the "good" articles? And I don't mean because they are exciting, but empirically rigorous and theoretically innovative.
A related question: what do you see as the top journals for ethnography? AJS, ASR seem heavily biased towards quantitative work. Where are the best places to submit qual. work?
Well, "best place" for ethnography is a tricky answer. ASR and AJS are in a league of their own, so it's a whole other matter in terms of prestige/getting a job/tenure than if you publish in outlets specifically for Qualitative work (I think the best still ranks in the 40s overall).
Over the past decade, AJS has actually shown a willingness to publish ethnography, and they have other qualitative stuff like coparative/historical. The new editors at ASR are committed to putting more ethnography/qual in the journal. If you look at the december issue it has 2 ethnographic pieces.
Down on the list, the same holds true whether quant/qual: Social Forces, Social Problems...
If you want specific qualitative outlets, Qualitative Sociology is the "best," followed by Journal of Contemporary Ethnography and Ethnography. But keep in mind that if you are trying to publish in a venue to help you land a great job or get tenure at a high ranked school, ASR/AJS should still be the goal- not for every article but to put one piece in.
With all this discussion of the "best" journals, can someone post a list of the rankings for sociology journals? I know these exist, but being at a small place, I don't have access to them, and I think it may inform all of us as we proceed. Thanks!
Here are a couple of links to sociology journal rankings:
http://www.socsci.umn.edu/~uggen/sociologyranks03.htm
http://in-cites.com/research/2005/december_5_2005-1.html
Qualitative sociology, one of the top venues for qualitative work, is not on this list. HMMMMM
I hate to be reflexive again, but the field as a whole creates and perpetuates these systems of status. If you want a journal to pop up on the "top" list, then you should do everything you can to: publish in it, encourage others to publish in it, advertise those publications, circulate articles from it to your peers, and cite it more frequently, offer to be a reviewer, etc. Because there is more awarenesss of and submissions to the top journals, the standards can be more stringent and so people take those articles more seriously.
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