The University and the Global Knowledge Society 9780691202075

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TH E U N IVE R S IT Y AN D TH E G LO BAL K N OWLE DG E SO CI E T Y

PRINCETON STUDIES IN CULTURAL SOCIOLOGY Paul J. DiMaggio, Michèle Lamont, Robert J. Wuthnow, and Viviana A. Zelizer, Series Editors

For a full list of titles in the series, go to https://press.princeton.edu/catalogs/series /title/princeton-studies-in-cultural-sociology.html. The University and the Global Knowledge Society by David John Frank & John W. Meyer Billionaire Wilderness: The Ultra-Wealthy and the Remaking of the American West by Justin Farrell Inside the Critics’ Circle: Book Reviewing in Uncertain Times by Phillipa K. Chong The Extreme Gone Mainstream: Commercialization and Far Right Youth Culture in Germany by Cynthia Miller-Idriss Seeing the World: How US Universities Make Knowledge in a Global Era by Mitchell L. Stevens, Cynthia Miller-Idriss & Seteney Shami Under the Cover: The Creation, Production, and Reception of a Novel by Clayton Childress A Fraught Embrace: The Romance and Reality of AIDS Altruism in Africa by Ann Swidler & Susan Cotts Watkins Contested Tastes: Foie Gras and the Politics of Food by Michaela DeSoucey Magazines and the Making of America: Modernization, Community, and Print Culture, 1741–1860 by Heather A. Haveman The Battle for Yellowstone: Morality and the Sacred Roots of Environmental Conflict by Justin Farrell There Goes the Gayborhood? by Amin Ghaziani The Moral Background: An Inquiry into the History of Business Ethics by Gabriel Abend Becoming Right: How Campuses Shape Young Conservatives by Amy J. Binder & Kate Wood

The University and the Global Knowledge Society David John Frank John W. Meyer

P R I N C E ­T O N U N I V E R S I T Y P R E S S P R I N C E ­T O N A N D OX F O R D

 Copyright © 2020 by Prince­ton University Press Requests for permission to reproduce material from this work should be sent to permissions@press​.­princeton​.­edu Published by Prince­ton University Press 41 William Street, Prince­ton, New Jersey 08540 6 Oxford Street, Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1TR press​.­princeton​.­edu All Rights Reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Frank, David John, author. | Meyer, John W., author. Title: The university and the global knowledge society / David John Frank, John W. Meyer. Description: Princeton : Princeton University Press, [2020] | Includes bibliographical ​references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2019044955 | ISBN 9780691202068 (hardback) | ISBN 9780691202051 (paperback) | ISBN 9780691202075 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Universities and colleges—Social aspects. | Education, Higher—Social aspects. | Knowledge, Sociology of. | Education and globalization. Classification: LCC LC191.9 .F69 2020 | DDC 378—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019044955 British Library Cataloging-­in-­Publication Data is available Editorial: Meagan Levinson and Jacqueline Delaney Production Editorial: Sara Lerner Cover Design: Layla MacRory Production: Brigid Ackerman Publicity: Kate Hensley and Kathryn Stevens This book has been composed in Adobe Text and Gotham Printed on acid-­free paper. ∞ Printed in the United States of Amer­i­ca 10 ​9 ​8 ​7 ​6 ​5 ​4 ​3 ​2 ​1

CONTENTS

Acknowl­edgments 

vii

1

The University as a World Institution  1

2

The Worldwide Instantiation of the University  21

3

The University Population in World Society and University Organ­izations  43

4

The Societal Culture of University Knowledge  65

5

The ­Human Actor and the Expansion of Academic Knowledge  90

6

The Expanded University and the Knowledge Society: Linkages and Bound­aries  105

7

Reflections on the Global Knowledge Society  127 Notes 147 References 161 Index 177

v

ACKNOWL­E DGMENTS

This book is the product of research and reflection over more than three de­cades. Sources in our ­earlier work are cited at appropriate places in the text. Our pro­ gress has also been aided by the work of many colleagues—­also cited ­here. But many influences are more direct, with contributions at conferences and workshops around the world. Most prominently, we have received many valuable suggestions and reactions from our long-­term participation in the Comparative Sociology Workshops at Stanford and Irvine. ­Every part of our effort has benefitted from the scrutiny of many colleagues in t­ hese fora. Similar reactions from our students over the years have helped us. Beyond t­ hese continuing connections, we have received valuable feedback from pre­sen­ta­tions at many other institutions: The American So­cio­log­i­cal Association, Stanford at Peking University, Peking University itself, INSEAD in Fontainebleau, INCHER at Kassel, UAM in Mexico City, SCANCOR at Stanford, UCLA Burkle Center, Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung, University of Göttingen, Seoul National University, Tokyo University, Bamberg University, University of Hannover, and Prince­ton University. The work itself has been the focus of many helpful comments—­often from journal reviewers. But we want to give special thanks to colleagues who went through the ­whole manuscript making suggestions and providing detailed corrections: Steven Brint, Patricia Bromley, Christine Musselin, and Francisco Ramirez. Of course, errors remain, and are our own responsibility. Beyond this, our book looks at the con­temporary university with a very distinctive perspective. We see the university as a rather unified worldwide cultural frame, in contrast to a dominant view of it as a set of thousands of distinct orga­nizational structures. So the fact that colleagues have helped us move forward does not mean that they agree with our analyses or share our perspective. Most think very differently, and at some points even oppositely, and thus their perspectives have been especially valuable. Our work was aided by funds from several sources, including the Spencer Foundation and a National Research Foundation grant from the Korean Government (NRF-2017S1A3A2067636). Fi­nally, we thank our team at Prince­ton University Press for help and guidance in bringing the book to fruition.

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TH E U N IVE R S IT Y AN D TH E G LO BAL K N OWLE DG E SO CI E T Y

1 The University as a World Institution The university has prospered to an astonishing extent over a millennium, and especially over the last half c­ entury. It has grown in numbers, reach, and scope, and it has diffused worldwide. In this book, we reflect on the university’s sweeping expansion and its centrality in a con­temporary global society built on liberal and neoliberal institutions.1 We delineate multiple dimensions of expansion, giving special attention to the growing cultural content included in the university and in a public society deeply intertwined with the university. We attend both to ­those entities that claim explicit university status and to ­those—­like many “colleges”—­whose credentials and content are clearly oriented to the university world. In both cases, the local organ­izations gain their authority and credibility through their membership in a ­great i­ magined now-­global institution: the university. Thus, while it is common to refer, in social discourse and in social scientific research, to par­tic­u­lar local organ­izations as universities, and to par­tic­u­lar professors or gradu­ates as members of specific organ­izations, this is substantially misleading. The local organ­ization in fact gains its standing b ­ ecause it is an instance of something much larger—­the university as an institution. And while the professors and gradu­ates may appear to come from a par­tic­u­lar local organ­ization, their social status—­registered in ­every role they play through life and into their obituaries—is mainly as members of this g­ rand institution.2 Thus the impact of the university on their own lives (and society) transcends the impact of the par­tic­ul­ ar local organ­ization in which they may have studied or worked. It lasts through the w ­ hole life span and beyond. Local university organ­izations may fail, and are certainly often in­effec­tive, but their gradu­ates 1

2  C H A P TE R 1

are still certified gradu­ates. They are likely to be very conscious of this, as are ­those around them. The point is central to so­cio­log­i­cal institutional theory.3 This defining feature of the university, throughout its long history, is partly implied in its name—­which is employed practically everywhere (e.g., universiteit, unibertsitate, and universitas, in Afrikaans, Basque, and Javanese, respectively). Its special jurisdiction is a peculiar form of understanding claiming status as knowledge. Unlike other forms of understanding, such as intuition or experience, academic knowledge is seen to be universal, holding across time and space. It is furthermore explanatory and thus presupposes a general under­lying base in some form of rationality or lawfulness. Knowledge, as seen in the university world, also maintains an appearance of unity and coherence, such that it seems reasonable to include wildly diverse ideas ­under one orga­ nizational and cultural umbrella: any par­tic­u­lar university organ­ization—­even one named ­after a special icon, saint, or place—­does not claim a distinctive knowledge base. Knowledge is thus a feature of the university as an institution, and a local organ­ization ­because of its linkage to the institution. Knowledge is not only seen as universal and rational and unified but is also deemed to be comprehensible by all t­ hose everywhere who have gone through the appropriate rituals of education. It is ultimately the same for every­body—­across a world with ­great variation in other aspects of culture and resources—­and is in princi­ple (and increasingly in practice) accessible by properly socialized ­people across the widest range of circumstances. Th ­ ese ­people are, thus, importantly members of the ­great institution of the university, not only or primarily of specific orga­nizational instances of it. And they are seen—­and are likely to see themselves— as permanently linked to the knowledge of the university. Their occupational, po­liti­cal, economic, and social statuses rest on it, as do their self-­conceptions: their experiences are filtered through t­ hese social and psychological identities. Power­ful cultural assumptions, religious in origins and still quasi-­religious in character, are involved h ­ ere, constituting the university’s distinctive cultural foundations. The institution’s religion-­like quality remains elusive if religion is conceived strictly as nonrational beliefs held by individual persons. It makes more sense when religion includes the cultural cosmologies or “sacred canopies” that have been so central to the definition of religion historically and anthropologically. The latter provide the roots of the university and the academic knowledge it carries.4 Originally especially Western, many cosmological assumptions at the heart of the university have spread around the world in the current period, as is emphasized by the so­cio­log­ic­ al neo-­institutionalism that provides the theoretical grounding for this book.5 Most significantly: a. ­There is the idea of a ­great and expanding body of knowledge that is universally or ultimately true. It is based on an under­lying (and

U n iv er s it y a s a Wo r ld I n s tituti o n  3

expanding) cosmological supposition that many aspects of real­ ity occur u ­ nder conditions or terms that are the same everywhere and always. No one imagines, for example, that gravity is culturally or historically contingent (though it turns out that it might be). An implication is that ­there is a singular source of being. b. ­There is the idea that the terms of natu­ral and social life are not only universal but also logically structured and causally interconnected. This implies that the source of being in the cosmos is rational, establishing regular relationships between cause and effect and between antecedent and consequent. The gods involved, that is, are not crazy, and bestow basic causal order on an integrated real­ity. c. ­There is the idea that knowledge is coherent and unified and can be examined, learned, and taught ­under one cultural and orga­ nizational frame. This implies that ­there is no segmentation among specific bodies of true knowledge; Zeus and Poseidon are reconciled. Ultimately, knowledge folds into one. d. ­There is the idea that individual ­humans everywhere can in princi­ ple acquire true knowledge. It is not inscrutable or forbidden. This implies a universal and very strong status for properly saved or elevated (i.e., educated6) persons, across widely disparate social groups and increasingly across status barriers such as nationality, race, and gender. ­Humans can, in princi­ple, apprehend the universal truths. And once properly certified, the schooled ­human is treated as in permanent possession of the relevant knowledge. Diplomas, mattering greatly in social life, are rarely rescinded. Occupational success may be followed by subsequent failure: educational success is permanent. ­These assumptions, secularized, help constitute the cosmological foundations of the university. Con­temporary universities are often contrasted with, and even opposed to, what are now narrowly conceptualized as religious institutions. But ­these are near competitors. Fundamentally, both institutions make the same promise: to explain the fundamental nature of being by interpreting local facts in light of transcendent truths.7 And both institutions have encompassing reach, covering every­thing from the genesis of the Earth and the origins of life down to the properties of bacteria. Understanding the university on ­these terms, as built on foundations reflecting and parallel to religious ones, helps us understand its trajectory over time. First, a religious or cosmological imagery helps explain why the university has survived intact over hundreds of years from its medieval origins through the w ­ hole current period. The secularized social differentiation that is often held up as the hallmark of modernity is seen to involve increasingly specialized understandings in increasingly specific domains. Perhaps, therefore, we should

4  C H A P TE R 1

expect teaching and inquiry to differentiate into distinct educational organ­ izations for dif­fer­ent sectors of society. But this happens only very partially and mainly internally to the university. Instead of fragmenting, the university expands as a ­grand umbrella, coming to shelter ever more cultural materials (encompassing, for instance, the once vulgar ­matters of moneymaking and sexual be­hav­ior). It is only when we recognize the cultural impulse to tie local (often occupational) understandings to universal truths that we can appreciate why the university persists and rises as a focal institution in an increasingly globalized but “stateless” and fragmented world. Skilled techniques can be, and mostly are, mastered with real-­world practice. Understanding how specific techniques relate to universal knowledge (e.g., how bean counting relates to accounting) requires something called education. Second, a framework sensitive to the close parallels with religion helps explain why the university, in quite standardized form, has diffused globally, across socie­ties varying greatly in local beliefs and resources. One now finds universities—­recognizably similar, at least in aspiration—in countries of ­every stripe and stratum. This makes sense only if one remembers that the university’s priorities are not local needs and realities but surpassing truths.8 As generalized visions of society envelop ­every community and embrace the ­whole world—­economically, po­liti­cally, and socially—­the universalized knowledge system does too, rooting all kinds of p ­ eople and activities in a common bed of knowledge. Circumstances vary, but the truth does not. Third, seeing the parallel with religion helps explain why the university extends to encompass so many more p ­ eople, across e­ very identity and role. Social and occupational differentiation occurs everywhere and increases everywhere. But increasingly over the modern (post-1800), high modern (post-1945), and hyper-­modern (post-1990) periods, the ­great bulk of differentiation occurs on a standardized foundation of personhood and ­under the standardized umbrella of universal knowledge.9 New and old identities and roles—­including t­ hose once sequestered in f­ amily and community life—­can and now must be understood to occur ­under general laws based on universal truths. Thus, for example, educated w ­ omen are thought to make better ­mothers, in part ­because they are prepared to consult a wide variety of even more educated professionals in medicine, psy­chol­ogy, schooling, recreation, and law.10 Fourth, conceiving of the university in cosmological terms helps explain why it continuously swallows up bodies of formerly segmented cultural content. With the rise of the “knowledge society,” all sorts of idiosyncratic meaning systems are re-­established on rationalized and universalized grounds11. The cultural content of the university thus expands, enabling the or­ga­nized polity and the monetarized economy—­long since heavi­ly standardized—to incorporate the widest array of materials, many far removed from power and production. If

U n iv er s it y a s a Wo r ld I n s tituti o n  5

anti-­liberal movements in the world continue to prosper as they have since 2010, this pro­cess may slow, but over recent de­cades the growth has been dramatic: even the work of sociologists is now counted as part of the GDP. Our approach to the university h ­ ere runs parallel to our approach to con­ temporary society, and especially the global knowledge society, which is grounded in the same cultural ele­ments that undergird the university. Both are built on assumptions of standardized and rationalized universalism. Just as nature in one place is analyzed as if it ­were comparable to nature in ­others, so also, strikingly, is social structure, so that good economic or public policy in one country, justified by economic and po­liti­cal science, is good policy elsewhere and everywhere.12 Professionals, whose roles are justified in terms of putatively universal truths, reign throughout.13 Especially in the era of hyper-­ modernity, con­temporary society shares its cultural undergirding with the university. While it is surely differentiating, society is at the same time anchored in the universalized and unified cultural sediment of the university. Conceiving of the university in quasi-­religious terms helps explain its worldwide explosion. But much of the academic and policy lit­er­a­ture takes a dif­fer­ent approach, seeing the university as a technical-­functional apparatus, expected to produce skilled l­ abor and specialized information useful for real-­ world economic and po­liti­cal practices.14 Of course, some operations of the university directly impact technical roles and functions in society. But the institution and its meaning system are generally decoupled from immediate utility, opening a knowledge umbrella over local life rather than creating its controls and instrumentation. The conventional approach to the university leads to a heavy emphasis on variations in the university’s formal orga­nizational structure, as seen in the substantial lit­er­a­tures focusing on loci of power, governance, and decision-­ making. Th ­ ese notoriously vary among countries,15 typically in response to variations in national po­liti­cal structures.16 In some countries, the professors dominate, while in ­others, students or state authorities (or, it is thought, even corporations) hold sway. This work often has difficulty spelling out the consequences of orga­nizational variations: ­there is a common university model, and students, faculty, and research all circulate—or are thought of as able to circulate—­more or less freely. Indeed, from a larger perspective, the variations seem to ­matter l­ ittle; the university as an institution—­a cultural entity rather than an orga­nizational one—­has a universalized quality. The conventional approach to the university also begets heated cycles of critique and reform, in both the world’s centers and its peripheries. It is common to see the university as reactionary, corrupt, and incompetent to meet the demands of an expanded and differentiated social order. Crisis is envisioned. Associated with t­ hese attacks is a picture of a f­ uture Golden Age in which university reforms empower the citizens with the advanced knowledge and

6  C H A P TE R 1

skill required in a society built on new technology.17 This envisions education as a functional component of a rationalized machine, but it involves a distorted conception of both university and society, dramatically underemphasizing their cultural dimensions and engendering surreal levels of decoupling between institutional ideals and orga­nizational practices.18 The same vision of the university as adapted to and in the ser­vice of rapid social rationalization and technical development produces consternation among intellectuals who imagine that each new contact with mundane real­ity stains the ivory of the tower.19 A siege mentality is common. H ­ ere the Golden Age is not in the f­ uture but in an i­ magined past of intellectual and cultural purity, removed from the vulgar pressures of the pre­sent. The imagery bemoans the debasement of a once-­elevated mission and raises the specter of the university as the puppet of the economy,20 or the state,21 or even the ignominious and self-­centered careerism of liberal individualist society.22 Many such depictions envision, usually vaguely, a long-­term breakdown from the medieval beginning, when theology stood at the apex of public and academic life, only to be displaced by the vulgarities of public policy, engineering, economics, and surgery. This is a misleading conception of the past university—­and of the society in which it operated. The old medieval and early modern universities prepared men to become priests, l­awyers, doctors, and teachers (we return to this point in chapter 3) and could almost be conceived of as trade schools. But this is not quite accurate: the old universities supported the professional roles not with vocational training but rather with elaborated religious and cultural authority—­exactly as is the case now with an enormously broadened array of professionalized roles. Conceptions of the elevated society have expanded greatly over the centuries, but their distance from immediate practice was always—­and remains—­great. If, in contrast to the technocratic hyperbole, we see the university in more cultural terms—as the institutional locus of faith in universalistic and unified understanding—­then we can appreciate the extent to which its penetration of society elevates and in a sense sacralizes so-­called mundane real­ity, christening the hurly burly of ordinary life with the w ­ aters of ultimate truth. Certainly in the con­temporary system, social change has modified the university; but it is at least equally true that the expanding university has expanded and solidified society’s cosmological bases, to the extent that it can now be called the Knowledge Society.23 In the knowledge society, (a) the identities of persons performing roles and conducting activities are transformed, with materials constructed and animated by the blazing sun of the school and especially the supernova of the university. And (b) the roles and activities themselves are transformed—­fused to the bedrock of universalistic rationalism.

U n iv er s it y a s a Wo r ld I n s tituti o n  7

Identity: The impact of university expansion on ­human identity has been overwhelming. Mass education installs personhood, as a cultural frame, on an encompassing basis. Personhood involves entitivity, autonomy, and entitlement to reason. It is institutionalized in h ­ uman rights, and it is assumed to be invariable across social groups, and indeed the ­whole world.24 It formally transforms peasants and tribesmen into persons and citizens, rendering them as suitable for membership in the g­ reat rationalized organ­izations of economy and state.25 Higher education takes ­matters further, conferring actorhood, which assumes that standardized persons exposed to universal truths can behave purposively in and on the increasingly globalized world and now universe.26 Thus, university-­educated ­people the world over can now be seen as empowered social “actors”—­a term that has entered the vernacular to describe them.27 Actors legitimately assem­ble in social movements, seeking change on ­every front, and form rationalized organ­izations on massive and global scales, around ­every conceivable purpose.28 Education, and especially university education, is a foremost means of producing—­symbolically, and to some extent in real­ity—­ this dramatically empowered individual being. Even in­effec­tive education, properly credentialed, transforms the individual through a ­whole life course. The identities involved h ­ ere are so fundamental that in virtually ­every national and supra-­national stratification system around the world, educational attainment is paramount to social standing: the schooling of p ­ eople and occupations is the chief ingredient of social status.29 Furthermore, educational attainment is an inalienable identity; it is not contingent on functional role per­for­mance. Once attained, the status of the degree-­holding gradu­ate is permanent and survives death, appearing in the Wikipedia entry regardless of its relationship or nonrelationship to life activities. Naturally, the institutional carriers of this magic themselves take on a good deal of charisma, rising far above the mundane. As we discuss in ­later chapters, a university can take on everlasting permanence transcending ordinary real­ ity: for example, the University of Bamberg in Germany claims a history of over three and one-­half centuries, despite the fact that for most of that time it did not exist in the prosaic real world. Relatedly, the occupational structures rooted in the university—­and that includes the vast majority of elite positions in a con­temporary society—­themselves acquire ­great charisma, as “professions.”30 Beyond their everyday impact, professions and professionals acquire authority, identity, and significance. Thus, the knowledge society is filled with ele­ments—­people, organ­izations, occupations—­that have supra-­local and supra-­temporal standing, derived in good part from the university as an institution. Such ele­ments occupied a minute space in the medieval world, and a small (though growing) one in the early modern one. In the con­temporary knowledge society, sacralized ele­ments

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are pervasive, saturating local socie­ties with elevated meaning, and building unified elites for a global society. Roles and Activities: In the same way that identities are elevated in the knowledge society, the be­hav­iors associated with t­ hese structures are transformed as they are grounded in academic knowledge. The activities of the working person—­a plumber, say—­are modified. They are linked to general standards of toileting, laid out by specialist professors, who produce technologically advanced toilets, the princi­ples of which may be discussed in global conferences.31 Beyond work technology, other professors generate codes of safety, worker rights, environmental protection, sewage management, and relevant community policy. All t­ hese produce rules governing the activity of the everyday plumber, providing opportunities, protections, and constraints—­ what may critically be conceived as governmentality.32 ­Every activity sector of the knowledge society changes along similar lines, with the installation of universalistic and rationalistic premises. Farming, fishing, and forestry are transformed. Industrial production is affected at ­every juncture. Much of the commodity economy falls into the hands of large organ­izations, managed in ­every department by degree-­certified ­people trafficking in academic understandings. ­Family life comes to be theorized, as do ­matters of health and recreation. The po­liti­cal system is penetrated and refashioned, as elevated princi­ples of theorized policy—to be implemented by university-­trained officers and legislators—­displace raw power in an array of public domains. Beyond all ­these transformative effects, the university generates ­whole new sectors of social life, drawn down from the knowledge created and located in the university, not built up from practical social life. New prob­lems are discovered—­e.g., medical, economic, environmental, and social—­and new professions and policies spring up to manage them. A con­temporary person, for instance, can readily find therapists for prob­lems heretofore unrecognized or understood as ­matters of destiny or fate (such as aging). The university, thus, can be seen in quasi-­religious terms. ­Doing so helps explain its per­sis­tence and spectacular recent expansion. D ­ oing so also helps us see that the university does at least as much to sacralize con­temporary society as society does to pollute the con­temporary university. Schofer (1999) strikingly contrasts “the socialization of science” with “the scientization of society.” The latter pro­cess is greatly under-­analyzed. Expansion By all accounts, the university has become a foremost institution in con­ temporary society. This is widely recognized in discourse and policy at a global level. UNESCO, the World Bank, and many other intergovernmental

U n iv er s it y a s a Wo r ld I n s tituti o n  9

and international nongovernmental organ­izations address the need to improve education generally and higher education specifically.33 The centrality of the university is also institutionalized at the nation-­state level. It is demonstrated by national policies in countries around the world.34 None of this was true a c­ entury ago. Th ­ ere was l­ittle in the way of global higher-­education policy, and even country-­level awareness was ­limited. For example, old U.S. history or civics textbooks, though often written by university professors, barely mentioned universities as central public institutions. The shift in public attention corresponds to dramatic changes in social real­ity. Over the last c­ entury, the university went through an explosive expansion on many dif­fer­ent dimensions. The number of universities in the world multiplied, and universities popped up in even the most peripheral countries. Enrollments ­rose exponentially, and a university-­level education became both custom and norm for large and ever-­growing sectors of society. The cultural topics covered by university curricula expanded, and ­whole new domains of social life (for instance, ­family relations) yielded to academic scrutiny. Furthermore, all t­ hese changes occurred with a good deal of homogeneity around the world, despite their location in a highly differentiated and stratified global society: the same professorships found in core countries also appear in the far Third World.35 A university in one place, as we elaborate in the chapters of this book, is held to the same definition and standards as a university elsewhere: its topics and degrees are quickly recognizable anywhere. Extraordinary expansion also characterized the relationships between the university and society. As we note above, both identities and roles ­were resituated along university axes. The core of h ­ uman identity shifted, as the infusion of universalistic understanding converted passive persons into authorial actors. Older occupations (accountant, for instance, or farmer) came to be staffed by ­people with university credentials. And a ­great many new occupations arose, often within the so-­called ser­vice sector, built up around the knowledge and the certificates of the academic system. The same forces opened and revitalized public policy and collective action. The changes all told are so g­ reat that it is increasingly customary to invoke terms that imply a fundamental transformation in the nature of con­temporary society (and models of it reaching far into the peripheries of the world). In a self-­referential culture, it now becomes conventional and indeed routine to speak of the knowledge society, or information society, or knowledge economy.36 What is envisioned is a shift in core models of societal development and pro­gress from t­ hose based on capital and l­abor to t­ hose based on education and knowledge—so the university becomes central.37 As a result of all t­ hese changes, as noted above, education-­based social stratification is now standard worldwide.38 In essentially e­ very country, the upper reaches of the status order are built around university education,

10  C H A P TE R 1

university-­certified roles, and often university-­created roles: education determines the life chances of individuals and their progeny. Culture is similarly stratified. The forms of understanding that command the most social authority derive from the university and the professionals it creates and certifies. Medical remedies, for example, trump folk remedies. It is impor­tant to understand that none of t­ hese dramatic changes resulted directly from collective decision-­making by states or elites around the world. None was planned, and indeed many occurred despite re­sis­tance by relevant authorities, who often saw the university more as a decorative frill (or seedbed of radicalism) than as an essential ele­ment in national pro­gress. Further, none of the worldwide changes can be seen to represent s­ imple responses to po­liti­cal or economic developments and their functional requirements. The changes occur in too many countries, varying too greatly in culture and resources, for that to be plausible. It is difficult to demonstrate empirically ­whether and how university expansion might be a necessary ingredient of development.39 But as a ­matter of con­temporary faith it is so. The relationship is largely impervious to empirical refutation and for the most part taken for granted. It is in­ter­est­ing to speculate ­whether the expansion we consider ­here may be slowed in the ­future, with declines in the centrality of the liberal and neoliberal models of society and the world. Criticisms of economic and cultural globalization and universalization conceive of t­ hese forces as Western, or American, or Christian, and attempt to formulate alternative models, many of which undercut the centrality of the university and its culture in preference for particularistic cultural roots embedded in nation or religion. Already at pre­sent, ­there is something of a worldwide reaction against educated elites.40 The Global Co­ali­tion to Protect Education from Attack lists incidents in more than thirty countries, involving rebels, insurgents, police, militaries, criminal cartels, and so on.41 Of course the triumph of the university has always come against much opposition, and it only makes sense that opposition continues apace t­ oday. Still, we stress that the growth binge of the university and its cultural ideologies is neither inevitable nor inexorable. The Pre­sent Study Given the conditions we describe above, a substantial prob­lem of explanation arises. Why has an institution so routinely condemned and often historically thought to be on the wane—­inefficient and counterproductive—­become a central core ele­ment in all versions of the virtuous con­temporary society? In this book, we depict and analyze the core changes in the nature, status, and significance of the university. We consider developments over the long stretch of post-­Enlightenment modernity but focus most of our attention on post-­World War II high modernity and post-­Cold War hyper-­modernity. In

U n iv er s it y a s a Wo r ld I n s tituti o n  11

the pre­sent chapter, we provide an overall account. In chapter 2, we describe more specifically the multi-­dimensional expansion of the university, focusing especially on its accumulating numbers and global diffusion. A once-­parochial institution par­tic­u­lar to Western Christendom has spread to all parts of the world—­sometimes with colonialism, but often in­de­pen­dently, as socie­ties have voluntarily and eagerly subscribed to this institutional goose, hoping for its putative golden eggs. In chapter 3, we pre­sent the exploding numbers and broadening capacities of students and professors, which skyrocket over time, especially as the hyper-­ modern society assem­bles around the university-­based knowledge system. Raw numbers expand exponentially. Schooling is seen as relevant for more and more sorts of ­people—­and more dimensions of ­these ­people are activated and incorporated. And the school certificates run unimpeded through the ­whole life course, of import long ­after any ­actual knowledge and skill may have receded. Further, the ­people involved are seen not simply as passive entrants but as executors of ever more legitimate interests and capacities—­above all the general capacity for empowered choice or actorhood.42 The properly schooled person is now ­imagined to be a dramatic social actor, fit to master and change the world, not simply to be a carrier of received culture. Chapters 4 and 5 discuss the expansion and transformation of university knowledge, showing the ways that academic understandings penetrate the life world as the university acquires more diffuse authority over nature, society, and the cosmos. Standardized and scientized knowledge reaches into more sectors of real­ity and more sectors of social life. Increasingly with hyper-­ modernity, the knowledge changes from passive formats that re­spect the Mind of God and the Wisdom of the Ancients, to active forms to be acquired and used by empowered stakeholders in an envisioned real world. Chapter 6 depicts the elaborated and porous interface between the university and society, with special attention to the expanded number and range of linkages. P ­ eople and knowledge flow from more nodes in the university into more arenas in society: and more and more social interests and prob­lems appear on the university’s agenda. ­There are, by now, essentially no social prob­lems that the university should not responsibly address. And ­there are no domains of society that should resist its instruction, including religion proper. Interpenetration is extreme. Chapter 7 analyzes the resultant model of a knowledge society dependent on the credentials and cultural content provided by the university. The defining characteristic of this society is its universalistic rationalism, more than the differentiation theorists have sometimes i­magined. In the con­temporary period, the university consecrates new types of persons with new forms of understanding of a new kind of world. The university itself is transformed by the now-­legitimated dimensions of this world, coming to occupy a central

12  C H A P TE R 1

station. Professors in a dozen dif­f er­ent departments of the university can now authoritatively investigate and prescribe be­hav­iors in ­every social arena—­e.g., for teen­agers in the back seats of cars—­presumably on a worldwide scale. Issues: Understanding Expansion The observation that the university is a central worldwide institution in the maintenance of both order and pro­gress has become something of a global cultural convention or cliché. The established global institutions recognize and celebrate it—­the World Bank, UNESCO and the ­whole United Nations system, the Eu­ro­pean Union, an array of scientific professions, and all the leading national states. That this is so is without question. Why it is so is less clear. The ­matter is especially problematic b ­ ecause very dif­f er­ent assessments of the university and its relationship with society dominated fifty or sixty years ago. In the war and postwar years, the purpose of the university was an open question. Book titles from the time betray a searching quality: The Mission of the University,43 The Crisis in the University,44 and The Uses of the University.45 Leading critics at the time tended to see the university as a luxury good and its expansion as orthogonal to, and perhaps inconsistent with, impor­tant dimensions of social pro­gress. From a centrist perspective, the expansion or overexpansion of the university was inefficient, and perhaps even channeled social values and resources away from needed economic and social changes. In a conservative view, the situation was even worse—­the expanded university system created a “revolution of rising expectations” that might foment po­liti­ cal disorder and the dreaded anomie. Even left-­wing perspectives had it that the expanded university generated false consciousness—­deflecting aspirations away from the core of class conflict. The w ­ hole Communist world came to policies restricting higher educational expansion on just ­these grounds.46 From all t­ hese points of view, the university was relatively useless as an instrument for basic social pro­gress. Individually it raised h ­ uman capital,47 but collectively its expansion tended to create wasteful or destructive inflationary cycles, with educational credential requirements escalating beyond any social utility in national or global “potlatch” ceremonies. Analy­sis ­after analy­sis told the same story.48 Titles, again, convey something of the vision: The Diploma Disease,49 or The Overeducated American,50 or The Credential Society.51 ­These analyses generally assumed that an effective po­liti­cal system would employ state controls to restrict the inflationary expansion involved, and that the exceptionally rapid expansion of higher education in the United States resulted from the weakness of po­liti­cal controls in a federal system.52 All of this reflected a long-­held (and perhaps now resurgent) vision of the university as deflecting attention and resources away from the nuts and bolts

U n iv er s it y a s a Wo r ld I n s tituti o n  13

of social pro­gress. Thus, a German authority in the interwar period criticized the ­whole enterprise: “The steadily rising tide of engineering students in German universities, with consequent overcrowding in the engineering profession, has moved [several trade associations] and other organ­izations to issue a public warning that a sterile, educated proletariat is being produced without a chance of gainful occupation while millions are wasted on its training.” The comment goes on to refer to the “exaggerated overvaluation of schooling,” which is the notion that higher education is needed to work in “all sorts of activities in industry, trade, and . . . ​government” and ­later discuss the “evil . . . ​ erroneous belief [among students] that their diploma w ­ ill help them more readily develop an income.”53 In short, neither the individual nor society w ­ ere seen to benefit from an excess of university education, and the term “over-­education” was often employed, though decreasingly so over the twentieth ­century, as shown in figure 1.1, which reports Google Ngram frequencies. In the same vein, the neutral term “school leaving,” implying a legitimate transition from education, was common through the mid-­century—to be replaced now by the normative and negative term “school dropout.”54 Obviously by the pre­sent day, global assessments shifted dramatically. What was a partially dysfunctional prestige good is now axiomatic to social and individual development. The current consensus highlights not over-­education but

0.000025

School dropout

0.000020

0.000015 School leaving 0.000010

0.000005

0.000000 1880

Over-education

1905

1930

1955

1980

Frequencies of Over-­Education, School Leaving, and School Dropout in the Google Corpus 1880–2000. FIGURE 1.1.

14  C H A P TE R 1

under-­education: certainly among the poor and marginalized but also among the rich and incorporated; starkly in lesser-­developed countries but also in the core.55 Higher education now is a never-­enough good. This about-­face is mainly a m ­ atter of changed cultural faith: the original critical posture had ­little empirical support, and neither does the new cele­ bration of the university. The expansion of academic higher education, as a general m ­ atter, has not been shown to be a strong source of basic economic development. Some studies show effects, while o ­ thers do not.56 Advocates of the university rely heavi­ly on what seem to be positive cases: a Silicon Valley ­here, a biotechnological industry ­there, engineering successes yonder, and assorted examples of apparent pro­gress produced by managerial training. In short, the university and the university system have survived over the millennium, have expanded dramatically in the current period, and have acquired centrality in the structure of con­temporary socie­ties. Th ­ ese facts require explanation, particularly in view of the extensive criticisms directed at the university now and periodically throughout its history. The criticisms make a good deal of common sense, and in one form or another are repeated over the centuries. First, a g­ reat deal of the teaching and research done in universities seems to be irrelevant to any plausible social benefit. It is, in a word, scholastic. Or academic. The Ig Nobel Prizes, for example, lampoon “splendidly eccentric” university research, including experiments on the magnetic levitation of frogs (a winner in the year 2000) and observations of contagious yawning among red-­footed tortoises (2011). Only tiny proportions of research proj­ects can claim to have convincing direct benefits for one or another dimension of social functioning. Second, when the university does attempt relevance, harnessing teaching and research directly to role certification (as it increasingly does), it is not well equipped to deliver. Academic schooling is not generally a very good predictor of successful per­for­mance in occupational roles, and its institutionalization in par­tic­u­lar fields is not known to make per­for­mances in that field more effective.57 The ­whole glorified academic tradition runs against much common experience and ideology: if one wants a person to learn to carry out a role well, the best approach is to have the person work at the role ­under instructional supervision. Most teaching certificates require teaching apprenticeships (in which student teachers work u ­ nder the supervision of schoolmasters). Most medical licenses require internships and residencies. It makes no sense to isolate trainees in academic settings far removed from practice. Similarly, if one wants to improve or­ga­nized policy in a domain—on substance abuse, say, or HIV prevention—it is best to work intensively in that domain rather than to consult theorists in universities far removed from the hustle and bustle of daily life.58

U n iv er s it y a s a Wo r ld I n s tituti o n  15

If the university ­were in fact an economic tool-­house—­rather than the cultural canopy that we depict h ­ ere—it would make sense if this medieval institution had long since fragmented into distinct functionally specific knowledge systems, just as differentiation dramatically impacted ­every other institution of the period. Indeed, ­after the Enlightenment, the most progressive polities in the world pushed for functional differentiation. The French Revolution suppressed the university—at least for a few decades—­replacing it with specialized training schools.59 The Soviets followed suit a ­century and a half ­later.60 Meanwhile, the radically liberal United States successfully avoided anything like a gold-­standard Eu­ro­pean university ­until late in the nineteenth ­century: the country’s scientific development mostly lay elsewhere, and its colleges focused on socialization more than academics. Instead, in the knowledge arena, t­ here w ­ ere apprenticeships and dedicated professional schools—­seminaries, medical schools, law colleges, e­ tc.61 In that ­earlier period, U.S. higher education was notable for its lack of closure. ­There ­were, or seemed to be, stand-­alone schools on ­every street corner, dissociated from one another and from the state and from any overarching body of knowledge or integrated system of higher education. The prospects for university-­level theology had died in the U.S. with the “separation of church and state” and the rise of new lower-­church denominations that relied on looser (if any) forms of training.62 The hopes for university law and medicine ­were dimmed by the widespread Jacksonian destruction of their monopolies, which opened ­these professions to the loosest forms of credentialing and testing. Any l­awyer with an office and a few books could open a “law school”,63 and quack doctors abounded. Professional ranks thus expanded and unemployment ensued. The old Eastern schools tried to resist, but demo­cratic and populist criticism prevailed. Likewise, the potential for university-­level philosophy—­which in Eu­rope produced “professors” for the old elite gymnasia—­faltered ­under the open-­market conditions of the U.S., which enabled a range of colleges, specialized academies (now known as prep schools), and common high schools (which Friedenberg [1965] calls “the prison of democracy”) to stake claims in the field. The puzzle: differentiation generally transformed the institutional landscape ­after the Enlightenment. Eco­nom­ically, the feudal estate broke into component parts, and elementary forms of production and exchange moved off to town. The old estate-­system polity broke up, too, and t­ here appeared an array of specialized bodies devoted to public security and general welfare. The old ­family system likewise differentiated and outsourced many dimensions of child-­rearing, socialization, elder care, and so on to schools, workplaces, hospitals, orphanages, therapeutic facilities, and the like. And with successive waves of globalization, enormous differentiation and in­equality between strata in global society appeared. How and why did the university avoid the seemingly inexorable path ­toward differentiation (or fragmentation)?

16  C H A P TE R 1

Sources of Expansion It is still common, following Mandev­ille, to think of the Enlightenment as involving the discovery of “society,”64 the conception of which had been ­limited previously. In the medieval and early modern worlds, a moral order was envisioned above the dross of mundane life (including the landowning elites) with ties to the sacred: the church and the monastic ­orders, with theology and the canon law; the state and civil law; medicine and the rituals of life and death; and some rational knowledge from the ancient phi­los­o­phers. To live virtuously, one should withdraw from the ordinary corrupt world and enter into this realm. The medieval and early modern university thus did not serve society in any encompassing sense; its warrant was more restricted and transcendent. The Enlightenment and its aftermath transformed the university, symbolized by the watershed (though often-­unimplemented) reforms of Humboldt in the nineteenth ­century.65 The shift followed less from orga­nizational modifications than from a broader cultural change, involving the discovery, or constitution, of society—an expansive and rationalized social body capable of “pro­gress” and “justice,” linked to the national state and the i­magined national community.66 The pro­cess secularized but also essentially sacralized ­great swathes of social life, envisioned in terms of the rational and the universal, thereby creating a g­ reat new role for the university. Rapid expansion followed. New sciences w ­ ere codified and entered the university in waves, often conflicting with the older and narrower religious patterns. The conflicts indicate the degree to which the newer culture itself encroached on religious territory and competed on religious grounds. The twentieth ­century—­especially its last half—­showed an even more dramatic increase in the rate of university expansion worldwide. It followed again from transforming models of society, linked to a dramatically increased awareness of supra-­national interdependence or globalization.67 Two devastating world wars, a massive depression, enormous violations of h ­ uman rights and welfare, and the rise of a nuclear age and a Cold War made it clear that a world of demonically sovereign national states and socie­ties could not be sustained. The breakdown of the ­earlier colonial systems, creating a raft of uncontrolled weak nation-­states, made the resultant disorder palpable.68 A larger world—­underwritten by sweeping rationalism and universalism—­presented itself as an alternative: a world that could not in practice be anything like a national state writ large. It is thus useful to see the high-­modern period since the Second World War as carry­ing a ­great cultural wave that intensified with post-­Cold War hyper-­ modernity (and now may be faltering). The emerging model centered on a cluster of variables, all prominently cultural. The charismatic national state was partly replaced with a notion of the charismatic rights-­bearing h ­ uman individual—­and ­human rights princi­ples expanded on a global scale.69 In

U n iv er s it y a s a Wo r ld I n s tituti o n  17

parallel, mass education expanded everywhere.70 A scientized knowledge system superseded disparate and conflictful world religious ideas, enabling rationalized universalism on a scale transcending any par­tic­u­lar national state or ethno-­religious community.71 The university arose to become the central sense-­making institution, linking individuals and local settings to the emergent universal cosmos—on global and even broader bases, with growing interest in natu­ral and perhaps social phenomena (e.g., space exploration and extraterrestrials) in the galaxy and beyond.72 If we understand the university as the locus of interpretable order in a rapidly globalizing, but stateless, world society, many striking phenomena make sense. First, we can understand the university’s global expansion, which creates a common global elite with a ­great deal of shared culture. Second, we can understand the drive t­ oward isomorphism in disparate socie­ties—­the anxiety with which local universities aspire to ape their betters—­and rampant resultant decoupling. Third, we can understand the shift in university cultural content from passive and contemplative forms of knowledge to active and applied forms, suitable for policy and prob­lem solving.73 Fourth, we can understand why most of the recent expansions in university domains occurred in the social and socio-­sciences (including medicine and engineering) rather than in the natu­ral sciences or cultural arenas.74 The social scientization of aspects of life formerly hidden ­behind the curtains of local or even national socie­ties permits con­temporary students to comfortably prescribe law and policy for countries they have never seen—­and indeed for the ­whole world. The transformation in models of society and of the university thus changes the relation between them. While the medieval university served the church (and the derived emergent state), and the modern one served the national state (infused with the religious charisma of nationalism), the hyper-­modern university of ­today does much more. It creates society and pro­gress, defining both in g­ rand schemes of rationalism and universalism. Education as Driving Pro­gress Thus, the university’s rising centrality, especially in the post-­World War II era, was produced by fundamental reconstitutions of the context. The university itself, in its core definition and purpose, changed only modestly amidst expansion. What changed ­were the notions of nature and society in which the university is culturally and or­gan­i­za­tion­ally embedded. Over the long arc from the modern to the high modern to the hyper-­modern periods, the premise of universalistic rationalism saturated more and more segments of real­ity. Once applied mainly to the cosmos, the framework first seeped into natu­ral domains, and then, much l­ater—­with the taming of the nation-­state—pervaded social domains. The university expanded accordingly.

18  C H A P TE R 1

Over the centuries, its focus on theology and law opened to include medicine and philosophy and then l­ ater the natu­ral sciences and then fi­nally much l­ ater the social and “applied” or socio-­sciences. A wave followed the Enlightenment, with the rapid incorporation of the natu­ral sciences. Another ­great wave followed World War II, with the rise of the social and socio-­sciences. The causal structure often i­ magined ­here, by scholars and laypersons alike, is that social development t­ oward differentiation and functional complexity elevated demand for expanded and specialized understandings and roles of the sort produced in the university. Socioeconomic pro­gress demanded university expansion. But increasingly through the last c­ entury this causal structure was reversed in both theory and real­ity. Instead of reflecting social pro­gress, education came to be seen as creating it—­creating the p ­ eople (especially the actors) and the knowledge (and role structure) of an ever-­expanding value system. Much of the widespread imagery about the knowledge society and economy captures this central idea. We have moved from the materialism of a modernity rooted in agricultural and industrial production—­very material businesses indeed—to the more ethereal, and often even virtual, monetized values of the professionalized ser­vice sector. In the con­temporary hyper-­modern world, thus, the university plays a role analogous to that of the high church in the medieval world, and the more secularized churches in the modern one. It offers authoritative answers to all of life’s ultimate questions (and also plenty of trivial ones). It is professors, not priests, who unlock the secrets of the universe. The analysts who so bitterly criticize the con­temporary university, as noted above, may imagine an ­earlier Golden Age when the institution was less contaminated by linkages to social real­ity. They fail to understand the extent to which the university is involved in constructing and reconstructing, and sacralizing, society itself. The professors who address once mundane ­matters of ­family life, interpersonal interaction, orga­nizational management, or dietary propriety do so with all of the elevated sobriety of their pre­de­ces­sors. In both cases, they are contemplating the infinite. Overview: An Institutional Perspective The university is not particularly successful at training ­people effectively to carry out social roles, nor is it especially capable of generating research that contributes directly to social and economic development. Emphasizing ­these facets of the university cannot explain its historical survival, con­temporary expansion, and relative homogeneity in a very diverse world. If the university is not very good at organ­izing ­people and understandings for immediate applications in the h ­ ere and now, an institutional perspective

U n iv er s it y a s a Wo r ld I n s tituti o n  19

suggests that it is dramatically successful at integrating the widest range of ­humans and beliefs and practices around the unified princi­ples of a universally lawful culture.75 The disparate bodies of understanding and the differentiated roles for which the university’s credentials apply all are symbolically rooted in one cosmic location—­a location recognized and validated within one ­great university system, originally reaching to all of (principally Western) Christendom, and now covering the globe. The university transforms particularities into generalities; it rearranges local concreteness into universal abstraction; it positions tangible persons and pertinent facts against comprehensive cultural backdrops of encompassing applicability. The princi­ples and practices of carpentry may vary from place to place, but the princi­ples and practices of physics (or, originally, theology) are the same everywhere, and are recognized as such. A master carpenter may or may not get recognition upon moving from one country to another; a PhD in physics would more likely be acknowledged. The categories of schooled ­people come to be universalized not ­because their technical roles are uniform but b ­ ecause they rest on a common foundation of universal truths. So schooled p ­ eople, in their most impor­tant social identities, are seen as having universalized status. This is rooted in and celebrated by the expansive con­temporary princi­ples of universal h ­ uman rights. Every­one has the intrinsic capacity to access the universal truths, and thus every­one should be educated—­ not just trained to do ­things but educated to understand ­things. Education for All is an enormously successful global social movement.76 Further, the ultimate cultural substance of role per­for­mance is also universalized. A wide range of occupational activities is conceived and reconceived, and at least in princi­ple controlled, in light of universal general princi­ples. Thus, the roles should be schooled. Beyond occupations, many other central social roles come to be seen as requiring educational rooting in universal truths. Schooling creates better parenting, and t­ here arises a host of instructional and therapeutic roles designed to transmit the correct effects. Schooling enhances recreational experiences and athletic accomplishments, and one can get a range of academic degrees in the relevant roles. Schooling produces better citizens, better persons, and better selves. Indeed, ­every social sector in con­temporary society now rests on bases in rationalized and universalized knowledge. This is true even at the peripheries of society, among the marginalized and outcast. For instance, successful criminal gangs and terrorist groups increasingly rely on general princi­ples of accounting and strategic planning and parade their technical sophistication. The academic system has not yet produced specialized training in ­these areas, but many general degrees suggest applicability and relevance.

20  C H A P TE R 1

Our Approach In the chapters that follow, we lay out our arguments and offer empirical support. We stress the transcendence and universalism of the university and therefore pitch our arguments at the global level. Of course, we acknowledge variations, though they are not our main focus. We expect university expansion to occur ­earlier and perhaps more fully in the global core than in the global periphery, in democracies than in dictatorships, in the natu­ral sciences than in the social sciences or especially the humanities, and in world-­class research universities more than local teaching colleges, ­etc. Th ­ ese variations are impor­ tant, and we salute the large lit­er­a­ture devoted to exploring them. But our main agenda is other­wise: we highlight the university as a global institution and the global knowledge society that arises upon it. The empirical support we offer is intended to illustrate, not to prove, the corresponding arguments. Our study is not a hypothesis-­testing exercise. The empirical materials do not count as “evidence” in the classic sense but rather exemplify and illuminate broader trends. Of course, we pre­sent broader data—­ covering more countries through some period of time—­when we are able. But even t­ hese seldom constitute a systematic sample. More commonly, we pre­sent illustrations, drawing from as many countries and as many kinds of countries as available data ­will allow.

2 The Worldwide Instantiation of the University The university is a now-­global cultural construction built around a universalistic and rationalistic cosmology and a liberal faith in the fundamental possibilities of h ­ uman knowledge and actorhood. It is institutionalized in an i­ magined society that transcends any specific locality, extending originally across Western Christendom but now the ­whole world. Any specific country can have an instance of the university, and almost all of them do. Local university ­people might cite Oxford or Harvard as their prototype, but the true model is an abstraction rising above any par­tic­u­lar case. This means that when we examine the spread of universities around the world—­the focus of this chapter—we are studying local instances of a general model, a point central to so­cio­log­i­cal neo-­institutional theory.1 It is easy, especially for educators and analysts who are concerned with local organ­izations, to approach the university not as we do ­here—as a ­matter of cultural faith—­but rather as real and functional on immediate grounds. ­Doing so leads to a focus on the university as a specific and concrete organ­ization, with attention to rules and roles, programs and departments, superiors and subordinates, and issues of governance. But it is limiting to analyze the orga­ nizational structures of the university without recognizing the centrality of the widespread and taken-­for-­granted belief in the existence of this enterprise as a body of knowledge and authority, and the existence of the identities and roles of the p ­ eople certified by it. It is distorting, in studying the university, to start by believing in its pretenses.2 Many intellectual prob­lems arise from local-­realist approaches to the university. They have difficulty accounting for homogeneity across social contexts. 21

22  C H A P TE R 2

If universities ­were tailored to local circumstances, then ­those appearing in poor and culturally distinct countries would not parallel t­ hose in the metropoles. Realist approaches also have difficulty accounting for unity across domains. If universities w ­ ere harnessed to functional needs, then research and teaching on medicine, agriculture, and religion, ­etc., would not take place ­under one roof, ­under the auspices of one institutional umbrella. And realists have a hard time accounting for the decoupling of study from activity. For example, a mining research and training fa­cil­i­ty might well be located near some mines rather than in the university in the city. The same prob­lems—of homogeneity, unity, and decoupling—­are better interpreted by global-­phenomenological approaches. The university is oriented ­toward the universal more than the par­tic­ul­ ar, ­toward the eternal more than the temporal, and ­toward the fundamentals of being more than the apparatuses of ­doing.3 Thus, any specific university derives meaning and authority from its claim to be a par­tic­u­lar instance of a permanent, widespread, and now global institution.4 Its teachings are put forward as components of a universal knowledge system, and ­great efforts are made to maintain the pretense that this is true. So physics and economics or sociology are presented in Kerala, India, as though they had e­ very ele­ment in common with the same subjects in Berlin, Germany. Around the world teaching and research aspire to isomorphism, producing an astonishing willingness to subordinate local arrangements to globalized models and ranking systems.5 As we note in chapter 1, the sweeping cultural universalism of the university stands in sharp contrast to its orga­nizational variability, which reflects the characteristics of local polities. But even orga­nizational structures are now subject to standardizing pressures, as with the Bologna Pro­cess6 and the global New Public Management doctrines.7 And clearly, universities, like many other structures, come ­under worldwide pressures to become rationalized “orga­ nizational actors.”8 In this chapter, we develop the empirical implications of a cultural view for basic dimensions of the university’s worldwide instantiation as a set of specific organ­izations. • First, we consider the universality of the university: its rapid proliferation and global diffusion (and the proliferation of related institutions that rapidly become absorbed by or grow similar to the university). We also note the rise of directly globalized universities. • Second, we consider the academic unity of the university: its integration internally and its isomorphism with the general form from which it derives its meaning. • Third, we consider the orga­nizational diversity of the structures that incorporate the common overall cultural form.

Wo r ldwi d e I n s ta ntiati o n o f U n iv er s it y  23

Throughout, we emphasize the universality and unity of the university as a quasi-­religious cultural system as it descends from the cosmos of universal truth into the mundane and variable politics of con­temporary national socie­ ties and daily life. The Universality of the Academic University A first and arresting fact is the university’s astonishing proliferation. In our work ­here, we employ a reasonably restrictive data set. But all the available counts report dramatic growth over a very long time period. The number of universities grew steadily through the post-­Enlightenment period and then faster through the high modern period a­ fter World War II. It grew explosively in the post-­Cold War hyper-­modern period. Figure 2.1 depicts the total number of universities in the world, 1500–2000.9 Of course, such counts are imprecise, and we cite below a looser tally that counts many times more organ­izations than we report in figure 2.1. Definitions vary across place and time, and t­ here is plenty of decoupling: some “universities” adopt the name without the form, while ­others adopt the form without the name. This follows from the fact that the idea of, and claim to, university status is a dominant cultural refrain throughout the world. But ­these are minor qualifications. Any plausible count of universities would show the same temporal changes as ­those displayed in figure 2.1. The growth rate is exponential. From a starting date of 1500, the orga­ nizational population took almost four centuries to reach 500, shortly before 1900.10 It took about four more de­cades to reach 1,000 and approximately 3500 3000 2500 2000 1500 1000 500 0 1500 FIGURE 2.1.

1550

1600

1650

1700

1750

1800

1850

1900

Cumulative Number of Universities in the World, 1500–2000.

1950

2000

24  C H A P TE R 2

two more de­cades to reach 1,500. Subsequently, the orga­nizational population grew at a rate of approximately 500 universities per de­cade. The slight tapering off at the end of the curve in figure 2.1 prob­ably represents limitations of the data pipeline rather than a meaningful shift in trajectory—­though we can certainly imagine ­future conditions less favorable to university expansion, and even now may be entering such an era. The overall pattern is ­s imple and stark. The number of universities grew steadily over the centuries, then more dramatically during the post-­ Enlightenment Modern period, and exponentially over the liberal high modern and neoliberal hyper-­modern periods since World War II. Of course, ­human population ­rose at the same time, but the rate of university expansion was more than double that of the population. The build-up obviously reflects rising orga­nizational birth rates. Initially, the founding of new universities involved ­great risk and uncertainty, and many of the earliest instances ­were established and maintained only with much strug­gle (as recorded in the histories of medieval universities11). But founding became easier over time as the idea of the university grew institutionalized,12 and now new universities arise with minimal drama or conflict. Indeed, in the current period, a w ­ hole array of con­sul­tants, accrediting bodies, and ranking systems enables the creation pro­cess, specifying the university’s basic features and forms, and making its rise in a new location a rather pedestrian m ­ atter. For example, the New E ­ ngland Commission of Higher Education (one of seven regional accrediting bodies in the United States) spells out downloadable standards for accreditation in nine categories: Mission and Purposes; Planning and Evaluation; Organ­ization and Governance; Academic Program; Students; Teaching, Learning, and Scholarship; Institutional Resources; Educational Effectiveness; and Integrity, Transparency, and Public Disclosure.13 As the university has grown increasingly institutionalized over time—­built into cultural assumptions and orga­nizational rules—­the pro­cess of founding one has grown routine.14 The population build-up shown in figure 2.1 also reflects low orga­nizational death rates. To put it simply, universities—­especially in the con­temporary period—­are unlikely to die.15 When they do dis­appear, it is typically ­because they have merged with another institution. In the rare cases they expire outright, t­ here are attendant fanfares of despair, widely aired in the university press. At only a few junctures in the university’s long history have death rates been notable, most strikingly a­ fter the Enlightenment, when the old medieval universities confronted emergent “Modernity.”16 Thus, as ­others have noted,17 universities count among the oldest continuously operating structures in the world. Of course, the continuity is as much a m ­ atter of claim as real­ity: orga­ nizational operations in fact vary dramatically over time. The key is that universities, more cultural entities than orga­nizational ones, claim to derive from

Wo r ldwi d e I n s ta ntiati o n o f U n iv er s it y  25

and be linked to a permanent bedrock of knowledge. They may be or­gan­i­za­ tion­ally unstable, but as instances of the institution of the university they claim centuries of history. To illustrate, we can consider the institutions counted in the Minerva Jahrbuch der Universitäten der Welt, a yearbook of the scholarly world that mounted a long-­sustained attempt to count universities and other related institutions of higher learning around the world beginning in 1891 (­under five headings: universities, technical and agricultural colleges, veterinary schools, forestry schools, and other in­de­pen­dent scientific institutes). The yearbook’s listings appear alphabetically by city (Aachen, Aberytswyth, Agram, Aix, Alger, Allahabad, ­etc.). The details vary across the listings. Aachen’s is fairly typical: founding date, fees, exams, bud­get, calendar, number of students (total and by field), officers, departments, faculty (by rank, name, and field), and library. Among the institutions represented in the first fifty full listings of the 1895 edition of the yearbook, only a single one died over the ensuing c­ entury (in contrast to the high orga­nizational death rates typical in other orga­nizational populations18). The lone doomed entity was the Lyceum Hosianum in Braunsberg, Germany. For almost 350 years, from its founding in Royal Prus­sia in 1565 ­until 1912, the Lyceum was a center of learning for the Catholic clergy, playing an impor­tant role in the Counter-­Reformation. In 1912, the German state took over the Jesuit college and renamed it the Staatliche Akademie Braunsberg. Bombing during World War II damaged the buildings, and in 1945 Braunsberg, Germany, became Braniewo, Poland. The Lyceum never re-­opened. Of course, this sort of exception proves the rule. The data ­here suggest rather strongly a high degree of per­sis­tence over time. The ­whole sweep of university proliferation illustrated in figure 2.1 is consistent with our main account. The essential placelessness and timelessness of the university as an institution—­its hallmark commitment to overarching truths and enduring explanations—­ready it for duplication and transfer and embodiment in specific local orga­nizational forms. As the conceit of rationalistic universalism expanded, encompassing more of the world and the p ­ eople within it, the number of universities multiplied. The institutionalization of the university in its primary form not only spurred reproduction, as above, but also created a halo effect, spawning offshoots and imitations. Thus, alongside the universities per se, other institutions of higher education proliferated over recent centuries. Th ­ ese institutions—­ from normal schools and m ­ usic conservatories to military academies and polytechnics—­arose in the penumbra of the university proper. ­Table 2.1 pre­sents data on the phenomenon at three time points from the Minerva Jahrbuch. The data have impor­tant limitations. They only cover the period from 1895 to 1969, the final year of the book’s publication. And they overstate the multiplication of other institutions of higher education due to an

26  C H A P TE R 2

­TABLE 2.1.

Proliferation of Universities and Other Institutions of Higher Education

Minerva 1895

Minerva 1938

Minerva 1969

248 universities & colleges

1,066 universities & colleges

3,892 universities & colleges

231 other institutions of higher education:

1,870 other institutions of higher education:

10,182 other institutions of higher education:

61 agriculture

187 agriculture

658 agriculture

7 art

129 art

1,734 art

6 business

124 business

1,386 business

12 education

158 education

1,280 education

33 law

251 law

690 law

56 medicine

337 medicine

1,159 medicine

32 polytechnic

237 polytechnic

2,627 polytechnic

24 theology

447 theology

648 theology

apparent coding change, which in l­ ater periods separated some affiliates (e.g., the Medical College of Bengal) from their parent institutions (the University of Calcutta) in the listings. A further wrinkle in our over-­time comparisons is that the Jahrbuch prob­ably got increasingly effective at surveying its domain, in part ­because pertinent institutions ­were increasingly likely to make efforts to submit the data. Even accounting for ­these limitations, the upward trajectory in the domain commands notice. As the number of universities and colleges included in the yearbook grew more than 15-­fold between 1895 and 1969—­from 248 to 3,892—­the number of other institutions of higher education grew more than 44-­fold—­from 231 to 10,182. The latter grew at an even faster rate than the former, perhaps reflecting their narrower bases, cheaper costs, and relative freedom from regulation. Overall, roaring expansion was the name of the game. The roster in the Jahrbuch includes many obvious entries and a few surprises. As one might predict, for example, the 1969 list includes polytechnics such as the Politecnico di Torino and the Georgia Institute of Technology. As one might not predict, however, the 1969 list also includes such arts institutes as the Hanoi Dance and Ballet School, the Rhodesian College of M ­ usic, the Pyongyang Institute of Dramatic and Cinematographic Arts, and the Kabul Art School. The ­imagined tent is a big one. Additional substantive information appears in the indented text in t­ able 2.1. It shows the distribution of other institutions of higher education across eight subgroups. The groupings are rough. The agriculture category includes not only agriculture but also veterinary, forestry, and mining schools. Art subsumes archaeology, humanities, and ­music. Business also includes public

Wo r ldwi d e I n s ta ntiati o n o f U n iv er s it y  27

administration and social science. Law encompasses po­liti­cal science. Education includes library, language, and psy­chol­ogy schools. Polytechnics also include science academies, natu­ral sciences, and math. Despite the breadth of the groupings, the data are instructive. Between 1895 and 1969, schools of agriculture, law, medicine, and theology all grew by o ­ rders of magnitude u ­ nder 30. Education schools and polytechnics grew by ­orders of magnitude around 100. And schools of art and business grew by o ­ rders of magnitude around 200. The accumulation of other institutions of higher education, one surmises, occurred fastest the further away from the academic core they ­were. As the premise of rationalistic universalism seeped into previously untouched cultural domains, the pro­cess spurred ­little explosions of institutional activity, often distinct from the university proper. The proliferation of t­ hese kin institutions at the margins of the university signals the expansion of the under­lying cultural framework. It also presages still more growth in the tally of universities. Even as their numbers grew, other institutions of higher education demonstrated a strong propensity to join or convert into full-­fledged universities. The general tendency is to move away from institutional differentiation and fragmentation and t­ oward unification and integration. In some cases, conversion was a slow long-­term historical pro­cess, as when normal schools and technical colleges in the United States shifted their names and missions into the university category. In other cases, conversion came swiftly, as with the 1992 conversion of some three dozen United Kingdom polytechnics into universities. Naturally, some variety persisted, as in the Fachhochschulen in Germany, the grandes écoles in France, and liberal arts colleges in the United States. The institutionalization of ­these alternatives helps them withstand the overall trend. The overall trend, nevertheless, was striking. For concrete examples, we turn to our Minerva Jahrbuch cases. The Forstlehranstalt (Forestry Institute) in Aschaffenberg, Germany, merged into Ludwig-­Maximilians-­Universität Muenchen (University of Munich). The École Préparatoire de Médecine et de Pharmacie (Preparatory School for Medicine and Pharmacy) in Amiens, France, folded into the Université de Lille and ­later the Université de Picardie. And the Srpska Kraljevska Velika Škola (Serbian Royal ­Great School) in Belgrade, Serbia, evolved into the Univerzitet u Beogradu (University of Belgrade). The tendency for other institutions of higher education to merge with or evolve into universities over time was so ­great that one might think of the former as proto-­universities. We use this term to refer to the stand-­alone, narrow-­band institutions of higher education—­including schools and institutes of agriculture, art, business, education, law, medicine, engineering, and theology—­that ­under recent conditions demonstrate a tendency to become universities. Importantly, the reverse path was rarely taken. Universities almost never broke down into narrower research and training modules.

28  C H A P TE R 2

­TABLE 2.2.

Universities and Proto-­Universities in a Constant-­Case Sample of 50 1895

1938

1969

2015

Number of universities among constant-­case sample of 50

26

34

34

46

Number of proto-­universities among constant-­case sample

24

12

10

3

A general overview of the pro­cess appears in t­ able 2.2, which follows our constant-­case sample of fifty institutions of higher education from 1895 to 2015 (the data for this last time period ­were assembled from the internet). At the initial drawing in 1895, twenty-­six of the fifty randomly sampled institutions claimed the title university, while twenty-­four w ­ ere proto-­universities. By 1938, through pro­cesses of absorption and conversion, the numbers had moved to thirty-­four universities and twelve other institutions of higher education. By 1969, following more of the same (and the closure of Lyceum Hosianum, discussed above), the counts w ­ ere thirty-­four and ten. By 2015, following still more absorptions and conversions and also two instances of division (in which two universities arose from one), the distribution was forty-­six universities and three proto-­universities. The trend is quite striking and indicates a very power­ful inclination for proto-­universities to join or become universities during this period. In contrast to proto-­universities, universities remained as such through the period. Only one of the original twenty-­six dis­appeared, getting absorbed by another. L’Université Nouvelle de Bruxelles originated in 1894 as a Communist-­ inspired radical offshoot of l’Université Libre de Bruxelles, but l­ ater rejoined l’Université Libre in 1918. Two other institutions, both in France, oscillated between the labels faculté and université, reflecting an 1896 reform (in the wake of the Franco-­Prussian War) that attempted but ultimately failed to convert French faculties into universities, and then a stronger 1968 reform (in the wake of the student riots) with the same goal.19 Fi­nally, three of the original twenty-­ six universities subdivided over the period, sometimes temporarily and sometimes enduringly. For instance, in 1970 in Belgium, the Université Libre de Bruxelles spawned the Vrije Universiteit Brussels, differentiated by language. A first general point h ­ ere is that over the last c­ entury, institutions of higher education that w ­ ere not universities at the outset tended to become universities over time, through pro­cesses of absorption and conversion. And institutions of higher education that w ­ ere universities at the outset tended to remain universities over time, occasionally even spawning other universities. A second general idea: the evidence above suggests not only the dominance of the university as an orga­nizational form but also the expansion of the university as a cultural frame. More and more materials—­initially recognized in marginal proto-­university

Wo r ldwi d e I n s ta ntiati o n o f U n iv er s it y  29

alternatives—­fell ­under the spell of rationalistic universalism and moved into the university proper. We observe, in short, a striking tendency ­toward the unified university form. Long-­term transformations in the natu­ral and social contexts spurred long-­term “university-­ization” on the ground. Not only is ­there a tendency for proto-­universities to evolve into and become absorbed by universities, but ­there is also a propensity for the ­limited number of institutions that retain proto-­university labels to become more university-­like over time. We can see this as the de-­differentiation of the academic core. To illustrate, we return to the constant-­case sample of fifty introduced above, in which we observed between 1895 and 2015 a diminution in the number of proto-­universities from twenty-­four to three. Two of the three survivors ­were polytechnics; the other was a college. The lasting difference in labels, however impor­tant, obscures convergence in academic contents. The two polytechnics, in par­tic­u­lar, sharply de-­differentiated from universities, such that by 2015, their major academic divisions suggested conventional university offerings—­including the arts, humanities, and social sciences.20 In t­ able 2.3, we show the major academic divisions of the two polytechnic survivors in 2015, grouped into two columns: original divisions and add-­ons, with founding dates in parentheses.21 When the Rheinisch-­Westfälische Technische Hochschule in Aachen, Germany, first divided into faculties in 1880, ­there ­were five: architecture, civil engineering, mathe­matics and natu­ral sciences, mechanical engineering, and mining and metallurgy. When the Mas­sa­ chu­setts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mas­sa­chu­setts, first split into schools in 1932, t­ here ­were three: architecture, engineering, and science. Both The Convergence of Proto-­Universities ­toward Universities: Major Academic Divisions at Two Polytechnics

­TABLE 2.3.

Rheinisch-­Westfälische Technische Hochschule (founded 1870)

Mas­sa­chu­setts Institute of Technology (founded 1861)

Original Faculties

Add-on Faculties

Original Schools

Add-on Schools

Architecture (1880)

Electrical Engineering & Information Technology (1961)

Architecture & Planning (1932)

Humanities, Arts & Social Sciences (1950)

Civil Engineering (1880)

Arts & Humanities (1965)

Engineering (1932)

Management (1950)

Mathe­matics & Natu­ral Sciences (1880)

Medicine (1966)

Science (1932)

Mechanical Engineering (1880)

Business & Economics (1986)

Mining & Metallurgy (1880)

30  C H A P TE R 2

institutions ­were true polytechnics—­focused on applied science and engineering, with clear vocational leanings. ­Later, however, both institutions added divisions outside the polytechnic domain. ­After first adding a Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology in 1961—­a division typical of polytechnics—­the Rheinisch-­Westfälische Technische Hochschule established faculties of arts and humanities (1965), medicine (1966), and business and economics (1986). The Mas­sa­chu­setts Institute of Technology, meanwhile, founded schools of humanities, arts, and social sciences (1950) and management (1950). Both institutions evolved to become more like universities. In sum, the overwhelming majority of institutions of higher education in our sample of fifty stayed or became universities over time. The few that did not became more university-­like in their academic offerings. We thus observe one dominant tendency ­r unning through our cases—­away from specialized vocational tents and t­ oward the encompassing cultural canopy of the university. Beyond rapid proliferation, a second striking fact is the university’s ­wholesale geographic dispersion throughout the con­temporary world over the last c­ entury. From its Eu­ro­pean base, the institution diffused across e­ very conceivable boundary, implanting in socie­ties that vary enormously in material resources, po­liti­cal structures, and cultural traditions. Obviously, ­there was ­great decoupling between the institutionalized model and upstart organ­ izations on the ground. But even seedling universities displayed a tendency to grow strong ­under liberal and neoliberal cultural conditions. Universities not only multiplied, but also, and dramatically, extended their range. The top row of ­table 2.4 shows some data on the pro­cess drawn from the “Geo­graph­ic­ al Overview” sections of the Minerva Jahrbuch. The data have the virtue of ­going all the way back to 1895, when universities still w ­ ere concentrated quite heavi­ly in Eu­rope and Anglo Amer­i­ca (Canada and the U.S.). But they have the shortcoming of stopping in 1969, when the data source ends. Even by 1969, however, most universities in the world ­were found outside of their pre-­twentieth-­century strongholds. The percentage located elsewhere ­rose from 9 ­percent in 1895 to 29 ­percent in 1938 to 55 ­percent in 1969. A more recent Spanish effort to count universities suggests further change. Employing

Distribution and Dispersion of Higher Education Institutions Throughout the World

­TABLE 2.4.

Percentage in Eu­ro­pean and Anglo-­American countries Percentage elsewhere Number of countries/colonies with at least one institution

1895

1938

1969

91%

71%

45%

9%

29%

55%

66

112

35

Wo r ldwi d e I n s ta ntiati o n o f U n iv er s it y  31

a very loose criterion, it counts 23,887 institutions worldwide as of 2015, with well over 60 ­percent outside the European–­Anglo-­American core.22 In the bottom row of ­table 2.4, we show related data on the number of countries and colonies in the world with at least one university or college. Consistent with the preceding observations, the number of hosts grew rapidly over the period in question, rising from 35 in 1895 to 112 in 1969. T ­ oday, virtually ­every country in the world—­rich or poor, core or periphery, etc.—­has one or more universities: e.g., Mandalay University in Burma, the Université d’Etat d’Haïti, Mogadishu University in Somalia, and so on. The Spanish counting noted above finds at least one university in 209 dif­fer­ent national or po­liti­cal locales. Universities, in short, appeared everywhere over the last ­century. ­Were growing functional needs driving dispersion, we would expect a more complicated pattern—­one that followed in the wake of social, po­liti­cal, and especially economic differentiation. The pattern observed is more consistent with a dif­ fer­ent view of the university—as the ideological anchor and cultural base of modern and especially hyper-­modern society rather than its machine shop. Indeed, statistical analyses of the recent expansion of university enrollments suggest that the most obvious functional ­factors—­even levels of economic development—­play only modestly predictive roles in expansion over recent de­cades.23 Such ­factors w ­ ere perhaps central historically, but just as with the almost universal worldwide distribution of nation-­states, the current and recent expansion of the university occurs everywhere: rates of growth in peripheral countries can be even higher than ­those in the core. The point is reinforced by looking not only at the breadth of diffusion but also the depth of accumulation. Over the period in question, the multiplication of universities and colleges occurred especially rapidly in Asia, long before any economic miracles occurred ­there. In 1895, according to the Minerva Jahrbuch, the countries with the most universities and colleges w ­ ere, in order: the United States, Italy, France, G ­ reat Britain, and Germany. In 1969 according to the same source, the countries with the most universities and colleges w ­ ere the United States, India, Japan, Pakistan, and Canada. Around the world, the layer of local instances of the institution thickened. The dispersion and accumulation of universities are cause and effect of an expanding cultural system. Even as universities spread to more and more locales over the last c­ entury, they increasingly flaunted their geo­graph­i­cal transcendence. Regardless of any manifestation in brick and mortar, universities positioned themselves beyond space and time. A first and rudimentary way this is true is that universities developed and maintained transnational ties, partly with memberships in international associations of universities24 and partly with the mutual recognition of coursework and degrees across a range of local po­liti­cal and economic bound­aries. Already in 1937, for example, the University of Cambridge listed nearly one hundred

32  C H A P TE R 2

institutions with which it had mutual recognition agreements. The list includes twenty-­t wo institutions in the United Kingdom, such as the University of Dublin in Ireland; twenty-­nine institutions in the United States, including the Catholic University of Amer­ic­ a; and forty-­three other institutions throughout the Commonwealth, including the University of Acadia in Canada, the University of Adelaide in Australia, the University of Cape Town in South Africa, the University of Hong Kong, the University of New Zealand, and the Aligarh Muslim University in India. ­Today of course, universities such as Cambridge rarely go to the trou­ble of formally listing their affiliates. Mutual recognition is increasingly taken for granted.25 This means, in practice, that successful students and professors are portable. Successful research and teaching innovations are, too. A global framework is assumed, though naturally it is seldom seamless in practice.26 Constraints arise mainly around orga­nizational ­matters: perhaps the professor, student, or research product does not quite meet the standards of a new locale. Th ­ ese are considerations of relative quality and rank, but they do not reflect fundamental breaks in culture and identity. So a university gradu­ate h ­ ere—­say in po­liti­cal science—is for the most part a university gradu­ate t­ here and also over yonder. The globalized world, for all its ­actual variations, is in educational aspiration pretty much one place. More recent incarnations of geo­graph­i­cal transcendence appear in transnational joint-­degree programs and satellite or branch campuses abroad. Some of ­these involve cooperative ventures with domestic hosts, while ­others stand alone. A handful appeared as early as the 1950s, but the first significant wave appeared in the 1980s, followed by a bigger wave in the 1990s and yet a bigger wave in the 2000s.27 They include, for example, Georgetown University (U.S.) in Qatar, Monash University (Australia) in Malaysia, Saint-­Petersburg University (Rus­sia) in Dubai, Champlain College (U.S.) in Mumbai, and the Israel Institute of Technology in the U.S. The disregard for locale in ­these arrangements—­the relatively smooth flows of curricula, course credit, students, and so on—is pronounced. The trend ­toward geo­graph­i­cal transcendence—­and the deepening imagination of the global university—­also appears in the recent proliferation of world rankings, such as the Academic Ranking of World Universities by Shanghai Jiao Tong University, first released in 2003, and the World University Rankings compiled by the educational consulting firm Quacquarelli Symonds, first released in 2004. Such rankings presume and promote standards of excellence that are unabashedly global.28 Claims to the status of world-­class university have exploded.29 Setting aside plausibility issues—­which are not inconsiderable—­the upsurge of global status claims and notions of excellence is impressive. Universities now both can and do claim to inhabit a global social space.

Wo r ldwi d e I n s ta ntiati o n o f U n iv er s it y  33

The Academic Unity of the University Beyond rapid proliferation, worldwide diffusion, and recent globalization, ­there is a fourth piece to the broad puzzle of university expansion: the endurance of the institution’s integrated form. When we speak of the university, we speak of it in the singular (notwithstanding Kerr’s invocation of the multiversity [1963]). We conceive of it as a unified entity, the parts of which—be they faculties, schools, or colleges—­coalesce ultimately into a coherent w ­ hole. Neither the ambition to nor the accomplishment of unity is obvious. Both persevere over the university’s long history, in the face of intensifying internal and external complexity. ­Today, even a small university might house dance studios, chemistry laboratories, historical archives, and botanical green­houses. Even a ­limited operation might incorporate some faculty who study cave paintings and o ­ thers who study nanoscale technology, some students who study prenatal nutrition and ­others who study immigrant incorporation. The idea—­ the claim—is that ­there is ultimate concordance and consilience among ­these disparate pursuits.30 All derive from the one true body of universal understanding, and all share an increasingly common orga­nizational framework: the common campus, common degrees (bachelor’s, master’s), common titles (student, professor), common credits, and so on. The question of integration—­h ow it has persisted despite massive differentiation—­looms even larger given that the university has been the object of recurring, often very polemical, attacks. Rationalists and instrumentalists long have argued that the university is too cumbersome and hamstrung to effectively or efficiently serve the needs of a complex modern society. The university from this perspective should have gone the way of the general store. And periodically it has veered in that direction. In sometimes dramatic fashion, first the French revolutionaries, then the early Americans, and ­later the Communists went some distance t­ oward fulfilling utilitarian dreams and dismantling the university into functionally differentiated parts.31 One gets some sense of the pro­cess by comparing the higher education landscape in Kharkov, Ukraine, before and ­after the Communist takeover. Like the French and U.S. revolutions before it, the Communist Revolution marked a sharp break with a feudal past and a demonstrative embrace of a modern pre­sent. In 1895, about twenty years before the revolution, ­there ­were three institutions of higher education in Kharkov: the Imperial University, the Practical Technology University, and the Veterinary Institute. In 1938, about twenty years a­ fter the revolution, t­ here w ­ ere more than twenty times that number: a total of sixty-­eight institutions of higher education. We pre­sent the 1938 list (from the Minerva Jahrbuch) in t­ able 2.5. Differentiation, or fragmentation, was extreme. Many of the U.S.S.R.-­era research institutes appear to be or­ga­ nized around functions of the state (e.g., the Institute for Motor Vehicle Traffic

34  C H A P TE R 2

­TABLE 2.5.

Institutions of Higher Education in Soviet-­Era Kharkov, Ukraine, 1938

Universities: All-­Ukraine University for Communist Education Communist University Eve­ning University for Workers State University Ukraine Communist University for Journalism Colleges: Agricultural College Communist Agricultural College Ukraine Communist Agricultural College Institutes: State Pedagogical Institute Linguistics Institute Institute for Po­liti­cal Education Institute for Red Professors of Lit­er­a­ture & Art Ukraine Institute for Pedagogical Qualifications Ukraine Institute for Math Sciences Physics-­Chemistry-­Math Institute Ukraine Institute for Cultural History Ukraine Institute for Soviet Law Ukraine Communist Institute for Soviet Structure Art Institute Institute for F ­ ree Art Institute for M ­ usic and Drama State Medical Institute State Institute for Physician Training Stomatology Institute Psycho-­Neurological Institute State Institute for Physical Culture Institute for Sanitary Hygiene Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal Institute Ukraine Institute for Cadre Training Pharmacists Ukraine State Institute for Pharmaceutics Veterinary Institute Institute for Agricultural Mechanization Land-­Use and Geodetics Institute

Institutes: (cont.) Zootechnical Institute Hydro-­Meteorological Institute Soil Institute Institute for Grain Cultures Institute for Grain Cultures and Tractor Institute for Zoology and Dairy Farming Electro-­Technical Institute Economics Institute Engineer Sciences Institute Engineer Pedagogical Institute Chemical Technology Institute Lenin Technology Institute Aviation Institute Building Institute Institute for Mechanical Engineering Polygraph Institute Textile Institute Institute for Municipal Economy Mechanical Institute for Railroad Engineers Institute for the Education of Technical Personnel Institute for Motor Vehicle Traffic and Roads Institute for State Commerce Institute for Supply Institute for Consumer Cooperatives Institute for Planned Economy of the Ukraine Finance-­Economics Institute Physical-­Mechanical Institute Institute for Agricultural Mechanical Engineering Institute for Electrical Mechanical Engineering Other: Industrial Acad­emy Medical Hospital School for Electro-­Mechanical Manufacturing Ukraine Pedagogical Techniques

and Roads) and party (e.g., the Institute for Red Professors of Lit­er­a­ture and Art) rather than any unified vision of knowledge. Of course, in most socio-­historical contexts, the university has remained intact over the modern period. The developments in Kharkov represent a strong undercurrent in the history of the university, but one that tends only to surface at modernist ruptures. In the current post-­Communist context of Kharkov, a more typical format has reappeared, with all the specialized endeavors reassembled

Wo r ldwi d e I n s ta ntiati o n o f U n iv er s it y  35

around the myth of academic unity. Fifteen institutions of higher education—­ten of which employ the name university—­appear in one recent count.32 From the standpoint of conventional so­cio­log­ic­ al functionalisms, growing complexity should portend the university’s breakdown into narrowly tailored research and training modules. ­These would, it is argued, be more efficient and more effective. Neo-­institutional world society offers an alternative view. Overarching cosmological unity overrides the tendencies to differentiate and separate. It manifests in the university integration we show above. It furthermore manifests in academic isomorphism, as we show below. The direct objects of university study are remarkably similar around the world, at least in aspiration, and this holds true across contexts, despite vast differences in local socioeconomic circumstances. ­Table 2.6 illustrates the university’s isomorphic tendencies. For the year 1895, it lists professorships at three universities—­Freiburg (founded 1457), Michigan (founded 1817), and Tokyo (founded 1877). We selected ­these cases to maximize contextual variation. The data come from the Minerva Jahrbuch. For reasons that w ­ ill soon become clear, we do not specify which column of professorships represents which university in the ­table. A first look at the listings raises a critical question: which is which? Is Tokyo, for example, the column that begins with Ancient Languages, Astronomy, and Botany; Agriculture, Ancient Languages, and Archaeology; or Agriculture, Ancient Languages, and Anthropology? It is clearly difficult to say. The listings, ­either one by one or in constellation, reveal essentially nothing about context. When they are stripped of their identifying referents, as they are in ­table 2.6, it is nearly impossible to guess which column represents which university. We have conducted this experiment live on many occasions, and the failure rate is impressively high. In no column is ­there a hint of Germany, or the state of Baden-­Württemberg, or the city of Freiburg. Nowhere is t­ here a glimpse of Japan, the island of Honshu, the Kantō region, or the city of Tokyo. ­There is no inkling of the United States, Michigan, or Ann Arbor. The field listings flaunt their shared roots in the universal knowledge system, and they obscure their locales most insistently. Obviously and to a dramatic extent, all three universities sample professorships from a common pool. The t­ able suggests three related points. First, t­ here is no area of inquiry that is illegible. In no column is ­there any field that raises any question about what it is, or that demands any explanation of what it is ­doing at a university. The fields are all known and established. Thus, botany is botany, and philosophy is philosophy, and such is the case ­whether the host university is located in Germany, the United States, or Japan. Of course, ­there are impor­tant cross-­ country differences in disciplinary emphases and foci.33 Nevertheless, t­ here is a ­great mass of standardized and institutionalized material in which the differences are often only marginal commentary.

36  C H A P TE R 2

­TABLE 2.6.

Professorships at the Universities of Freiburg, Michigan, and Tokyo in 1895

Ancient Languages Astronomy Botany Chemistry Dentistry Engineering Geology History Law Mathe­matics Medicine Mining & Metallurgy Modern Languages M ­ usic Pedagogy Pharmacy Philology Philosophy Physical Education Physics Po­liti­cal Economy Rhe­toric Social Sciences Zoology

Agriculture Ancient Languages Archaeology Botany Chemistry Dentistry Geography Geology & Mineralogy History Law Mathe­matics Medicine Modern Languages M ­ usic Pedagogy Philosophy Physics Po­liti­cal Economy Religion Zoology

Agriculture Ancient Languages Anthropology Architecture Astronomy Botany Chemistry Commerce Engineering Geology History Law Mathe­matics Medicine Mining & Metallurgy Modern Languages Pharmacy Philology Philosophy Physics Religion Po­liti­cal Economy Psy­chol­ogy Sociology Veterinary Medicine Zoology

Second, most of the fields listed in t­ able 2.6 appear in two or even all three columns. Starting in the first column and working down, we see ancient languages, for example, in all three columns; astronomy in two; botany in three; chemistry in three; dentistry in two; engineering in two; geology in three; history in three; law in three; and so on. Th ­ ese academic menus share a g­ reat many dishes. They display ­little tendency to cater to local tastes, needs, or interests. Third, even if one focuses on the unique professorships—­and t­ here are not many of them—­one gets ­little sense of place. Of the twenty at Freiburg in 1895 (which is column 2 in ­table 2.6), only archaeology and geography are unique. Of the twenty-­four professorships at Michigan (column 1), physical education, rhe­toric, and social sciences are unique. And of the twenty-­six at Tokyo (column 3), anthropology, architecture, commerce, psy­chol­ogy, sociology, and veterinary medicine are unique. Aside from physical education, which may suggest to some a U.S. over a German or Japa­nese institution, the unique professorships are no more indicative of place than are the constellations.

Wo r ldwi d e I n s ta ntiati o n o f U n iv er s it y  37

More than place, the unique professorships suggest period imprinting effects.34 The relatively heavy repre­sen­ta­tion of the social sciences among the unique fields at the University of Tokyo, for example, makes sense given that the university was founded in the late nineteenth ­century, as the social sciences ­were first surging into university curricula.35 Time stamps might similarly be seen in the field constellations generally: the younger the university, the longer its academic roster (twenty at Freiburg, twenty-­four at Michigan, and twenty-­six at Tokyo). The lengthening lists are associated with the university’s broadening cultural coverage and deepening cultural penetration (see chapters 4 and 5). Overall, t­ able 2.6 dramatizes the high level of academic isomorphism among universities. This is true in the strict sense—­there is much sameness among the academic contents of the vari­ous institutions. And it is true loosely—­the contents are drawn from a common set. Of course, isomorphism is what one would expect from an institution that builds universalism into its name. But it is not what one would expect from an institution committed to preserving local cultural heritage, fueling local economic activity, or propping up local po­liti­cal structures. On the contrary, the isomorphism exhibited in the t­ able reveals a striking decoupling between curricula and contexts (one need not belabor the fact that Freiburg, Ann Arbor, and Tokyo ­were very dif­f er­ent from one another in 1895). Place effects—­tying local socioeconomic circumstances to university research and teaching—­are conspicuously absent. Unsurprisingly, the same holds true in the recent period. ­Table 2.7 shows data analogous to t­ hose in t­ able 2.6 for the year 2010. The unit of analy­sis is degree programs rather than professorships. For the sake of brevity, we pre­ sent only the first ten alphabetized listings for each university.36 (A full listing would be unwieldy. The University of Michigan, for example, had nearly 250 degree programs by 2010.)

­TABLE 2.7.

Degree Programs at the Universities of Freiburg, Michigan, and Tokyo in 2010

University of Freiburg

University of Michigan

University of Tokyo

Analytical Chemistry Anthropology Archeology Art History Asian Studies Bible Biochemistry Biology Botany Business Administration

Aeronautical Engineering Anatomy Anesthesiology Anthropology Architecture Art History Arts & Humanities Biomedical Engineering Biophysics Business Administration

Aeronautical Engineering Agricultural Economics Agriculture Anatomy Applied Chemistry Applied Mathe­matics Applied Physics Aquaculture Architecture Astronomy & Space Science

38  C H A P TE R 2

Once again, the contents are generic. And once again, no field is illegible, many appear more than once, and even the unique programs (such as Asian Studies at the University of Freiburg) evoke no sense of place. ­Here as ­earlier is academic isomorphism on parade. But t­ here is a difference between t­ ables 2.6 and 2.7. One observes in the latter less overlap among the columns. About half the degree programs listed ­under the University of Tokyo, for example, are not listed u ­ nder Michigan or Freiburg. This perhaps reflects a difference between professorships (­table 2.6) and degree programs (­table 2.7). Professorships are fairly rudimentary embodiments of academic substance, while degree programs embed academic substance in orga­nizational structure. We return to this idea below. Academic isomorphism extends even into colleges and universities with self-­ consciously distinctive missions. For example, the 1902–3 cata­logue for Berea College—­the first interracial and coeducational “work college” in the southern United States, founded before the Civil War by anti-­slavery Kentuckians—­ displays a progressive tone and describes orga­nizational features catered to its constituency: night classes, a large extension program, and so on. But the academic core is largely conventional, not unlike that of the U.S. land-­grant universities founded during the same period. Despite its distinctive history and progressive politics, Berea maintains an orthodox notion of university knowledge.37 As one drills deeper into the academic substrate, one continues to find isomorphism at the level of degree programs and course outlines. We show illustrations in chapter 4. In the immediate context, it is enough to say that academic isomorphism—in professorships, degree programs, and course contents—is hard to fathom through the prism of local demands and interests. From such a perspective, one would expect to observe more differentiation and clearer connections between contexts and contents. The abundant evidence of academic isomorphism makes much more sense in quasi-­religious terms, through the prism of the rationalistic and universalistic culture of “Modernity.” The Orga­nizational Diversity among Universities Academic isomorphism is especially striking against the foil of orga­nizational dissimilarity. A g­ reat deal of ink has been spilled articulating cross-­national differences in orga­nizational structures.38 This is the dominant theme in the extensive lit­er­a­ture on higher education. The discussion often focuses on governance.39 Variations in the external orga­nizational and resource controls over the university are extreme, paralleling variations in nation-­state structure. In some contexts, the university is funded by and/or controlled by national or subnational state structures. In other contexts, control and funding are in the hands of nonstate parties—­churches, private proprietors, boards of trustees, and the like—­though commonly some form of state accreditation

Wo r ldwi d e I n s ta ntiati o n o f U n iv er s it y  39

or certification is involved. Strikingly, it is unclear how much if any impact ­these variations in governance have on the cultural substance of the university, though t­ here is ­great suspicion of influence.40 It seems reasonable to suppose that the social sciences would be studied and taught differently in state-­versus church-­controlled institutions or that funding from special interests would leave fingerprints on research and teaching.41 While examples can be found,42 only a few generalizations can be sustained. A ­great deal of attention goes to internal dimensions of orga­nizational governance, too. The standings of students, faculty, administrators, and staff ­people all vary greatly, and t­ hese p ­ eople may function as individuals or as or­ga­nized groups.43 Again, it is unclear that such orga­nizational variations have much impact on the core cultural content of the institution in teaching and research. ­There is a strong conviction in the field that orga­nizational variations ­matter, but empirical confirmation is weak. Physics appears to be physics ­under a wide variety of orga­nizational arrangements. In the comparative lit­er­a­ture, much attention goes to variations in the orga­ nizational structuring of the academic ­careers of both teachers and students.44 The pathways from ju­nior teacher to se­nior professor vary from country to country (and sometimes university to university), and the perquisites accompanying the vari­ous roles involved (e.g., tenure) vary. Even labels for the vari­ ous status levels differ, so that it is difficult for a U.S. observer to understand the structure of a German or French academic c­ areer. In parallel, the student ­career is structured differently in dif­fer­ent contexts: it may involve more or less specialization, or more or less curricular choice. Students may be evaluated in overall per­for­mance at the end of a cycle, or alternatively they may be subjected to many specific evaluations along the way.45 ­There are many variations in the labeling of stages in the educational pro­cess, and in the degrees certifying levels of attainment. It is widely understood that all ­these orga­nizational issues ­matter greatly, and for some purposes (including modes of expansion and patterns of proliferation) they do. They certainly impact the stratificational status and orga­ nizational power of the p ­ eople involved: the se­nior and ju­nior professors, the graduating or failing students, the specific degrees or certificates produced. Perhaps for ­these reasons, reforms in higher education—­which have become more frequent and dramatic in recent de­cades with the rise to social centrality of the institution—­ordinarily focus on such orga­nizational ­matters. Most visibly in the recent de­cade or two, the Bologna Pro­cess in Eu­rope has attempted dramatic orga­nizational reforms of a standardizing sort, with the aspiration of making Eu­rope the world’s most successful knowledge economy and society and the intention of unifying and harmonizing Eu­ro­pean higher education.46 Also significant in Eu­rope and more broadly have been the New Public Management reforms, which subject higher education to corporate standards of

40  C H A P TE R 2

competition, effectiveness, and accountability.47 The assumption is that t­ hese changes—­which broadly work in the direction of paralleling the American system—­will improve teaching and research and make both more relevant to society. The general idea, now worldwide, is that the university, like many other structures, should become more of a rationalized actor—­a real “organ­ ization.”48 The orga­nizational reforms involved certainly force orga­nizational changes on the Eu­ro­pean universities, and reconfigure controls over them. It is less clear what in­de­pen­dent effects they have on academic teaching and research in substance. The lit­er­a­ture often appears to take for granted the deep similarities and correspondences of academic contents and their institutionalization on a global scale. Substantive academic isomorphism extends across universities with strikingly dif­f er­ent orga­nizational structures—­e.g., Eu­ro­pean “faculties” versus U.S. “colleges” and “schools.” For example, in the 1904–5 Annuaire de l’Université de Toulouse, virtually all ­matters of organ­ization—­such as diplomas, administrative structures, rules, exams, requirements, authority arrangements—­are dif­fer­ent from ­those typical in the United States in the same period. They are emphatically French. By contrast, virtually all ­matters of substance—­lists of topics, courses, professorships, whatever—­are the same. Almost nothing is French. Consider, for example, the science fields: mathematical analy­sis, mechanics, geometry, astronomy, physics, chemistry, mineralogy, zoology, botany, and geology. The substance is resolutely universalistic—­every field is immediately recognizable and legible and teachable anywhere on the globe. The same situation can be observed worldwide. The academic contents of a university anywhere readily can be understood by ­people elsewhere. Orga­ nizational forms, in sharp contrast, are difficult to comprehend. As one reads university cata­logues from around the world, one is at home with descriptions of the contents of the courses of instruction. But when the text shifts to orga­nizational ­matters, ­things become opaque: titles and offices are unclear, requirements difficult to understand, rules of admission and completion unclear, and relations of power and authority uncertain. Of course, many con­ temporary reforms, focusing on this situation, attempt to move in the direction of orga­nizational standardization. We can suggest a s­ imple way to understand the situation. (1) First, as we have stressed, the core official knowledge system (i.e., Knowledge System) of the world—­the dominant cognitive cultural material—is surprisingly homogeneous and transcendent and quasi-­religious in character.49 It is the central focus of the university, now a worldwide institution, and is appropriated by local polities essentially everywhere. (2) But domestic polities retain a g­ reat deal of orga­nizational variation, even as differences are declining u ­ nder strong world influences.50 Variations in po­liti­cal structure map onto variations in university orga­nizational structures, not onto variations in the academic core. In other

Wo r ldwi d e I n s ta ntiati o n o f U n iv er s it y  41

words, the university’s orga­nizational structure goes with po­liti­cal structures, not with academic structures. Much of the extant lit­er­a­ture on higher educational research, in short, operates as a subfield of po­liti­cal sociology, not of the sociologies of education and knowledge. The field tends to be inattentive to major developments in the content and focus of core cultural knowledge. For instance, two dramatic changes in recent de­cades involve exploding global attention to w ­ omen and the natu­ral environment. This has led to ­whole new fields of research, ­whole new arenas of instruction, and changed populations of researchers and students.51 All this can occur in­de­pen­dent of par­tic­u­lar orga­nizational arrangements, and its impact on and relationship to change in the orga­nizational systems of higher education may be rather modest. Thus, g­ reat developments in knowledge can go on with l­ ittle orga­nizational variation or change, and orga­nizational change and variation may produce few impacts on content. The religious analogy is clear: the meaning of the Catholic mass is decoupled from variations in the organ­ization of the church. Conclusion The university as an institution has expanded and gone global in the current period. Specific instances—­explic­itly claiming the university identity—­have expanded rapidly in the old core world. But they have expanded even more rapidly in the peripheries and now can be found in essentially e­ very polity in the world. Other institutions of higher education blossom too, sheltered ­under the expanding umbrella of the university. But they tend to operate as proto-­ universities, becoming universities, and t­ hose that do not come to appear more and more like universities. Unity is one main theme in this ­whole pro­cess: apparently disparate strands of knowledge and training are contained u ­ nder one roof, reflecting a striking set of rationalistic and universalistic assumptions. But a further theme is isomorphism—­university programs in one place look very recognizable in ­others: t­ here is very l­ittle in the way of unique and particularistic cultural content. Fields, professors, and students in one locale are seen as eligible for transfer to other locales. ­There is obviously variation, but it occurs within an overall frame of isomorphism, so almost none of the cultural content involved is impenetrable. In contrast, orga­nizational variations among universities—­the focus of most of the research in the field—­are everywhere. Unlike the cultural content involved, orga­nizational structures reflect local po­liti­cal arrangements. In recent de­cades, t­ hese come u ­ nder some pressures for standardization, as with the Bologna Pro­cess, so some common pressures for standardized governance arise. But nation-­state structures still differ substantially on many dimensions, and so do university governance patterns. Riding above all this variation is the

42  C H A P TE R 2

more homogeneous culture of the university, with its exalted claims to unity, universalism, and rationality. In recent years, attacks on the globalized knowledge or cultural system have increased. Alternative cultural foundations in national, ethnic, religious, historical, or even racial differences are sometimes asserted. One can imagine such variations as penetrating the cultural core of the university—­making it less universalistic, as it ­were. Or more likely, such critical forces might create local alternative institutions distinct from the global university. But in terms of the pre­sent world society and its elites, the university remains a dominant center.

3 The University Population in World Society and University Organ­izations Throughout this book, we see the university as the cultural base of a constructed global modern and especially hyper-­modern society, anchoring premises about the explicability of the universe and the capacity of persons to understand it.1 The university is and always has been charged with interpreting local m ­ atters in terms of universal truths. Its rise over recent centuries and its juggernaut status over recent de­cades suggest the expanding possibilities for d ­ oing so in a globalizing and liberalizing world society.2 Previously, in chapter 2, we applied t­ hese ideas to the efflorescence of universities and university-­like institutions worldwide. Subsequently, in chapters 4 and 5, we apply t­ hese ideas to the opening curricular terrain. The focus of the pre­sent chapter is on the enormously expanded human population of the university, both in society at large—in roles defined and sustained by the university—­and in university organ­izations. Broadly, the population grows as the myths of universalistic rationalism permeate and reshape social real­ity, granting everyday ­people the status of having access to divine truths. The pro­cess occurs slowly over recent centuries and then swiftly over recent de­cades, as the flames of liberalism and globalism jump the firewalls of the nation-­state, creating and supporting elites for a world society. It is easy to assume that the growing university population follows from large-­scale social differentiation and rising demands for specialized l­ abor. This storyline has strong normative overtones and draws attention to the roadblocks that continue to limit access to higher education.3 But the other story—­the 43

44  C H A P TE R 3

story of sweeping inclusion—­also commands analytical explanation. It is too general, too prolific, and too global to reflect economic functions or utilities. In this chapter, we apply a neo-­institutional perspective to the expansion of the university populations of reconstructed individual p ­ eople. University-­ defined personnel explode not only within university organ­izations but also in wider schooled society.4 A gradu­ate ­will importantly be a member of the university as an institution de­cades ­after having set foot on any par­tic­u­lar campus. University gradu­ates, and ­those around them, are unlikely to forget that they are gradu­ates, and the influence of schooled status runs through the ­whole life span and beyond. It also extends beyond the bound­aries of the national state, and is securely counted by global bodies. In this chapter, we consider in turn: • First, the rise of a huge class of professionals in world society, defined by their university degrees and their authority over discrete bodies of academic knowledge. • Second, the expansion of the university population in orga­nizational terms, including students, faculty, and research affiliates. • Third, the roles of rationalization and universalization in population expansion, linking the university to all sorts of ­people in society. • Fourth, the expanded character of the ­people seen as making up the university population—­the rise of attributed personhood and empowered actorhood among university personnel and among university-­certified persons in the wider world. Throughout, we envision the university less as an engine of differentiation than an anchor of universalization, and we see its participants less in terms of job-­specific skills than general actorhood.5 The institution at hand, ­after all, is not a “differensity” but a university. The University in Society: Membership in the University as an Institution ­ ater in this chapter, we focus on the radical expansion of the student and facL ulty populations of universities around the world, whereupon we consider universities as formal organ­izations with members or participants. Each professor and each student may be conceived of as affiliated with a specific university—­a common starting block for much research comparing universities. But first we stress the global and cultural features of the university as institution and membership in it. A professor or student may in par­tic­u­lar circumstances get special credit for an affiliation with a prestigious university organ­ization—an Oxford or a Harvard—­but for the most part derives credit from academic degrees that have

U n iv er s it y P o pu l ati o n i n Wo r ld So ci et y  45

common meaning globally. A professor of chemistry has standing as a professor of chemistry everywhere. And a student of chemistry may be recognized as such across a wide variety of organ­izations and countries. Thus, one can speak of, and UNESCO can count, faculty and student populations across thousands of university organ­izations in more than a hundred countries and many academic fields as if they had common identities—­and indeed they do. The ­matter is of ­great import to the ­people involved, and to society, so stratification systems of the world respond accordingly, producing and recognizing global elite status. The argument takes on added weight when we expand our purview to include broader institutional and cultural identities. The university population is not restricted to the circumscribed set of p ­ eople participating in university organ­izations at any given moment. It also includes legions of gradu­ates. University graduation involves a definitional change in the identity and status of a person, which confers lifetime advantages in the economic, po­liti­cal, and social systems. It also confers lifetime ties to the university’s knowledge system. A physician—or a business man­ag­er—is likely to adopt newly certified knowledge long a­ fter graduation day.6 A university gradu­ate never stops being a university gradu­ate: the status ­will be recorded in the individual’s biography and in global educational statistics. Thus, in discussing the expanding personnel of the university in institutional terms, we need to consider the installation of a now-­large segment of the social structure comprised of gradu­ates whose precious credentials count all over the world and all the way to the grave and beyond. The permanence and ongoing operation of university status helps explain a puzzling feature of research—­especially American—on the effects of higher education on individual persons. On one hand, studies looking at students within schools tend to report disturbingly weak effects7 or relatively modest ones.8 It seems students do not learn very much, and are broadly socialized only to a very ­limited effect. On the other hand, studies examining the effects of higher education in adult society and over the w ­ hole life course report dramatic effects.9 Education turns out to be the strongest predictor of all sorts of social and psychological outcomes. The apparent contradiction is s­ imple to resolve: universities are designed more to transform identities than to transmit par­tic­ul­ ar contents. As we have stressed throughout this book, education is designed to be “inefficient.” But the identity changes produced endure throughout the life course. Gradu­ates experience transformed educational statuses ­every day and in practically ­every role: the ­mental and social effects cumulate over de­cades, not quarters and semesters. Professionalization: A huge pool of schooled persons are socially defined by their educational credentials. They are classified as professionals, a vast

46  C H A P TE R 3

professional

430

service

271

clerical

235

sales

54

craftsmen

–10

operatives labor

–34 –64

domestic

–93

farm

–96

–200

–100

0

100

200

300

400

500

FIGURE 3.1. Percentage Change in Occupational Employment in the United States by Sector, 1910 to 2000 (Wyatt and Hecker 2006).

and growing category of occupations that includes accountants, actuaries, architects, and of course professors. Professionals operate in theorized realms demarcated by university degrees. They have stature by virtue of having completed a required course of study. Their “work”—­such as it is—­involves the manipulation and application of abstract concepts and the production of reports, assessments, analyses, plans, and other speech acts rather than more material goods. Professionals often appear in the guise of con­sul­tants (from Latin: consultare, “to deliberate”), providing expert advice in such areas as ­human resources, marketing, and finance. Figure 3.1 shows that between 1910 and 2000 professional employment in the United States exploded by more than 400 ­percent, far outpacing growth in ­every other occupational sector.10 Professional employment likewise ­rose substantially in other developed countries, including Japan11 and Britain, Germany, Spain, and Switzerland.12 Rates of professional expansion are faster and more widespread than economic functionalisms imply. Cross-­national data on the issue come from the International ­Labour Organ­ization (ILO) (2012, 2016). The definition of “professional” is variable over time and across countries, but the ILO makes ­great efforts to standardize. The ILO data show substantial worldwide increases in professionalism.13 ­Table 3.1 reports for vari­ous groupings the percentages of countries showing increases in the professional ­labor force during the first de­cade of the twenty-­ first c­ entury and (with sparser data) the last de­cade of the twentieth. Increases ­were very widespread among developed countries. They w ­ ere almost equally

U n iv er s it y P o pu l ati o n i n Wo r ld So ci et y  47

Growth in the Professional ­Labor Force across Vari­ous Categories of Countries (percentage of countries showing growth)

­TABLE 3.1.

Developed

Commonwealth of In­de­pen­dent States, Asia, & Southeast Eu­rope

Latin Amer­i­ca & Ca­rib­bean

Africa & ­Middle East

Growth in 2000s

92%

83%

72%

88%

Growth in 1990s

75%

90%

75%

—

widespread throughout the less developed world. By 2021, the ILO (2016) proj­ ects that professionals ­will constitute about 20 ­percent of the world’s overall ­labor force, with about 40 ­percent in the most developed countries and about 5 ­percent in the least developed cases. We re-­iterate that a university degree is an essential prerequisite for legitimacy in most professional fields. Overall, t­ hese data suggest that the expansion of the university population is not simply an orga­nizational ­matter of lengthening rosters of students, faculty, and staff. It involves major revisions to the social structure, so as to include a ­whole world of gradu­ates, authorized to operate within university-­ defined social spaces. The professional terrain open to university gradu­ates was not always so unbounded. Britain provides an extreme case. Early in the twentieth ­century, the university degree led only to a few professions. T ­ able 3.2 shows the names and occupations of the first fifty living Cambridge gradu­ates listed in the Oxford and Cambridge Yearbook, 1904.14 Twenty-­one worked for the Church of ­England, ten worked in schools and universities, nine worked in state administration (law, civil and military ser­vice), four worked as physicians, and one each worked as a journalist (war correspondent), merchant (of agricultural goods), and yeoman farmer. The listings for two gradu­ates do not include occupation. The range is, to most con­temporary readers, startlingly narrow. Only a few jobs required university entrée. The main groupings reflect the four faculties of the traditional Eu­ro­pean university—­theology (the church), law (the state), medicine, and philosophy (schools).15 ­There is no glimmer of the expansive degree and professional structures associated with the “credential” or “knowledge” society.16 The opening of the professional terrain is likewise evident by looking at the growing number of professional occupations associated with a single degree. The course cata­logs of Stanford and the University of Toulouse, in describing curricula in the field of history, have generally noted the occupations to which a history degree might lead. Around the turn of the twentieth ­century, Stanford and Toulouse associated just one profession with the history degree: teacher.

48  C H A P TE R 3

­TABLE 3.2.

Occupations of the First 50 Cambridge Gradu­ates Listed in the 1904 Yearbook Schools and Universities (n = 10) (cont.)

Church (n = 21) A. J. Abbey W. Abbott H. Acheson-­Gray C. L. Acland A. F. Acton W. P. Acworth F.L.H. Adam H. T. Adam A. Adams B. Adams B. W. Adams C.F.S. Adams E. Adams E. A. Adams G.A.S. Adams H. J. Adams J. O. Adams N. P. Adams P. L. Adams R. A. Adams R. S. Adams

Vicar Vicar Vicar Vicar Rector Vicar Curate Vicar Vicar Rector Vicar Curate Curate Curate Vicar Vicar Vicar Curate Curate Rector Vicar

Schools and Universities (n = 10) E. Abbott Fellow E. A. Abbott Headmaster R. C. Abbott Headmaster H. G. Abel Headmaster J. Adam Fellow J. G. Adami Professor

A.W.N. Adams B. N. Adams C. E. Adams J. Adams

Headmaster Headmaster Inspector Professor

State (n = 9) J. Abbott P. B. Abraham T. L. Ackland-­Bryans E. Ackroy J.R.G. Adam W.C.M. Adam L. C. Adami G.A.S. Adams P. B. Adams

Military Barrister Solicitor Barrister Military Solicitor Civil ser­vice Barrister Barrister

Medicine (n = 4) J. Abercrombie R. G. Abercrombie G. S. Abram H. Ackroy

Physician Physician Physician Physician

Other (n = 5) G. F. Abbott D. J. Abercromby L.E.G. Abney E. Ackroy A.V.H. Adams

Journalist None listed Merchant Farmer None listed

By the turn of the twenty-­first ­century, Stanford and Toulouse II (one of three successor institutions to the original) articulated dozens: in the broad fields of education, law, journalism, public ser­vice, business, writing, civil ser­vice, professional training, advanced study, and research, and in specific professions such as archivist, librarian, knowledge man­ag­er, cultural mediator, heritage facilitator, publisher, journalist, administrative attaché, territorial attaché, conservationist, and so on. The list elongates substantially over time and suggests a more general expansion of professional space. For our purposes, the key point ­here is that professionals are university personnel, not in the narrow orga­nizational sense of being on the payroll or student roster but in the broad institutional sense of being defined by their university degrees and authorized to work in demarcated zones of rationalistic universalism. Professional expansion over the modern and especially

U n iv er s it y P o pu l ati o n i n Wo r ld So ci et y  49

hyper-­modern period involves the constitution of a huge and prestigious occupational playpen for university gradu­ates: institutionalized in the professions, the impact of the university on individuals and society runs on for de­cades. We return to a discussion of professionalism as a central component of the knowledge society in chapter 7. Individual Membership in Universities as Organ­izations: Enlarging the Sacred Circle The broad abstraction of the global university as an institution is instantiated in the thousands of concrete university organ­izations discussed in chapter 2. We turn now to ­these organ­izations and begin by taking note of an empirical phenomenon so con­spic­uo ­ us that it seems almost pedantic to document it: the proliferation of university members. We offer brief evidence along the obvious dimensions. The numbers of university students and professors ­rose over the last hundred years, ascending steadily over the first half of the twentieth c­ entury and skyrocketing thereafter.17 The increase was simply stunning. Figure 3.2 offers a general portrait of recent changes on the student side of the story. It shows UNESCO data on gross tertiary enrollments for the world as a w ­ hole and for subsets of developed and developing countries between 1970 and 2015.18 In the twenty years from 1970 to 1990, world tertiary enrollment more than doubled, rising from roughly 33 to 68 million students. In the twenty years that followed, the world tertiary enrollment nearly tripled, rising from about 68 million in 1990 to about 181 million students in 2010. Over the ­whole period, most of the growth occurred in developing countries. Their share of the world total increased from roughly 22 ­percent in 1970 to roughly 73 ­percent in 2015. In the de­cade leading up to the year 2025, experts predict that the number of tertiary students ­will nearly double again globally, rising fastest in developing countries.19 Nation-­states worked with universities and other entities to achieve t­ hese numbers. For instance, Ghana, ­Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania all passed initiatives to increase female enrollment. India established quotas for “backward classes.” Brazil reserved spaces for disabled and Afro-­Brazilian students. And so on. Efforts to raise enrollments are endemic to modern higher education20 and involve the efforts of all the institutions of society. Accordingly, the proportion of the age cohort enrolled in tertiary education globally shot upward from about a hundredth in 1900 to about a fifth in 2000 to more than a third in 2015.21 To illustrate the trend, figure 3.3 shows the average tertiary enrollment ratio across seventy-­eight constant-­case (often, but not entirely, developed) countries from 1970 to 2010. The data come from UNESCO, and they appear as percentages. In 1970 in t­ hese countries, almost 10 ­percent of the age cohort attended university. By 1990, almost 20 ­percent of the age

50  C H A P TE R 3

250,000,000 World 200,000,000

Developing 150,000,000

100,000,000

Developed

50,000,000

0 1970 FIGURE 3.2.

1975

1980

1985

1990

1995

2000

2005

2010

2015

Gross Tertiary Enrollments 1970–2015—­World, Developed Countries, Developing

Countries.

cohort attended university. By 2010 in ­these countries, a stunning 45 ­percent of the college-­aged population was enrolled in higher education. Not only did raw numbers escalate (figure 3.2) but percentages skyrocketed too (figure 3.3).22 To accommodate the growing numbers, universities expanded greatly in number, as seen in chapter 2. But with the standardization of the university as an institution, typical orga­nizational instances of a university could become much bigger over the period. It became easier to create a university or to expand an existing one, given the institutionalization of the category and the legitimation of its meanings. In 1895, according to the Minerva Jahrbuch, the world’s five largest universities ­were located in Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Madrid, and Naples, and enrolled between 5,000 and 11,000 students. By 2015, according to Wikipedia, the center of gravity had shifted from Eu­rope to Asia, and the numbers w ­ ere a staggering 300 times larger. The world’s five largest universities w ­ ere located in New Delhi, Tehran, Eskişehir, Islamabad, and Gazipur, and all enrolled between 1,000,000 and 3,500,000 in open (distance-­learning) or multicampus universities. The foregoing data reflect the overwhelming fact that student numbers are and have been climbing rapidly. Comparable data on faculty are not so readily available across a broad range of universities or countries. However, some illustrative data suggest that the pace of faculty expansion is no less breathless than the pace of student expansion.

U n iv er s it y P o pu l ati o n i n Wo r ld So c i et y  51

50

45

45 38.3

40 35

30.4

30 23

25 20 15 10

9.4

11.6

14.3

16.7

19

5 0 1970

1975

1980

1985

1990

1995

2000

2005

2010

Average Tertiary Gross Enrollment Ratio 1970–2010 across Seventy-­eight Constant-­Case Countries. FIGURE 3.3.

Figure 3.4 compares the average number of students (divided by 10) with the average number of faculty at eigh­teen institutions of higher education in 1895, 1938, 1969, and 2007. The eigh­teen cases represent the subset of universities that list both student and faculty members from the constant-­case sample of fifty institutions of higher education introduced ­earlier in the book. The uneven spacing of the years reflects the publication and availability of our historical source, the Minerva Jahrbuch. In 1895, the institutions of higher education in our count tended to be small, with average numbers of 1,254 students and 97 faculty members. By 2007, at the same institutions, ­those figures w ­ ere substantially greater, having grown approximately 30-­fold: namely, 29.6-­fold for faculty and 30.1-­fold for students. The growth rates are almost identical. By the latest time point, the average institution (in this disproportionately old and Eu­ro­pean group) had 37,694 students and 2,870 faculty members. While not representative in any statistical sense, the data nevertheless suggest that faculty numbers detonated over the recent past with approximately the same velocity as student numbers. A similar upsurge characterizes other university affiliates, beyond the faculty proper. Certainly, the con­temporary numbers are substantial. As of 2017, for example, ­there ­were more than 2,200 postdoctoral scholars scattered throughout the offices, laboratories, institutes, and centers of the Stanford University campus. Meanwhile, the University of KwaZulu-­Natal in South Africa boasted “a robust community of 276 postdocs across the four colleges.”23 The

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4000

Students/10

3500 Faculty

3000 2500 2000 1500 1000 500 0 1895

1938

1969

2007

Average Number of Students/10 and Faculty at Eigh­teen Constant-­Case Universities 1895–2007. FIGURE 3.4.

mythic centrality of higher education in con­temporary society attracts a growing penumbra of affiliated scholars. The key conclusion h ­ ere is that the orga­nizational doors of the university opened steadily over the last ­century and more recently are flung wide. As they opened, what had been a chosen few swiftly became a chosen multitude.24 The gold-­foiled parchments distributed on graduation day mark membership in a greatly expanded circle of empowered actors. Bridge-­Building Rationalization and Universalization As the university has expanded and grown in centrality, its linkages to society have been rationalized and formalized in many ways. We assess the changes involved in chapter 6. But ­here we note the implications for the expansion of linkages in the recruitment of individual ­people to the world of the university. Rationalization: Some part of the growth witnessed above follows from rationalization, which standardizes and routinizes access to higher education with the erection of bridges or stair steps leading from wider society and the individual life course into the university.25 Some such bridges usher all kinds of students into the university, while ­others target historically marginalized subpopulations. Among the former, none is more impor­tant than the ladder that leads from secondary to tertiary education. While now we take it for granted, the education ladder did not always exist, and certainly it was not always so securely

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fastened. One gets a sense of the bygone era, for example, from the University of Illinois Annual Register 1921–1922, which devotes fully eigh­teen pages to describing accredited courses, contents, and high schools, ­etc., and what course of action is required in cases of unaccredited courses, contents, and high schools, ­etc.26 The conveyer b ­ elt that now shut­tles students seamlessly from primary to secondary to tertiary education was then only in the early stages of development, and amassing ­people onto it was a signal achievement of the twentieth ­century.27 Thus, quantitative analyses show that secondary enrollment around the world is a main predictor of tertiary enrollment.28 The secondary-­tertiary ladder shepherds all kinds of p ­ eople ­toward the university and thus contributes ­toward university population expansion on a worldwide basis. It arises concomitant with more targeted efforts to smooth the entrée of groups such as the poor, who have had ­limited access historically. While sparse in number, the poor never w ­ ere excluded outright from the university. The vision of higher education as a gentleman’s privilege only arose as the demise of feudalism sapped the spoils from inheritance.29 Older is the picture of the h ­ umble scholar, dependent on the benefices of a religious order, the patronage of a lord, or remunerated work. The latter image appears in the biography of poet Oliver Goldsmith, who in the eigh­teenth ­century attended Dublin University as a sizer, a student who meets college expenses by performing menial tasks. Sizers back then dressed in coarse black gowns and red hats. They “­were compelled to perform derogatory offices; to sweep the courts in the morning, carry up the dishes from the kitchen to the fellows’ ­table, and wait in the hall till they had dined.”30 Indignities notwithstanding, sizerships represented an early kind of work-­study program for students of modest means. Scholarships for the poor subsequently multiplied, including one, among dozens, described in the 1902 Bombay University Calendar: A Scholarship . . . ​­shall be awarded ­every year to the Parsi female Candidate who passes the Matriculation Examination with the highest number of marks . . . ​who, but for the Scholarship, would not be able to go on with her medical studies. Even ­whole institutions arose to serve t­ hose from h ­ umble backgrounds. For instance, the United States Congress chartered the public land-­grant universities in 1862, “to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes” with subsidized (often tuition f­ ree) education. Such developments routinized the goal of poor and working-­class incorporation, though of course the rhe­toric of inclusion outpaced the facts. Increasingly over the twentieth c­ entury, efforts grew even more deeply institutionalized. Left-­leaning governments in Eu­rope abolished tuition and fees—­for instance, the Soviet Union in 1956 and Ireland in 1996.31 Nigeria

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forbade its federal universities from charging tuition in 2002.32 Meanwhile in the U.S., low-­cost ju­nior colleges sprang up to further “ ‘de­moc­ra­tize’ American higher education.”33 Even with all ­these orga­nizational innovations, barriers remain—­receiving ever more critical and policy attention. For example while it is true that in much of Eu­rope, any properly qualified student may attend university for ­free, it is also true that the less privileged do not have equal access to proper qualifications.34 Still, over recent centuries and especially recent de­cades, a cascade of reforms has offered poor and working-­class students far greater means to achieve a university education, and their repre­sen­ta­tion in the university population has expanded accordingly. Related efforts aim to rationalize access for other historically marginalized groups. For example, universities now reach out to incorporate persons across a wide spectrum of physical, m ­ ental, and intellectual abilities, including t­ hose with dyslexia, autism, and Down syndrome.35 Among the many forms of support are disability ser­vice centers, such as the Centre for Disability Studies and Ser­vices at the State Islamic University Sunan Kalijaga in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Additionally, many countries seek to establish prison-­university pipelines. The United States Higher Education Act fueled the rise of 350 college-­in-­prison programs between 1965 and 1994, and the Restoring Education and Learning Act introduced in 2015 seeks to reinstate federal support for the program.36 Norway accords inmates the same education rights as other citizens.37 Thus, in 2015, the University of Oslo admitted right-­wing terrorist Anders Behring Breivik, who was convicted ­after killing seventy-­seven ­people on a rampage. Breivik w ­ ill pursue a degree in po­liti­cal science.38 Rationalizing bridges likewise pop up in relation to ­people of varying national origin. While faculty and student bodies ­were originally importantly transterritorial, they grew less so during the nineteenth c­ entury, as national states increasingly imposed themselves on university governance, establishing preferential treatment for citizens. Now, many efforts seek to restore the global reach of the university. For example, a Eu­ro­pean Union exchange begun in 1987 came in a few years to circulate close to 300,000 students and faculty annually,39 and several countries have adjusted visa and immigration requirements to attract more students.40 Increasingly, numbers of international students, faculty, and collaborators f­ actor explic­itly into mea­sures of status, such as university rankings. Increasingly, universities themselves span national barriers.41 Clearly, the rationalization of access contributes greatly to the expansion of the university population. Orga­nizational bridges embody the openness of the institution and represent steps t­ oward turning the promise of higher education into real­ity.

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Universalization: The companion pro­cess to rationalization is universalization, which provides another main mechanism b ­ ehind the expansion of the university population. Universalization applies a mortar of personhood over the bricks of status differences and thus levels barriers blocking university access, enabling population expansion.42 We review a few of the more striking developments. Early in its history, religion constituted a categorical barrier to university participation. Religion was identified with the essence of truth, which rendered it as impossible to share knowledge across lines of faith (i.e., ­those who worship the true god versus t­ hose who worship false gods). That premise persisted into the nineteenth ­century and animated, for example, a vigorous debate in the UK House of Commons over the admission of Roman Catholics to Oxford and Cambridge. Reformers argued that it was unjust to exclude Roman Catholics from universities they had founded. But conservatives maintained that intermixing “would lead to disunion and to animosities” and that education deserved not its name if religious instruction ­were not “the solid foundation of all education.”43 A ­century ­earlier, the Enlightenment had begun to chip away at such thinking with the assertion that rationality and science could serve as universal foundations for truth across religious bound­aries. On ­these grounds it became plausible in the 1810s for Prus­sia to adopt modernizing reforms—in response to military defeat by Napoleon—to allow Jews to apply for faculty positions and to conjoin Roman Catholic and Protestant theological studies; and on t­ hese grounds it became pos­si­ble in 1854 for the University Reform Act to open Oxford and Cambridge to students outside the Church of E ­ ngland and to drop the requirement that dons be members of holy ­orders.44 ­These developments affirmed the growing conviction that truth transcends religion, thus opening the university to persons of dif­fer­ent faiths. Of course, some religious restrictions persisted, as when elite Protestant institutions in the U.S. in­ven­ted admissions criteria—­summed up in the mea­ sure of “character”—to limit the entry of Jews early in the twentieth c­ entury.45 Even ­today, non-­Muslim students must show extensive knowledge of the Qur­ an in order to pass entrance exams for Al-­Azhar University in Egypt, and U.S. “anti-­bias laws generally give religious institutions broad leeway to enforce doctrinal requirements” with regards to student admissions and faculty hiring.46 Nevertheless, religious exclusions are much weaker t­ oday than in centuries past. Cultural developments have largely unraveled the contingency of shared knowledge on shared faith and thus cleared religious obstacles from the path to university expansion. Like religion, sex once categorically barred a w ­ hole class of persons from university entrée. ­Women ­were assumed to lack the capacity and temperament for knowledge, notwithstanding early exceptions such as Venetian noblewoman Elena Piscopia, who in 1678 earned a philosophy degree from the

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University of Padua,47 and Julianna Morell, who even ­earlier may have earned a law degree from the University of Avignon, albeit disguised as a man.48 Over several hundred years, the barrier was almost insurmountable. By the early twentieth ­century, the wall had been breached. A number of institutions had arisen to educate ­women, including the Philippine ­Women’s College (­later University) in Manila, founded in 1919, and Ewha ­Womans College (­later University) in Seoul, South ­Korea, founded in 1925. And a number of universities had begun hiring female faculty and admitting female students. For example, Tohoku University became the first coeducational institution in Japan in 1913, and Nanjing Higher Normal School (­later University) became the first in China in 1920. The overriding assumption of female ineducability had weakened. Still, w ­ omen remained scarce in university settings, per­sis­tently bound by constraints of gender and ­family.49 And ­those who persevered faced hostility. For instance, in 1899, the all-­male students at the University of Halle in Prus­sia denounced the admission of ­women, claiming that they caused a “profusion of unwholesomeness. . . . ​­Here the emancipation of w ­ oman becomes a calamity, ­here it conflicts with morality, and thus it must be s­ topped.”50 Even absent flagrant discrimination, universities reminded ­women of their place in the ­family. In 1906, the Cape of Good Hope University in South Africa required “lady correspondents . . . ​to prefix in brackets ­either Mrs. or Miss.”51 Over the ensuing ­century and dramatically over recent de­cades, w ­ omen made inroads in student and faculty bodies.52 For example, the history faculties at both Stanford University and the University of Toulouse, France, went from zero p ­ ercent w ­ omen to almost a third female and more than a fifth, respectively, over the last c­ entury. Similar trends appeared across contexts.53 By the pre­sent day, ­women have made such ­great gains that an emerging concern is the paucity of university men.54 Of course, sex-­based exclusions remain, as seen in segregation across the disciplines.55 And new issues have emerged around sexual orientation and gender identity, causing growing numbers of universities to disclaim discrimination along both dimensions. For instance in 2013, the Council of the Universidad Estatal a Distancia, Costa Rica, publicly reaffirmed its commitment to “the elimination of all forms of discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or preference and gender identity.”56 That the discussion of sex-­based exclusions has proceeded so far—­toward par­tic­u­lar field-­level disparities and sexual orientation and gender identity—­signifies the extent to which the flame of universalism has spread, stripping legitimacy from categorical barriers based on sex, enlarging the orbit of persons who can and should master “knowledge,” and fueling population expansion.57 One culmination of all this is the rise of sweeping university nondiscrimination policies, which both assert common personhood—­the root condition of

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universalized access—­and valorize diversity. In the con­temporary world, the pro­cess of universalization does not wipe away differences, but rather provides a common stem from which they bloom.58 ­Here are policies from universities on three continents: • The University of Witwatersrand, South Africa, prohibits discrimination “based on, but not ­limited to, race, gender identity, sexual orientation, nationality, conscience and beliefs.” • Central Eu­ro­pean University, Austria, does not discriminate on the basis of “race, color, national and ethnic origin, religion, gender and sexual orientation.” • The University of Illinois, U.S., does not discriminate on the basis of “race, color, religion, sex, pregnancy, disability, national origin, citizenship status, ancestry, age, order of protection status, ge­ne­ tic information, marital status, sexual orientation including gender identity, arrest rec­ord status, unfavorable discharge from the military, or status as a protected veteran and to comply with all federal and state nondiscrimination, equal opportunity, and affirmative action laws, ­orders, and regulations.” As each new dimension of nondiscrimination gets added to the list, o ­ thers are suggested in turn. ­There are mutually reinforcing dynamics of incorporation and elaboration.59 In centralized polities, universities may rely on state-­level nondiscrimination policies rather than adopting their own, including ­those enshrined in national constitutions. Still, even in ­these contexts, some universities make proclamations. For instance, the 2013 Guía Universitaria a ­favor de la No Discriminación from the Universidad Veracruzana in Mexico declares: We must recognize, re­spect, and live with differences. This enriches us and enables us to learn from each other. Discrimination is harmful and reprehensible and limits access to rights, health, education, employment, and so on. Currently, we have many laws that protect against this crime . . . ​ [including] Article 1 of the Constitution, the Law to Prevent and Eliminate Discrimination, the Universal Declaration of ­Human Rights.60 Such far-­reaching pronouncements crystallize the two-­toned openness of the university: every­one is existentially the same and must be treated thus, and every­one may express themselves differently. Nondiscrimination policies proclaim the university’s commitment to universal access. They arise with shifts in under­lying assumptions about ­human beings, as affirmations of the ­grand premise that common personhood overrides status differences and entitles all sorts of everyday ­people to footholds in the terra firma of academic knowledge. The expansion of the university

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population thus occurs as ideologies and practices of inclusion replace ideologies and practices of exclusion. The changes over time are far reaching. In short, the university population grows as bridges to the university rise and barriers to the university fall. The developments construct new ways of arranging society and new ways of conceiving the ­people within it. Together, all the specific orga­nizational pro­cesses lift the university institution’s sacred canopy to cover a ­great many more ­people ­today than ever before. And while ­these ­people vary in their local orga­nizational situations, they come more and more to be united institutionally, making up an expanding and quite global elite population. Present-­day po­liti­cal and cultural tremors suggest some popu­lar opposition to this elevated class. The replacement of older inequalities by ­those rooted in schooled knowledge helps replace older class conflicts with new ones. The Expansion of Personhood and Empowered Actorhood As the arising premise of personhood lays the groundwork for liberal models of society, it si­mul­ta­neously opens access to and invites participation in the university, always on the presupposition of ultimate similarity and existential equality. The personhood so constructed runs far beyond the attribution of an expanded set of passive rights. The con­temporary person, in the university—­ and in the now-­global society through the university—is an empowered actor who can make history as well as witness it. Personhood: Thus, many hierarchies have diminished in academic life over the last ­century, though some clearly remain and some even arise, namely ­those rooted in individual achievement and attainment in schooling. For example, public displays of social hierarchy have been eviscerated from academic dress codes. Into the 1900s at South Africa’s Cape of Good Hope University, the chancellor wore a gown of scarlet silk embroidered with gold; the vice-­ chancellor wore a gown of black silk with sleeves of scarlet; and undergraduates wore black stuff gowns. The drapery positioned scholars in a vertically ordered social space—­exalting ­those above and humbling t­ hose below—­and stands in sharp contrast to the casual wear that is now endemic to campus life. Meanwhile, it has grown increasingly difficult to fail courses much less to fail out of university—­and if ­either event transpires it certainly does so without the old public humiliations of posted grades and dunce caps. The hard-­stop drubbings of the past have been superseded by quiet no-­penalty withdrawals and pass/no pass grade options (“no pass” having coyly replaced “fail”). Even the timeworn practice of grading, where it still occurs, is increasingly private and increasingly decoupled from academic accomplishments, yielding widespread grade inflation, especially in the humanities.61 With the institutionalization of personhood, the legitimacy of traditional academic hierarchies has diminished,

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opening the university to broader participation. But at the same time, the centrality of education throughout the modern stratification system means that variations in schooling success may undercut the equalities of personhood: schooled p ­ eople may be seen as better ­people. State hierarchies have also receded or dis­appeared from the university and with them attendant restrictions on participation. In the early 1900s in Japan, the president of the University of Tokyo held chokunin rank (the highest category of the Japa­nese civil ser­vice system, appointed by the emperor); the professors held chokunin or sōnin rank (the second category of the civil ser­vice, nominally appointed by the emperor but in practice appointed by the governor); the assistant professors held sōnin rank; and assistants held hannin rank (the third category of the Japa­nese civil ser­vice). At the same time in France, the University of Toulouse listed both administrators and faculty with medals of merit, which Napoleon and his successors established to supplant aristocratic titles. They listed, for example, the Ordre national de la Légion d’honneur, for major ser­vice to the state during war, and the Ordre des Palmes Académiques, for eminent academic, cultural, and educational distinction.62 State hierarchies recessed along with a w ­ hole host of h ­ uman rankings within the university: based on and/or signified by titles, tracks, reprimands and humiliations, even class ranks and grade point averages. As status hierarchies and rankings have weakened within the university, universalistic standards have emerged for the treatment of students and faculty, prioritizing the equal personhood of all, but also providing bases for new and more academic forms of stratification. One striking example of the new universalism is alphabetization—­a seemingly innocuous and virtually unnoticed practice, the rapid rise of which implies a radical reconfiguration of the university population and wider social structure. Alphabetization asserts the fundamental similarity and existential equality of persons. It positions ­those whose last names begin with the letter A before ­those whose last names begin with the letter B and so on. The pre­ce­dence of the As in no way implies that they are more valued, significant, or fundamental than the Bs. Alphabetization disentangles order from importance. By contrast, three alternative princi­ples of order commonly found in the university—­rank, se­niority, and disciplinary hierarchy—­comingle order and importance. Rank privileges and assigns highest value to t­ hose with the highest office. Se­niority privileges ­those with the longest tenure. The disciplinary hierarchy assigns highest value to ­those from the most fundamental fields (traditionally starting with theology—­see Clark 2006 and our discussion in chapter 4). According to all three alternatives, coming first means having the greatest status and worth. To explore the rise and fall of the four princi­ples of order, we coded faculty listings from the Minerva Jahrbuch at three points in time: 1895 (the fifth edition of the yearbook), 1938, and 1969 (the final edition of the yearbook in

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its original form). Unlike other university directories, the Minerva Jahrbuch never mandated a format for faculty listings, so universities could apply their own logics, alphabetical or other­wise. For each institution in our constant-­ case sample of fifty, we coded the primary and secondary princi­ples of order in presenting faculty members. For example, in the following illustration, the first princi­ple is disciplinary hierarchy: all the theology professors come before all the law professors. The second princi­ple of order is rank: among the theologians, full professors come before associate professors. And so on. Thus: Faculty of Theology Professors Associate Professors Faculty of Law Professors Associate Professors Our coding reveals that over the period in question, academic rank held fast as a princi­ple of order, presenting professors before associate professors, ­etc. It continues so to the pre­sent day. Se­niority and disciplinary hierarchy, meanwhile, fell away sharply. The percentage of institutions using the former to or­ga­nize their faculty listings declined from 58 to 24 ­percent, while the percentage using the latter plunged from 30 to 10 ­percent. Alphabetization concurrently advanced. In 1895, only about a tenth of the institutions in our sample used alphabetization as a primary or secondary princi­ple of order in their faculty listings. By 1969, two thirds did so. ­Today, one supposes, the proportion would be higher still (we cannot make the con­temporary comparison ­because the original Minerva ceased publication in 1969). The alphabetization revolution happens quietly, without fanfare, but its symbolic significance is im­mense. Alphabetization reflects the growing universalization of university knowers and the growing preeminence of personhood as a root social status. Even without leaders and advocates, alphabetization rises up out of the shadows to become a dominant princi­ple of order. The existential equality of personhood permeated the university over recent de­cades, curtailing the traditional vertical gradations of status and sequence, such that more students and more faculty members could more equally and fully engage in academic life. The university expanded greatly to accommodate them. But success in the academic frame of the university—­competence and command over the knowledge system—­becomes a major new axis of social stratification. Actorhood: World War II and its aftermath unleashed a new force in the world generally and in the university specifically: an individualized h ­ uman actor liberated from the embedding of the nation-­state and empowered with godlike creative essence. The post-­Communist neoliberal period greatly intensified the pro­cess. It unfolded as the war stigmatized primordial and

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charismatic forms of nationalism—­there are signs of resurgence now—­and also spurred the rise of a human-­rights regime, providing the individual actor world-­level institutional grounding. The h ­ uman entity that emerged from this pro­cess represents a distinctive kind of person in history: an autonomous individual with an elaborated and rationalized interior, endowed with interests and the capacity to pursue them.63 Empowered actors have unpre­ ce­dented authority to be and do ­things, both within the university and wider society. The university both underwrote and expanded to accommodate the profusion of purposiveness and capacity attributed to the individual actor. The rise of actors empowered with abilities to comprehend, apply, and even to discover knowledge contributes to the proliferation of research units, including centers, institutes, clinics, seminars, and laboratories (discussed further in chapter 6). For example, in our constant-­case sample, the average institution had nine research units in 1895, thirty-­four in 1938, and forty-­six in 1969. The numbers surely would be very much greater now. A hallmark feature of higher education over recent de­cades is its growing research orientation.64 The institution increasingly prioritizes active knowledge production, such that research now rivals, or perhaps even trumps, the knowledge transmission in teaching as the university’s central purpose.65 Of course, this is especially true at so-­called research universities. But it is even also true in the teaching departments of universities, where teaching itself comes to involve more research. For example, at the turn of the twentieth ­century, not one history course at Stanford or Toulouse contained the word “research” in the title or description. A hundred years ­later, 12 ­percent of Stanford history courses and 30 ­percent of Toulouse II history courses did so. Even teaching came to be oriented on, and to involve much, research. We revisit this theme in chapter 5. The university expanded to accommodate empowered actors not only in the guise of researchers but in the ­wholeness of their individual persons, with authorized experiences, subjectivities, and expressivities. Most strikingly in the U.S. case, the university absorbs more and more dimensions of student life well beyond education proper, with food, housing, health ser­vices, athletics, entertainment, sexual counseling, and a teeming multitude of clubs and student organ­izations. Over time, a declining share of the latter represents academic ­matters (e.g., Sociology Club), and a growing share represents personal tastes, hobbies, and talents (e.g., Ski Club).66 Many universities now have hundreds of student organ­izations. Some have more than a thousand.67 To illustrate, we list in ­table 3.3 officially recognized campus groups at the University of Toronto in Canada in the year 2017. We show both the name of each group and its focus. For the sake of brevity, we restrict the ­table to the first fifty groups listed.

­TABLE 3.3.

Recognized Campus Groups at the University of Toronto, Canada*

Group

Focus

A Better You A New Perspective Aamlet Aboriginal Studies Students Abuse ­Free Families Academic Trivia Accounting ­Career ACE Mentorship Actuarial Science Advent Light Advocacy for ­Women and ­Children Advocates for Islam Aerospace Students Aerospace Team Afghan Student Union African Impact Initiative African Students African Studies Course Union Agape Impact Agora Philosophical Forum Ahmadiyya Muslim Students Ai No Shiai Judo AIESEC Toronto Akido and Budo Albanian Student Union Aleph Alpha Solutions Alternative Priorities X Alumni for a ­Free University of Toronto Amateur Astronomer’s Society Amateur ­Music Ambassadors of Collaborative Health American Culture American Sign Language American Studies Students Amigurumi Amnesty International Anime and Manga Annesley Student Government Anthropology and Health Studies Anthropology Gradu­ate Students Anthropology Students Apollo Toronto Apassionata ­Music Apples to Oranges: Board Game Club Application Development Applied Architecture and Landscape Arab Student Group Architecture and Visual Studies Argentine Tango Club

­Career development Homelessness Software Aboriginal studies Domestic vio­lence Quiz bowl Accounting High school mentors Actuarial science Seventh-­day Adventists ­Women and ­children Islam Aerospace Aerospace competitions Afghan students African development African students African Studies students Gospel of Jesus Christ Philosophical concepts Muslim students Judo Global understanding Aikido Albanian students Western imperialism Academic assistance Relationships and feelings ­Free education Astronomy ­Music Holistic medicine and ­mental health American culture and society Sign language and deaf culture American Studies students Stuffed animals ­Human rights Japa­nese animated and illustrated media Student government Anthropology and Health Studies students Anthropology gradu­ate students Anthropology students Translational medicine ­Music Board game enthusiasts Programming and information technology Architecture, landscape, and design Arab students Architecture and Visual Studies students Argentine tango

* See https://­www​.­ulife​.­utoronto​.­ca​/­organizations​/­list​/­alpha​/­a​-­c​/­. Last accessed July 2019.

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The variety of organ­izations is, to say the least, impressive. ­There are groups for accounting students, Albanian students, students interested in global understanding, and students interested in stuffed animals, among many o ­ thers. The rise, though not as precipitous, is found around the world. The Paris campus of Sciences Po in France, for example, lists nearly 100 student associations in its online directory, including Salaam Sciences Po (Islamic culture), Amnesty International Sciences Po (­human rights), Paris Saint-­Germain Sciences Po (soccer fans), Rhinocéros Sciences Po (performing arts), TEDx Sciences Po (visionary ideas), and so on.68 The idea h ­ ere is that the redefinition of society and its compositional ele­m ents not only lays the groundwork for a broadening of university populations—­both in society at large and in universities proper—­but also lays the groundwork for a deepening of the university population. More and more ­human materials get grafted onto university foundations, such that persons themselves are seen in the ­grand terms of actorhood, as ­human embodiments of universalistic rationalism. The rise of actorhood transforms extracurricular life on campus, and it also transforms curricular organ­ization and structure. We address this in the chapters below. Conclusion The university has expanded and spread around the world and has become the central institution at the cultural core of the knowledge society and its education-­based stratification system. With this expansion, the number of ­people whose main social identities are defined by their roots in the university—­ the professionals—­explodes worldwide. And ­these ­people are, everywhere, the most central and valued ­people in the social order. If one uses the old term “elite” to describe them, then one must acknowledge that the number of ­people in the world making up the elite ­will fairly soon reach one billion. And, it must be stressed, they acquire their elite status in organ­izations that claim rather isomorphic status in a world knowledge culture, integrating the global elite with a shared cultural frame and common university credentials, pertinent even at the fringes of social conflict and extremism.69 The world remains a very unequal place. But the inequalities focus to a greatly increasing extent on merit as defined in terms of academic knowledge and reasoning, and to a decreasing extent on classic dimensions: sex, ethnicity, and f­ amily background. They celebrate elite status and mobility as rooted in schooled status and mentalities.70 So throughout the world, beginning with birth or before, life is or­ga­nized around the attainment of, and success in, schooling. Old inequalities are replaced by new ones: knowledge and aptitude test scores, school status, diplomas. Older social realities of power and resources are weakened in the face of the new surrealities of schooled

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knowledge: and, of course, the older realities now function as resources to acquire the dressings of knowledge. When we delve into the specific orga­nizational instances of the world’s university institution, we find enormous growth—­not only in total world student and faculty rolls but also in the student and faculty rolls of typical universities. The institutionalization of the common and standardized frame makes pos­si­ble an almost-­facile enrollment expansion, so that a university can have thousands of faculty and tens of thousands or even a million students without too much trou­ble. Further, enrollment in the university is now facilitated for all sorts of formerly excluded or marginalized groups. Poor p ­ eople, female p ­ eople, minority p ­ eople, irreligious p ­ eople, disabled p ­ eople, old p ­ eople—­the university attempts to be open to all, not only to some clerics, eggheads, or ­people of truly unusual abilities. The persons thus incorporated are conceived to be basically equal in status. Old social distinctions are suppressed and denied, such that success is putatively driven not by social status but by immediate personal per­for­mance. Beyond being equal, the participants in the pre­sent university world are seen as expanded instances of personhood—­actors rather than servants in the dramas of life in the curriculum and the social hereafter. And the dramas in which they can legitimately act extend now to the global level, with their academic degrees taking on increasingly globalized status. Participation and choice are the watchwords. So universities have expanded arenas for social as well as academic participation. And academically, they are open to student choices on a massive scale: choices of majors and specialization and choices of patterns of courses to take. We take up such curricular issues in the chapters that follow.

4 The Societal Culture of University Knowledge In the preceding chapters, we discussed the extraordinary expansion of the university as an institution and organ­ization, and the h ­ uman populations it constructs and proj­ects into society. We turn now to the cultural contents claimed and carried by the institution. The university and its knowledge system infiltrate ­every domain of con­temporary life. Just as university-­certified personnel populate the elites of the modern system, university-­defined knowledge makes up much of the system’s legitimated cultural contents. Thus, the teaching and research topics carried by the university expand dramatically. And they are by no means or­gan­i­za­tion­ally contained. University knowledge is institutionalized in society, and comes to be ubiquitous in everyday life, far beyond the walls of the university organ­izations. It permeates the economy, polity, ­family, and so on, and in the course of ­doing so, its authority grows increasingly dominant, over the high and hyper-­modern periods of the last half-­century. Taking out the garbage is redefined and reorganized—­government and governmentality are involved—by the knowledge carried by professors, including t­ hose in medicine, sanitation, ecol­ogy, and conservation, and of course by the expanding array of ­those concerned with gender and equality. ­There is a tendency both in wider society and in the academic social sciences to naturalize both the expanding cultural claims of the university and its preemptive authority. The under­lying assumption is that university knowledge is simply superior to other forms of understanding—­including ­those based in religion, tradition, or nationalism—­and thus outcompetes them. It is impor­tant to stress the extent to which the authority of academic knowledge is culturally conditioned. It is not e­ very society that grants h ­ umans a warrant to comprehend 65

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the causal structure of the entire universe: many systems deem it impossible, unnecessary, dangerous, or heretical. It is not ­every society that opens the entire universe—­the w ­ hole past, the ­whole pre­sent, the ­whole social world, the ­whole galaxy—to standardized causal imageries: many systems set bound­aries (e.g., the nation, the ­family, the personality, ­etc.) that limit the application and penetration of such unifying schemes. Indeed, all throughout the modern period, objections to the rationalized and universalized claims of university culture have come forward. Thus far, they have been surprisingly feeble, but they could gain strength in the ­future with a weakening of a hyper-­modern, neoliberal global culture. Academic knowledge is not just any form of comprehension or truth. Academic knowledge is distinguished first by its universalism. Particulars are routinely considered, but not as in themselves par­tic­u­lar: they are seen as instances of more general truths and examined in that light. Second, academic knowledge is distinguished by its rationalism. It steps beyond roses-­are-­red-­ and-­violets-­are-­blue description to analyze and deconstruct mysteries. Universalism and rationalism sharply distinguish sacred truths and academic ones. The former should be objects of awe and reverence—­a cosmological perspective that persists (the won­der of nature, the won­der of love), however weakly. The latter can and should be probed and explained. We develop ­these background themes in the first section of this chapter, and then turn to the expansion of academic knowledge. The chapter proceeds as follows: • First, we discuss the nature of academic knowledge, stressing above all its universalistic and rationalistic properties. • Second, we discuss the worldwide expansion and triumph of academic knowledge throughout everyday life. • Third, we discuss the worldwide expansion of academic knowledge within the university proper, i.e., its teaching and research curricula. • Fourth, we discuss the expanding bases for academic knowledge, including the reconstruction of existing ­matter and the construction of new ­matter. • Fifth, we discuss the hyper-­curriculum that emerges from this new world of academic understandings, above and beyond material real­ity.

The Universalism and Rationalism of Academic Knowledge The posture or conceit of universalism helps account for what might other­ wise be regarded as a problematic observation. University curricula look similar everywhere, despite massive variation among the socie­ties in which they are found. If one compares, for example, the degrees offered in 2015 by the

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Undergraduate Degrees at Two Universities in 2015 (­Limited to Degrees Beginning with the Letters A to D)* ­TABLE 4.1.

University of Ibadan, Nigeria

Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

Adult Education Agricultural Economics Agricultural & Environmental Engineering Agricultural Extension & Rural Development Agronomy Animal Science Anthropology Aquaculture & Fisheries Management Arabic Language & Lit­er­a­ture Archaeology Biochemistry Botany Chemistry Civil Engineering Classics Communication & Language Arts Computer Science Crop Protection & Environmental Biology Dentistry Plus 47 more

Accounting Actuarial Science Agricultural Development Planning Agricultural Engineering Agricultural & Livestock Management Applied Mathe­matics & Computer Science Architecture Basic Biomedical Research Biology Biopharmaceutical Chemistry Chemical Engineering Chemical & Metallurgical Engineering Chemistry Civil Engineering Classic Lit­er­a­ture Coastal Zone Sustainable Management Communication Communication Sciences Communication Sciences ( Journalism) Computer Science Dentistry Design & Visual Communication Diagnostic Biochemistry Dramatic Lit­er­a­ture & Theatre Plus 49 more

* See https://­www​.n ­ igeriaschool​.­com​.n ­ g​/­university​-­of​-­ibadan​-­undergraduate​-­degree​-­programmescourses​ -­for​-­2014–2015​-­session/ and http://­www​.­oia​.n ­ tu​.e­ du​.­tw​/­oia​/­public​/­share​/­files​/­oia​/­Mexico​_­UNAM​ _­Teaching​.­pdf, last accessed June 2019.

University of Ibadan in Nigeria and the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), one finds overlap and portability. To illustrate, we display in ­table 4.1 the degrees offered by the two universities, limiting our list for the sake of parsimony to degrees that begin with the letters A to D. Beyond ­these, each university has almost fifty more degrees. Strikingly, all the degrees involved can be understood and interpreted by any reasonably schooled outsider. Legibility and portability are closely intertwined. ­Every degree that Ibadan offers ­either is or could be offered at UNAM. ­Every degree that UNAM offers e­ ither is or could be offered at Ibadan. Even ostensibly local m ­ atters, such as Igbo and Latin American Studies, pack particularistic fillings into universalistic molds.1 They represent local instances of general phenomena: i.e., national languages and regional studies. ­There is

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Required Courses for the B.A. in Sociology and Four Sample Course Outlines, University of Calicut, India, 2017*

TABLE 4.2.

Required Courses Methodology & Perspectives Indian Society & Social Change Introduction to Sociology Research Methods & Statistics Basic Psy­chol­ogy Social Anthropology Social Informatics Women & Society Modern Indian History Mass Media & Society Foundation of So­cio­log­i­cal Theories Environment & Society Social Research Methods Population & Society Life Skill Development Sociology of Development Theoretical Perspectives So­cio­log­i­cal Analy­sis Sample Course Outlines Introduction to Sociology I. Basics of Sociology II. Socialization III. Culture, Personality, & Society IV. Social Pro­cess

­Women & Society I. Nature of ­Women’s Studies II. Sex Role Theories III. Changing Status of W ­ omen in India IV. ­Women in Con­temporary India

Indian Society & Social Change I. Features of Indian Society II. ­Family, Marriage, & Kinship III. Religions, Caste, & Class

Environment & Society I. Environmental Sociology II. Theoretical Foundations III. Environmental Issues

IV. Education & Economy

IV. Environment & Development

* See http://­www​.­universityofcalicut​.­info​/­index​.­php​?­option​=­com​_­content&task​=­view&id​=­1015, last accessed July 2019.

something deeper h ­ ere than orga­nizational isomorphism—­universities vary a good deal in orga­nizational structure.2 The similarity of curricular contents follows not from orga­nizational standardization but from the nature of t­ hose contents, namely, their aspiration to universalized explanation. The cultural content, not the orga­nizational framing, is the source of the uniformity: the assumption seems to be that a university on a distant planet should prob­ably have degree offerings similar to Harvard’s. The universalism of academic knowledge is palpable at the degree level. But a skeptic might ­counter that particularism resides deeper in academic contents, closer to what is actually researched and taught. Perhaps degrees conceal local variation. We lack systematic data to evaluate this possibility, but a spot check of degree programs and course outlines reveals deep undercurrents of universalism. We see it, for instance, in the sociology program requirements and in four sample course outlines from the University of Calicut, India (­table 4.2). What is surprising about t­ hese materials is their very unsurprisingness. One searches in vain to find a course or module that is not immediately legible and portable almost anywhere.

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­TABLE 4.3.

Labels for Three Disciplinary Fields across Four Languages

Language

Field

En­glish German Malay Swahili

Philosophy Philosophie Falsafah Falsafa

Physics Physik Fizik Fizikia

Law Recht Undang-­undang Sheria

The ­whole package—­both the degree program and its component courses— is strikingly conventional. It is isomorphic not in the sense that this very program is found at other universities but rather that without modification it could be. It could be offered at the University of Kansas in the U.S. or at the Universidade de São Paulo in Brazil as easily as it is at the University of Calicut in India. ­Every course is immediately decipherable. Several even have a fash­ ion­able quality (e.g., ­Women & Society, Environment & Society), suggesting that the sociology department at Calicut is oriented on and connected to eddies of innovation swirling at the disciplinary centers. Obviously, a few sociology courses at Calicut take up local Indian m ­ atters. The question is w ­ hether they are framed in particularistic terms that require special epistemological ­handling or ­whether they are framed in the transcendent terms of universalistic rationalism—as local instances of standard world materials—­that allow typical epistemological ­handling. T ­ able 4.2 pre­ sents schematic outlines for four courses, including Indian Society and Social Change. Nothing in it elicits won­der. ­There appears very ­little Indian-­ness in the so­cio­log­i­cal approaches to Indian society at the University of Calicut in India. Its contents—­and the contents of the other courses—­are resolutely generic. Academic isomorphism prevails.3 The universalism of academic knowledge is obvious not only in the teaching endeavors of the university. It is just as noticeable in its research endeavors. Disciplinary fields often flaunt their universalism u ­ nder generally recognizable labels, as we show in ­table 4.3. The linguistic markers, one observes, are most similar among fields with the deepest university roots (e.g., physics in En­glish translates to fizik in Malay and fizikia in Swahili). Fields with strong connections to external institutions, including the church and state, display less homogeneity (e.g., law in En­glish translates to undang-­undang in Malay and sharia in Swahili). Disciplinary labels are not alone in spanning linguistic, cultural, and administrative bound­aries. Whole research fields span borders on a virtually worldwide basis.4 For example, what counts as so­cio­log­i­cal research in Brazilian and Senegalese journals of sociology obviously counts as such in the United States, as a perusal of the ­tables of contents from two journals quickly reveals

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­TABLE 4.4.

­Tables of Contents from Brazilian and Senegalese Journals of Sociology

Tempo Social: Revista de Sociologia (Brazil) Vol. 28, No. 3, 2016 Documentary Dispatchers in the Age of Orga­nizational Professionalism Academics and Intellectuals in the Reconstruction of Democracy in Argentina Vio­lence and Justice in Brasília: Orga­nizational Dynamics and Social Repre­sen­ta­tions ­Women without ­Faces as an Indicator of the New Humanism in Social Networks Sociologies of Lit­er­a­ture: From Reflex to Reflexivity Revue Africaine de Sociologie/African So­cio­log­i­cal Review (Senegal) Vol. 20, No. 2, 2016 Real­ity Checks: The State of Civil Society Organ­izations in Ethiopia Re-­conceptualizing Development: The Volta River Proj­ect and Child Survival in Dzemeni Local Citizen Participation in Cameroon: Legitimacy, Efficiency, and Po­liti­cal Tensions Corporate Social Responsibility and Workers’ Well-­Being in Nigerian Banks A Qualitative Application of Sen’s “Development as Freedom” Theory in South Africa

(­table 4.4). While particularizing anchors are pre­sent in the titles—­“Brasília,” “Dzemeni,” etc.—­they are attached to generalizing frames—­“vio­lence and justice,” “child survival.” This is a typical form of glocalization.5 The local appears dramatically, but it is a cap over universal contents. So­cio­log­i­cal journals from a variety of countries can and do (and should) cover common issues. Altogether, the foregoing materials—­drawn from dif­fer­ent country contexts and dif­f er­ent levels of analy­sis on both the teaching and research sides of the curriculum—­highlight the hallmark universalism of academic knowledge. At the same time, they suggest what it is not. (1) Academic knowledge does not consist of occupational skills, where “skills” describe individual abilities to accomplish job-­specific tasks. A skills-­ based curriculum would hew closely to variable economic contexts, such that academic knowledge for an agricultural setting, for example, would be sharply dif­fer­ent from academic knowledge for an industrial setting, and so on. The universalism displayed above suggests no such localization. The story was very dif­fer­ent in the apprentice arrangements and industrial schools that ­were common a ­century ago. In ­these systems, master prac­ti­tion­ ers trained novices to perform specific occupational tasks. They prioritized the per­for­mance of bodies over the understanding of minds. In 1910 for example, the U.S. Commissioner of ­Labor gathered data on no fewer than eleven categories of industrial schools: philanthropic industrial schools (such as the Ranken School of Mechanical Trades), public industrial schools (such as the Wisconsin State Mining Trade School), apprenticeship schools (such as the Fore River Apprentice School), cooperative industrial schools (such as the Lewis Institute), eve­ ning industrial schools (such as the Franklin Union), textile schools (such as the

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Lowell Textile School), girls’ industrial schools (such as the School of Domestic Science and Art), negro industrial schools (such as the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute), Indian industrial schools (such as the Carlisle Indian Industrial School), correspondence schools (such as the Union Pacific Educational Bureau), and Young Men’s Christian Association Schools (such as the YMCA School of Commerce).6 Many of ­these industrial or vocational schools followed the path typical of proto-­universities over the twentieth ­century and upgraded to or merged with universities. The Hampton Institute, for instance, arose to help freed slaves find vocations, with four-­year courses in blacksmithing, bricklaying, carpentry, plumbing, and so on. One gets the distinctive emphases on working bodies and occupational skills in the opening paragraphs of the Hampton Institute’s Fifty-­Third Annual Cata­logue of 1921: Hampton stands for “a sound body, a trained capacity, and an unselfish outlook on life” for ­every student. Good health is made a requisite of the first importance. At entrance and yearly thereafter, the eyes, ears, and teeth of ­every student are examined by specialists, and defects are corrected wherever pos­si­ble. Besides this, ­there is a thorough physical examination. . . . ​ Diet, hours for eating and sleeping, the periods for study and for manual ­labor, are arranged with a view to the physical well being of the students, for without health the educational efforts of the school would be in vain. The most con­spic­uo ­ us feature of the educational program—­though con­spic­u­ous only in comparison with schools of the more conventional academic type—is industrial training. From the beginning Hampton has emphasized the educational value of manual ­labor, and has found such ­labor in the normal, daily activities of the school. ­Here is a community of over a thousand persons who, first of all, must be h ­ oused and fed. This necessity affords ample opportunity for the training of boys and girls in the production, preparation, and serving of food, and in the care of the many buildings, which the needs of such a community require. The paramountcy of general understanding is not central in this material from World War I–­era Hampton Institute, as would be typical in a university, including Hampton University, ­today. Throughout the high modern and hyper-­ modern periods, the number of vocationally oriented schools declined in the U.S. and generally throughout the world.7 Of course, some endure, preserving the apprenticeship tradition and training electricians, violinists, and their kin. They stand, at least for now, at the margins of the university proper, though the budding anti-­liberalism of the last de­cade may restore their importance and recenter occupational skills, as suggested by the recent rise of competency certificates. The general claim h ­ ere—­i.e., that academic knowledge is not occupational skill—­pertains with one impor­tant caveat. It is so u ­ nless the occupation itself

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emanates from the university, as in the worldwide professional sector discussed in chapter 3. Professionals operate in the global knowledge economy, converting knowledge into Knowledge, and the cultural accounting system treats them just the same as if they produced economic utility. Compare growing an apple (agricultural production) with branding a Honeycrisp (knowledge production). The value of the latter—­and the “occupational skill” involved in producing it—is highly contingent on university-­certified expertise and a socially constructed knowledge-­based accounting system.8 (2) Academic knowledge does not consist of concrete facts in­de­pen­dent of general explanatory frameworks. When stand-­alone facts do appear in university materials (websites, course cata­logs, syllabi, e­ tc.), they almost always pertain not to substantive academic m ­ atters but rather to orga­nizational and extracurricular affairs. Their circumscribed relevance—­their inertness and locality—­contrasts sharply with the unbounded vigor and abstraction of academic knowledge. Consider a few illustrative examples. Between about 1890 and 1910, the Berea College General Cata­log described its location as follows. “The College is located in Madison County, on the Kentucky Central R. R., one hundred and thirty miles south of Cincinnati. The town bears the same name, Berea, and is a healthful village, delightfully situated among the foot-­hills of the Cumberland Mountains. . . . ​Two miles east is the pinnacle from which Daniel Boone first viewed the fertile plains of Kentucky.” The description of Berea’s location offers a bouquet of facts, but it never ascends the vertiginous heights of universalistic understanding. Facts without explanations also appear in the following snippet of a timetable from Egyptian (now Cairo) University’s Faculty of Science in 1931, presented in table 4.5. Of course, a timetable from any university in any period would suffice. The timetable contains a welter of specificities untouched by universalism and rationalism. The lecture hours for 1931 may not be the same as the lecture hours for 1932. The lecture hours at Egyptian (now Cairo) University have nothing to do with the lecture hours at Syrian (now Damascus) University. The timetable pre­sents material facts locked in space and time. They lack the explanatory transcendence of academic knowledge. Fi­nally, consider the description of the administration building at the University of Notre Dame found between about 1905 and 1915 in the Bulletin: “The dimensions of this building are 320 by 155 feet; it is five stories in height and is surmounted by a dome 207 feet in height. . . . ​This building, like all the ­others of the University, is lighted by electricity and gas, and heated by steam. The corridors of the first floor are decorated with mural paintings by Gregori.” H ­ ere is an account rich in detail: the building is surmounted by a dome, lighted by electricity, and decorated with murals by Gregori. But the facts at hand are stationary and totally rooted in local context.

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­TABLE 4.5.

Excerpt from Timetable for Egyptian University Lectures

Saturday Sunday

Laboratories

8.30

9.30

10.30

2.30

Physics

Applied Math

Physics

Chemistry

Geology

Zoology

Chemistry

Pure Math

Zoology

Botany

Chemistry

French

Applied Math Chemistry

The chief idea ­here is broad. Occupational skills and stand-­alone facts represent impor­tant kinds of understanding. But they are not the university’s stock-­in-­trade. Academic knowledge is universalized and rationalized—­i.e., oriented on general understandings and fundamental order and causality. It expands spectacularly over the w ­ hole modern period and especially over the globalizing and liberalizing periods of high and hyper-­modernity. The Expansion and Triumph of Academic Knowledge in Everyday Life The expansion of academic knowledge refers not only—­and perhaps not even mainly—to the growing university teaching and research curriculum in orga­ nizational terms. It also refers to a broad reconstitution of the cultural fabric, involving the penetration and triumph of academic knowledge. Across ­every conceivable domain into ­every corner of world society, academic knowledge comes to be the preeminent authority. The root change h ­ ere involves a sweeping reinstallation of the premises for understanding. It recasts our basic stories of origin and being. It alters how we approach questions and how we assess answers. While the university proper is the orga­nizational hub and forge for this new culture, the changes ultimately are much more extensive, reaching into the institutionalized structures of nature, national and global society, and the moral order. Thus, in con­ temporary life, all sorts of ordinary persons deploy academic perspectives, for example, in assessing the weather and in assessing the opinions of ­others about the weather. More formalized applications of academic knowledge materialize in the media (in columns, in tweets, and on talk shows) and still more formalized ones appear in legislative hearings. Everyday discourse is now thoroughly peppered with academic reference points. One way to illustrate the change—­which might broadly be called the academicization of culture—is to select an object, action, or concept and to look at evolving popu­lar discourse on it over time (e.g., in newspapers and magazines).

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Our sense is that almost anything would reveal the rise of academic knowledge in everyday life. To illustrate, we pre­sent three newspaper articles on bears from the New York Times. (Articles from The Times of London, Le Figaro, or any number of other long-­published newspapers would serve the same purpose.) The first two articles appeared in 1868, and their depiction of bears is moral, sentimental, and noticeably nonacademic. They involve very par­tic­u­lar bears in very par­tic­ul­ar dramatic settings. The third article appeared in 2015, and its depiction of bears is the opposite. While the bear at stake is well known, the corresponding discourse is mostly scientific. The individual bear appears as a carrier of universalistic explanation. We begin with an excerpt from an article published January 2, 1868, u ­ nder the title “A Bear and a Bull Fight.” The story begins with a description of the large crowd of 2,000 ­people—­“a dense mass of humanity”—­who paid a hefty admission ($1) and gathered to watch the clash. At precisely 3:30 o ­ ’clock the bear’s cage was opened, but he did not rush frantically out as many had predicted. The calico-­colored bull eyed the opening with considerable curiosity, fixing his eyes upon it, but not even switching his tail. Fi­nally the man­ag­ers pulled vigorously upon the rope which was attached to Bruin’s leg and out he was jerked, howling and groaning as if in unbearable distress. As soon as he touched the ground he flopped over on his back and rolled over and over, making most piteous bellowings and showing the opposition he felt to any such combats or the punishment he had found out by experience he was about to receive. Presently the ropes ­were pulled again, the animals w ­ ere drawn slowly ­toward each other, the bull was goaded with sticks and pounded with clubs, and Grizzly Joe, who by this time had found out that he must fight, raised up on his haunches with his mouth wide open and eyed his horned antagonist. The latter soon bowed his head, determined to get the ugly-­looking customer out of his way, and made a rush at the bear, catching his horns on the side of the latter and throwing him over on his back, where he lay like a whipped child. The article goes on for almost 800 more words in this vein and then closes with the following peroration: The ­whole affair was a burlesque on civilization and a farce. To see it was to become disgusted. Many in that dense crowd w ­ ill remember for days to come the torn trampings they received and the weariness of their limbs ­after that hour and a half ’s interminable jousting and swaying. The reporter h ­ ere adopts a generally “civilized” perspective with strong moral overtones, using the occasion to contrast the bloodthirst of h ­ umans with the

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peaceable bull and bear. Th ­ ere is an ethics lesson but no academic explanation. Indeed, nowhere in the story does academic knowledge come into play. No professors are quoted, no scientific lingo appears, and no research is cited. Grizzly Joe is a suffering protagonist in­de­pen­dent of its species. Newspaper accounts of slave beatings and child abuse from the same period might have similar themes and storylines. A second excerpt, titled “A Marvelous Bear Story” and published on July 8, 1868, is likewise built around the par­tic­u­lar character of a par­tic­ul­ ar bear and likewise displays a sentimental and romantic conception of nature (and bears). Also like the previous excerpt, it is infused with a common-­sense morality, though this story comes to a happier ending. It rec­ords the “very singular deliverance” of a three-­year-­old girl from a black bear. Mr. Henry Flynn . . . ​started one morning to take a ­horse to pasture, about two miles distant from the h ­ ouse, and as his l­ ittle girl seemed very anxious to go, he put her upon the h ­ orse’s back, and let her r­ ide a short distance, perhaps forty rods from the ­house, where he put her down, and told her to run home. He noticed that the child was standing where he left her, and on looking back ­after ­going a ­little further, saw her playing in the sand. He soon passed out of sight, and was gone about an hour, expecting, of course, that the child would return to the h ­ ouse ­after playing a few moments. On returning home, he made inquiry about her of its m ­ other, who said she had not seen her, and supposed he had taken her along with him. On g­ oing to the spot where he left her, he saw huge beartracks in the sand, and at once came to the conclusion that the child had been carried off by the bear. A day and night of frantic searching ensued to no avail. Fi­nally, the following morning, someone heard a voice and called to the girl in the bushes. She said the bear would not let her go. The men then crept through the brush, and when near the spot where the child and bear w ­ ere, they heard a splash in the w ­ ater, which the child said was the bear. On ­going to her they found her standing upon a log extending about half way across the river. The bear had undertaken to cross the river on the log, and being closely pursued, left the child and swam away. She had received some scratches about her face, arms and legs, and her clothes ­were almost torn from body, but the bear had not bitten her to hurt her, only the marks of his teeth being found on her back, where, in taking hold of her clothes to carry her, he had taken the flesh also. The l­ ittle one says the bear would put her down occasionally to rest, and would put his nose up to her face, when she would slap him, and then the bear would hang his head by her side and purr and rub against her like a cat.

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The men asked her if she was cold in the night, and she told them the old bear lay down beside her and put his “arms” around her and kept her warm, though she did not like his long hair. She was taken home to her parents. The themes in this excerpt, as in the previous one, address right princi­ples and good character. The negligent ­father leaves his ­daughter alone in the sand, while the responsible bear wraps her in his arms and protects her through the night. The themes are broad and moral. But the explanatory and analytical frameworks characteristic of academic knowledge are entirely absent. The last excerpt appeared much more recently in the New York Times, on August 29, 2015, and has a very dif­fer­ent quality.9 “Death of Knut the Polar Bear Is Explained at Last” is not a morality tale but instead offers rich academic and scientific analy­sis. The bear is not a sentimental protagonist but rather an instance and representative of the species Ursus maritimus. Scientists have solved the zoological mystery of what killed Knut, the Berlin Zoo’s famous polar bear, more than four years a­ fter he drowned in his enclosure as horrified visitors watched. The 4-­year-­old bear had an autoimmune disease that attacks the brain, according to a study published Thursday in Scientific Reports, a research journal. It is unusual that Knut had the disease at all. Known as anti-­NMDA receptor encephalitis, the disease was discovered relatively recently and was thought to affect only ­humans. The findings raise awareness and open up the possibilities of further veterinary research into an illness that is treatable. The determination brings closure to a case many suspected would go cold. A team of researchers at the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Berlin ran exhaustive tests ­after Knut’s death, looking for a pathogen responsible for the brain inflammation that caused a seizure just before he collapsed into his enclosure’s pool and died. . . . But the researchers found no infections that could have caused the inflammation. The team published its results in early 2014 and put aside its samples, hoping to revisit the case. . . . Dr. Harald Prüss, a neurologist and researcher at the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases in Berlin, said he was “­really alarmed” when he read the study, noting the similarities between Knut and his patients. He contacted Dr. Greenwood about testing Knut’s remains for a still relatively new type of encephalitis, an acute inflammation of the brain. “That was the answer,” Dr. Greenwood said. Obviously, the contents of this third excerpt—­the nature of its knowledge—­are strikingly more academic than the contents of the first and second. Th ­ ere are

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journals and research and scientists and exhaustive tests. ­These contents are rationalized and scientized rather than moralized and sentimentalized. The trio of bear articles illustrates a general epistemological shift. A trio of articles from the same periods from virtually any newspaper on virtually any topic—­bees, beans, or beers—­would serve the same purpose. The evolving media discourse is an indicator of broader shifts: the academic colonization of everyday life and the triumph of academic knowledge over other forms of understanding. The old-­style bear tales still are told around campfires and supper ­tables. They still show up in ­children’s books. But their cultural authority is ­limited and local, in sharp contrast to the universality of academic understandings. Just as academically certified persons stand atop the ­human stratification system, so also do academically certified understandings stand atop the cultural stratification system. The argument ­here is reinforced when one contemplates the answers to two questions. What cultural domain has not been penetrated by academic knowledge? And in what cultural domain are its claims not accorded preeminent standing? Even ­family ­matters, such as child-­rearing, and private ­matters, such as sexual relations, and personal m ­ atters, such as grief, and paranormal ­matters, such as ghosts, have succumbed (or been elevated)—­not only in core Western countries but also in countries around the world. If this pinpoint method, following discourse around an object or keyword through time, reveals the expansion and triumph of academic knowledge, how much more so would an examination of the vast cultural domains constructed outright by the university. Phenomena from relativity to subjectivity, from photosynthesis to hegemony are not merely socially constructed, a la Berger and Luckmann (1966), but are academically constructed on rationalistic and universalistic foundations, built with resounding cultural authority. They press open the bound­aries of cultural space, imagining and installing a huge range of now-­ quotidian cultural possibilities (many of which find expression in the professions). The Expansion of Academic Knowledge in University Organ­izations Clearly as demonstrated above, academic knowledge expands in everyday life. The transformation is sweeping. Still, even as academic knowledge saturates and enlarges the broader cultural terrain, it also expands within university organ­izations. Any and ­every mea­sure of the teaching and research curriculum shows spectacular growth, ­whether the time frame is recent centuries or recent de­cades. ­There are many indicators of curricular expansion. As a first take, consider the rising numbers of major academic divisions (schools, faculties, colleges, ­etc.) within universities over time. In our constant-­case data set of fifty

­TABLE 4.6.

Comparing the Major Academic Divisions of Three Universities in 1895 and 2019* 1895

­Free University of Amsterdam Law Philosophy Theology

2019 Dentistry Behavioral & Movement Sciences Business & Economics Humanities Law Medicine Religion & Theology Science Social Sciences

University of Texas—­Austin

Law Architecture Lit­er­a­ture, Science, & Arts Business Medicine Communication Education Engineering Fine Arts Geosciences Gradu­ate Studies Information Law Liberal Arts Medicine Natu­ral Sciences Nursing Pharmacy Public Affairs Social Work Undergraduate Studies

University of Belgrade

Engineering Law Philosophy

Agriculture Architecture Biology Chemistry Civil Engineering Dental Medicine Economics Electrical Engineering Forestry Geography Law Mathe­matics Mechanical Engineering Medicine Mining & Geology Orga­nizational Sciences Orthodox Theology

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­TABLE 4.6.

(continued) 1895

University of Belgrade

2019 Pharmacy Philology Philosophy Physical Chemistry Physics Po­liti­cal Science Security Special Education & Rehabilitation Sports & Physical Education Teacher Education Technology and Metallurgy Transport & Traffic Engineering Veterinary Medicine

*1895 data from Minerva Jahrbuch. 2019 data from http://­www​.­vu​.­nl​/­en​/­about​-­vu​-­amsterdam​/­organization​/­faculties​ /­index​.­asp, http://­www​.­utexas​.­edu​/­academics​/­areas​-­of​-­study, http://­www​.­bg​.­ac​.­rs​/­en​/­members​/­faculties​/­faculties​ .­php, last accessed July 2019.

universities and colleges introduced in chapter 2, the average number of major academic divisions more than tripled from 1895 to 2019, rising from three to ten. For example, the ­Free University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands built up from three to nine faculties, the University of Texas at Austin in the U.S. expanded from three departments to eigh­teen schools and colleges, and the University of Belgrade in Serbia grew from three faculties to thirty. The details—­which have analogues in hundreds of universities around the world—­ appear in ­table 4.6. Of course, curricular expansion goes on in parallel with enrollment expansion, as discussed in the previous chapter. But we stress that more students do not inevitably produce a broadened and differentiated curriculum. A growing school district may build more and larger elementary schools with l­ ittle elaboration of curricular contents. So may a chain of restaurants or hardware stores. Thus, a university could get bigger simply by replicating at a greater scale its basic structural units. This is not, as t­ able 4.6 illustrates, what happened. What we witness instead is an expansion of the academic knowledge system. The addition of a major division represents something more than a new dimension of orga­nizational structure. More fundamentally, the addition represents the annexation by the university of a formerly unincorporated cultural territory. Thus, for example, the founding of the new Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Belgrade represents a cultural assertion about animals and the diagnosis and treatment of their diseases, disorders, and injuries. The notion that a polar bear died from anti-­NMDA receptor encephalitis

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represents a spectacular upgrading of traditional cultural account structures, which might have settled for a nonrationalized narrative (the bear died) or at least a rationalized narrative less strafed by the artillery of rationalization and universalization (the bear died from drowning). The new Faculty of Veterinary Medicine represents bold imputations of order and bracing assertions of comprehensibility in an area that once lay outside the university’s catchment area, beyond the ken of the academic knowledge system. The expansion of the university’s academic menu is stunning over the centuries. At the time of the university’s medieval origins in Eu­rope, teaching and research focused on the study of God and God’s relationship to the world. For example, upon the founding of the University of Toulouse in 1229, almost half of the endowed professorships ­were in theology: four in theology proper and two in church law.10 Indeed, the raison d’être for Toulouse—­its animating inspiration—­was theological. The Treaty of Paris established the university to prevent a return of heresy in the Languedoc region before the Albigensian Crusade. U ­ nder the guidance of the local Archbishop and the oversight of Rome, the university’s found­ers ­shaped the curriculum to proj­ect truth and orthodoxy.11 From ­these circumscribed origins, teaching and research at Toulouse grew gradually over time, spreading into adjacent fields. The study of church law gave rise to the study of civil law; the study of the deity gave rise to the study of the deity’s manifestation in the ­human body and in nature. Thus arose faculties of law, medicine, and eventually the natu­ral sciences in the university, alongside t­ hose devoted to theology and letters. Religious and ecclesiastical ­matters did not fall to the wayside, but other subjects acquired standing ­under the same umbrella. Even as the cultural holdings of the university broadened over a long period, so too did they deepen. For example, in roughly the first c­ entury of its postrevolutionary incarnation (beginning in 1808), the Faculty of Sciences at the University of Toulouse built up from a single professorship of pure mathe­ matics, founded in 1811, to professorships of chemistry (1813), zoology (1838), geology and mineralogy (1839), astronomy (1848), physics (1891), natu­ral history (1892), chemistry (1892), agricultural botany (1898), and mineralogy (1903).12 The space for the natu­ral sciences thereby deepened at Toulouse, and the university curriculum swept into, and constituted, a greatly elaborated and differentiated natu­ral cosmos. Fi­nally, in the late nineteenth ­century and increasingly over the twentieth c­ entury, the university’s academic reach extended to include even mundane ­matters far removed from proximity to God. Th ­ ese included on the one hand the study of human-­made artifacts and on the other hand the study of ­human society.13 Faculties of engineering and social sciences fi­nally appeared at Toulouse. In the pre­sent day, teaching and research at Toulouse encompasses a huge—­ seemingly limitless—­range of cultural materials. The original university has

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spawned three sequels (specializing, respectively, in law, economics, and management; arts, lit­er­a­ture, humanities, and languages; and science, technologies, and health), as well as more than a dozen other specialized institutions (variously focused on aeronautics and space, agronomy, applied sciences, architecture, business and commerce, civil aviation, engineering, meteorology, po­liti­ cal studies, and veterinary studies). One finds now a dizzying array of course offerings. Into the current period, then, curricular expansion proceeds apace. From its narrow theological base, the expansion of teaching and research contents at the University of Toulouse has a very strong arc. Given its medieval initiation, it takes place over a very long period of time. But t­ here is nothing exceptional about the pattern of expansion. On the contrary, it occurs—­often dramatically—in virtually ­every university in the world. To illustrate, we trace professorships established through 1920 at three universities, the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom, starting in 1500 (founded 1209); the University of Dublin, Ireland, starting in 1600 (founded 1592); and Harvard University, United States, starting in 1700 (founded 1636). ­These three universities do not constitute a representative sample of the general population, but each is a leading institution in its own country and recognized around the world. ­Here, they are particularly useful not only ­because they are old and thus reveal long-­term changes, but also b ­ ecause they have available data. Figure 4.1 summarizes the growth: the x-­axis represents time and the y-­axis represents number of professorships. For each of the three universities over time, it shows the number of professorships established in seven branches of learning (differentiated by pattern and shade): theology, medicine, law, natu­ral sciences, arts and letters, social sciences, and engineering and agriculture.14 All three institutions embody the overarching expansive trend. Between 1500 and 1600, the University of Cambridge incorporated three branches of learning, establishing professorships in theology, medicine, and law. Between 1600 and 1700, Cambridge added in theology and extended into two new branches of learning: founding professorships in natu­ral sciences and in arts and letters. Between 1700 and 1800, Cambridge built further in theology, medicine, natu­ral sciences, and arts and letters. Between 1800 and 1920, Cambridge deepened its stakes across the existing board and laid claim to two new arenas: the social sciences and engineering and agriculture. The university’s academic scope opened considerably over the centuries. Of course, the branches of learning we recognize t­ oday w ­ ere not sharply differentiated early on. Cognitive distances ­were shorter and cultural fences ­were lower. For example, we locate Cambridge’s professorship in physic (first established in 1540; physic is a precursor to con­temporary physiology) in the field of medicine. But in practice, physic sought to understand the workings of the ­human body—­i.e., that which is made in the image of God. It stood closer to theology than appears at first glance.

Engineering & agriculture Social sciences Arts & letters Natural sciences Law Medicine Theology

1500–1600

1600–1700

Cambridge

1700–1800

1800–1920

1600–1700

Dublin

1700–1800

1800–1920

1700–1800

Harvard

Number of Professorships Founded at Cambridge, Dublin, and Harvard Universities by Branch of Learning from Origin to 1920. FIGURE 4.1.

1800–1920

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The University of Dublin’s data begin a c­ entury l­ ater than t­ hose from Cambridge, but one observes striking isomorphism between the two patterns of expansion. Given that Dublin was modeled ­after Oxford and Cambridge, this may be expected, but still it dramatizes the extent to which the university’s contents may be transported without modification. In its first ­century, 1600 to 1700, Dublin established professorships in theology, medicine, and law. In its second c­ entury, 1700 to 1800, the university deepened its holdings in t­ hese areas and added two more, with professorships in natu­ral sciences and arts and letters. In the long nineteenth ­century (1800–1920), Dublin built further on the five existing branches of learning and added another two: social science and engineering and agriculture. The pattern at Dublin follows the pattern at Cambridge almost exactly. The data from Harvard begin a ­century ­later still. Given its ­later birth, Harvard originates with a broader academic base than its peers across the Atlantic. In the eigh­teenth ­century, Harvard created professorships in theology, medicine, natu­ral sciences, and arts and letters. Then, from 1800 to 1920, Harvard deepened its claims in t­ hose four branches of learning and added three more, with professorships in law, social sciences, and engineering and agriculture. Notice the sequence h ­ ere is dif­fer­ent from Cambridge and Dublin. Law came ­later, for reasons summarized in chapter 1. Still, by the end period, Cambridge, Dublin, and Harvard all had coverage of the same seven branches of learning. Together, the data in figure 4.1 suggest sweeping expansion in the university’s academic contents over the last half a millennium. Of course, the expansion of academic knowledge continues to the pre­ sent day. Recent editions of the online publication Inside Higher Ed announce new programs at vari­ous universities in Business Administration, Counseling, Emerging Media, Gerontology, Magnetic Resonance Technology, Nursing, Nutrition, Pharmacology, Public Relations, Branding, Environmental Health, Fine Arts, Health-­Care Management, Health Education, Higher Education Leadership, Pharmacy, Public Administration, and Sexuality and Queer Studies, among many ­others.15 While a few of ­these subjects have long standing in academic knowledge, most entered more recently. Expansion thus is ongoing, and ­great chunks of cultural materials once absent (mundane, stigmatized, blocked) from the university have made their appearance—­from childhood to sex, from comic books to personal diaries. It seems that l­ittle now remains locked out. The Expanding Bases for Academic Knowledge The expansion documented above involves a long-­term pro­cess in motion essentially since the university’s origin. The pro­cess does not change the fundamental qualities of academic knowledge. It is now and always was universalistic

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and rationalistic. What the pro­cess changes is the applicability of the academic framework, which is greatly extended. ­There are two phases of the pro­cess. Th ­ ere is the reconstruction of existing ­matter—­transforming darkened corners of chaos and mystery into enlightened realms of order and comprehension. And t­ here is the social construction of new ­matter—­building previously unimagined realities according to the strict codes of universalism and rationalism.16 Agriculture exemplifies both phases. First, t­ here is the reconstruction of existing m ­ atter. The rise of agriculture as an academic field involves the universalization and rationalization of age-­old practices, converting the accidental fates of hunting and gathering into the calculated returns of raising and planting. Along the way, nests become coops and fields become pastures. Second, ­there is the social construction of new ­matter. The establishment of agriculture involves the social construction and institutionalization of huge new dimensions of real­ity, hardly contemplated in an ­earlier world. ­There are genes and ge­ne­tics, for example, and nutrients and nutrition, and they operate according to rules of universalism and rationalism. Together, the reconstructed and newly constructed materials constitute a set of activities devoted to conjuring livestock from animals and crops from plants, all susceptible to academic study. The pro­cess repeats itself over and over again. L ­ ittle beachheads of real­ ity fall sway to rationalization and universalization, and huge new landfills of comprehension and logic arise around them. Topic ­after topic thus arises in a form that is susceptible to academic inquiry, initially spawning institutes and academies at the margins of the university proper and then eventually penetrating the university’s membranes. Academic studies of agriculture followed just this path. They appeared first at the university’s margins, in agricultural academies and colleges, such as the Royal Agricultural College, established in Cirencester, E ­ ngland, in 1845, and the Acad­emy of Agriculture and Forestry, established in Hohenheim, Germany, in 1847.17 Very shortly thereafter, however—by the time of the Morrill Act in 1862—­they seemed suitable for location squarely within the walls of the university, as in the U.S. land-­grant universities. Academic contents expanded accordingly. THE LOGIC OF EXPANSION AND THE ACADEMIC HIERARCHY

The expansion of academic contents follows a clear logic and establishes a clear academic hierarchy. The original source of universalism and rationalism in the system—­that which provides the transcendence and orderliness—is God. The more a ­matter is infused with God, the more readily it may be opened with the universalizing and rationalizing tools of academic study. Thus, in the original Eu­ro­pean university, theology appeared earliest and ranked highest among the faculties.18 Its direct object is pure: the very nature of God.

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Every­thing ­else, in varying degrees, is bedev­iled. Law came second, given its roots in canon law and its attention to overarching rules and regulations. Medicine was third, given its focus on God’s ultimate creation, humankind. And fi­nally, philosophy appeared and ranked last. It studies the mere thoughts of ­humans, however divinely inspired. Among the world’s oldest universities, including Toulouse and Cambridge, this is the developmental sequence and ranked hierarchy one observes: academic knowledge proceeds from theology to law to medicine to philosophy.19 Within each of the original faculties, one observes similar patterns of sequence and hierarchy. The broader and more fundamental fields—­those that constitute the bases on which the ­others are constructed—­come before the more specific and auxiliary fields. In medicine, for example, ­whole bodies precede partial bodies (e.g., anatomy before ophthalmology), well bodies precede sick bodies (physiology before pathology), general bodies precede specific bodies (internal medicine before pediatrics), and understanding precedes treatment (chemistry before surgery). In philosophy, similarly, language precedes culture (Latin before classics), the ancient precedes the modern (Greek before French), and Western precedes Eastern (Plato before Confucius). The fields within the faculties of theology and law show similar arrangements based on similar logics: preference goes to that which is conceived to be elemental and primary (and closest to God). Through the early 1900s, virtually all of the world’s universities used some version of the academic hierarchy, notwithstanding national idiosyncrasies (e.g., the universities in post-­Napoleonic France elevated their faculties of philosophy to the first rank). For instance, Stanford University’s Announcement of Courses for 1906–07 listed the departments of language and lit­er­a­ture in the following order: Greek, Latin, Germanic Languages, Romance Languages, En­glish Lit­er­a­ture and Rhe­toric, En­glish Philology, and Biblical History and Lit­er­a­ture. The ordering follows the basic rules—­language before culture, ancient before modern, Western before Eastern (although at Stanford in 1906, ­there was no Eastern). Perhaps the only curiosity is that the department of Biblical History and Lit­er­a­ture came last, which would not have been true at a typical Eu­ro­pean institution at the same time. The U.S. aligned with France in privileging secular over religious culture. Over the twentieth ­century, the old academic hierarchy largely collapsed (though cross-­discipline salary differentials remained and likely grew over the same time period). Ongoing extensions of the universalistic and rationalistic framework brought widespread, nearly encompassing, sacralization, such that God, or the essence of God, was increasingly dispersed throughout so-­called real­ity. Local phenomena (e.g., the Elbow River in Alberta, Canada) appeared as instances of general phenomena (rivers), linked to other general phenomena in skeins of causal relationship (the relationship between rivers and plagues,

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between rivers and h ­ uman settlements, between rivers and climate change, ­etc.). The singular being of God lost its anchor weight in the cultural system as the system itself grew suffused with godlikeness. One indicator of the decline of the traditional academic hierarchy appears in the listings of the major academic divisions in university cata­logs, directories, and recently websites. For example, the listing for Basel University, Switzerland, in the 1895 Minerva Jahrbuch pre­sents four faculties in the customary hierarchical order: theology, law, medicine, and philosophy. The equivalent online listing in 2019 pre­sents seven faculties in alphabetical order: business and economics, humanities and social sciences, law, medicine, psy­chol­ogy, science, and theology.20 Alphabetization signifies a con­temporary encyclopedic system in which all sorts of knowledge are formally equal—­promulgated by putatively equal professors and received by students in equal batches of credit units (five units of Big Bang theory can be equivalent to five units of jazz or schizo­phre­nia). Increasingly over the twentieth and into the twenty-­ first centuries, alphabetization prevailed, as academic m ­ atters gained equal juridical standing.

THE RISE OF INTERDISCIPLINARITY

Along with equal standing, academic ­matters grew increasingly integrated and interconnected as universalism and rationalism permeated and established a common denominator throughout so-­called real­ity. ­These pro­cesses generalize and systematize cultural materials and infuse them with causal interconnections, such that all the parts relate to all the other parts. A par­tic­u­lar tree (e.g., the one in the back yard) becomes a type of tree, with common and scientific names. One is the American beech, Fagus grandifolia. Another is the sweet birch, Betula lenta. Partially, the significance of the tree inheres in its distinguishing features—­the silver-­gray bark of the beech, the wintergreen scent of the birch. Partially, it inheres in its ecological relationships—to other plants, animals, insects, ­water, soil, and air. As ­these kinds of understandings penetrated and constituted more and more domains of natu­ral and social real­ity, the rigid bound­aries around dif­f er­ ent academic fields diminished, engendering the rise of multi-­and interdisciplinary studies in funding opportunities, research outlets, and major academic divisions, ­etc., such as the Tsing­hua School of Economics and Management. The ascent of multi-­and interdisciplinary units over time reflects the diffusion of universalism and the profusion of causal interconnections.21 One newspaper put it thus: Gastroenterologists are working with aerospace engineers, geophysicists with pediatricians, radiologists with phi­los­o­phers. The buzzword in higher

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education is “interdisciplinary,” and at many research universities, professors are no longer judged primarily on how expert and rarefied their knowledge is in a par­tic­u­lar area. Rather, ­they’re expected to bridge fields to remain relevant in a world with increasingly complex prob­lems—­from global warming to the spread of infectious disease—­that demand interdisciplinary solutions.22 Many structures embody the multi-­and interdisciplinarity trend. Over the last fifty years at the University of Birmingham, United Kingdom, to illustrate, five faculties evolved into five colleges. At the early time point in 1969, only one of the five faculties was multi/interdisciplinary (the Faculty of Commerce and Social Science). At the latter time point in 2019, four of the five colleges ­were multi/interdisciplinary (the College of Arts & Law, the College of Engineering & Physical Sciences, the College of Life & Environmental Sciences, and the College of Medical & Dental Sciences). While not e­ very university evolved so much, the trend ­here is quite general.

The Rise of the Hyper-­Curriculum The university becomes central to a global knowledge culture that is highly universalized and rationalized, and that penetrates ­every aspect of social life and its natu­ral environment. As we discuss above, we now live in a world in which every­thing can be theorized and every­thing can be incorporated into the curriculum, usually through multiple portals. Birds, for example, may come in through ornithology, as in analyses of the speciation in the Orchard Oriole group; ecol­ogy, as in studies of pollinators in New Zealand forests; literary analy­sis, as in expositions of the Luan-­Bird in early Chinese lit­er­a­ture; cognitive psy­chol­ogy, as in investigations of auditory perception and song production among chickadees; or law, as in examinations of international treaties concerned with global bird protection. Even offensive m ­ atters, appropriately distanced, can be handled academically: it is generally inappropriate to teach racism, but racist materials and ideas can be properly managed in courses and proj­ects about racism. And pornographic materials—­excluded from public libraries—­can find a place in many instructional and research ventures: in law, medicine, psy­chol­ogy, sociology, history, and now the postmodern humanities. Beyond the expansive penetration of university culture into nature and society, the con­temporary knowledge system so central in modern culture can feed on itself. Many direct objects of study derived from the curriculum are on the knowledge system itself and its constructions. So common foci now might be on artificial intelligence and information technology, or methodological procedures for aids in thought and information, or the management of “big data.” Knowledge comes more and more to be self-­referential,

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transcending knowledge about empirical real­ity. A professor can profess, and a student study, m ­ atters more universal and abstract than anything concrete in the universe: they can analyze their analyses, studying m ­ atters like Strategy, or Design, or Innovation. Many such themes have a historical character, focusing on how we thought in the past. ­Others involve analyses of current intellectual cultures and methodologies, or the management of the knowledge system itself. Still o ­ thers are proj­ects in the ­future: examinations of knowledge not yet known, and how to generate it through innovation (and entrepreneurship, intellectual or other­wise). The curriculum of the university has always involved massive amounts of knowledge of ­things that do not exist in the real worlds of experience—­ great rationalized theological and ­legal pyramids, for example. But ­there are also medical ­matters, and philosophical ones: g­ reat questions about how we know what we know, and w ­ hether we actually know it. This hyper-­curriculum expands as the university becomes central to con­temporary culture. The old zoologist who knew about a species of birds may be replaced by one familiar with how to think about birds rather than birds themselves. And the con­ temporary social scientist may have quite l­ imited substantive knowledge about any ­actual local or national society, but may command the widest range of theoretical ideas about society. Even the humanists transcend their conservatism on such m ­ atters by focusing teaching and research on the pro­cess of experiencing or creating art rather than art itself. Thus, the university penetrates ­every aspect of real­ity, including all sorts of meta-­realities constituted by the university itself. Students still study, but now they may study how to study. None of this implies an increasing disconnection between university and society. In fact, quite the opposite occurs as the university loses its theological transcendence (and society gains it, with universalization and rationalization). More activities in society are recorded and studied in the academic knowledge system. And more legitimated university knowledge appears in ­every crevice of modern society. ­These developments—­the sacralization of society and the secularization of the university—­involve new forms that look religious. Scientized and rationalized university knowledge has very special status in society, and thus becomes the focus of ritual cele­bration. Participating in this cele­bration—­analyzing and improving how we think and know—­becomes a main activity in the con­temporary university. Concluding Note Academic knowledge has expanded dramatically over the long term and especially since the Second World War. For the liberal nation-­state, it provides a legitimating cultural base for social control. With globalization, often

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neoliberal in character, it provides a control and coordination system, absent a directly authoritative world state. Alternative knowledge systems have always existed, and in some ways are reinforced by the dominant universalistic rationalization. If the ­great liberal/ neoliberal ethos of the recent period weakens, one can imagine a rise in religious cosmologies or ­those rooted in national and ethnic cultures. ­These have always been in partial opposition to more academic forms of understanding, perhaps with special impingements on the social sciences, and they could well limit the expansion and penetration of university knowledge. Even without that sort of direct opposition, though, it is impor­tant to see ways in which the enhanced actorhood of individuals, organ­izations, and national states that is fundamental to the rationalized knowledge system of liberal society provides bases for alternative forms of knowledge. Cleaned out of the formal curriculum, fantasies of all sorts prosper in the mass media, in alternative artistic and literary formulations, and in a range of spiritual and religious movements. The same empowerment that enables and legitimates mass participation in university knowledge also tends to legitimate subjective assertions of alternatives—­rooted in individual identities and experiences, but also in collective ones such as religious and po­liti­cal movements. Faith in the empowerment of ­human individuals and their organ­izations is critical to the expansion of rationalized and putatively objective university knowledge, but also to the expansion of alternatives, including science fiction alongside science and subjective and artistic self-­expression alongside studies of the ­human brain and mind.

5 The H ­ uman Actor and the Expansion of Academic Knowledge

The preceding chapters depicted university expansion as encompassing, transforming ­every aspect of the institution and anchoring the rise of a global knowledge society. We have examined the proliferation and worldwide diffusion of universities, surging enrollments and the ascent of professionals, and the long-­term curricular growth that follows from rationalization and universalization. This chapter delves further into curricular growth, focusing on the new ­human materials made available by globalization and liberalization, developed during the liberal period (and neoliberal binge) of the last half-­ century. Globalization diminishes both real and ­imagined bound­aries around ­humans, society, and nature, and opens new cultural terrains to academic scrutiny. Liberalization reconstitutes society and culture around the h ­ uman individual and launches a greatly empowered agent of cultural inquiry and social change. Changes in the university ensue—in expanded scale, but also in new contents. Th ­ ese changes occur in an ideological context that renders them as normal and seemingly inevitable. They tend to be taken for granted, though the zeitgeist may be shifting. With very recent and ongoing worldwide reactions to globalization and liberalization, the hyper-­modern period may increasingly come to be seen as a very special case. For the time being, however, as we note in chapter 4, most commentators remain quiet on the focal issues ­here, normalizing the expansion of academic knowledge on both cognitive and normative grounds. Hot-­button controversies spur flurries of attention,1 but the overall trends are taken to be routine 90

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responses to social growth and economic complexity. While a few scholars have analyzed the sweeping global infusion of h ­ uman subject and object m ­ atter into the knowledge system as reflecting a very distinctive period,2 many analyses have sidestepped the issues. In our view, globalization and liberalization play key roles in the recent expansion of academic knowledge. First, they do so by undermining the institutional barriers—­those associated above all with the nation-­state and the ­family—­that long ­limited the exposure of ­human society and the persons within it to the universalizing and rationalizing impulses of the university. Second, they do so by promoting the build-up of individualized ­human actors, equipping them with godlike capacities to comprehend and master their environments.3 We develop t­ hese ideas below and contemplate three main implications. The chapter proceeds thus: • We begin by discussing globalization and liberalization and the changes they foster in the wider institutional context. • Next we consider a first main implication of ­these contextual changes for the worldwide expansion of academic knowledge: the emergence to centrality of the social and the socio-­sciences, rationalizing society on universalistic bases. • Then we consider a second main implication: the rise of empowered ­human actors within the university organ­ization and curriculum. • Fi­nally, we consider a third main implication: the rise of empowered ­human actors throughout the wider world in the liberal imagination. For empirical illustration, we draw on a range of data, including comparative accounts from universities across several countries in several fields. We emphasize two fields in par­tic­u­lar: history, where we anticipated stark manifestations of the sweeping infusion of h ­ uman subject and object ­matters into the academic knowledge system, and mechanical engineering, where we expected—in part incorrectly—­the changes to be more oblique. Globalization and Liberalization Globalization and liberalization on a world scale intensified during the late twentieth and early twenty-­first centuries and transformed the university’s global-­institutional context in ways that facilitated the expansion of academic knowledge. Globalization refers to the ascent of unified and integrated models of nature and ­human society, over and above ­those rooted in the nation, and the development of associated orga­nizational structures such as world-­level economic, po­liti­cal, and cultural systems and bodies. Liberalization refers to the rise of individuated ­human actors—­disembedded from families and other corporate structures and empowered with legitimate agency—­and the

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reconstitution of ­human society around such entities. While both pro­cesses, especially in the West, have long histories over the w ­ hole course of modernity, they both shifted into high and global centrality over the recent de­cades of hyper-­modernity, ­after a series of mid-­century catastrophes dramatized the failures of national and nationalist institutions, including the misery of the G ­ reat Depression, the destructions of World War II, and the calamity of atomic war. ­These disasters exposed nationalism’s extravagant potentials for evil and incompetence and catalyzed shifts in cultural assumptions and institutional ­orders. First, they undermined the charisma of the nation and state, destabilizing the premise that they manifest the laws of nature or the ­will of God. The declining charisma of the nation-­state, even amidst continued enlargement of the mundane orga­nizational structure of the state, diminished a main barrier to the universalizing and rationalizing apparatuses of the academic knowledge system. It reduced the i­magined permanence of differences among p ­ eoples, which had formerly rendered as reckless the claim that dif­f er­ent national socie­ ties, and dif­f er­ent p ­ eople from dif­f er­ent national socie­ties, could be abstracted and theorized in common analytic frames.4 ­Under the new rules, by contrast, the recognition of commonalities across national bound­aries is not only plausible but also imperative: to fail to do so risks perpetrating xenophobia, racism, and cultural imperialism. ­Here are the kernels of an ­imagined world society.5 Second, the same forces that undermined the charisma of the nation-­state at mid-­century si­mul­ta­neously elevated the charisma of the individual actor, advancing models of a freestanding h ­ uman person empowered with ultimate sovereignty and authority over the self and the natu­ral and social environs.6 Freed from corporate embeddings—­especially in the national and familial identities seen to foment conflict and in­equality—­each individual actor became existentially similar to e­ very other individual actor and grew susceptible to generalizing treatments. Imbued with agency and ­free ­will—­i.e., the godlike capacity to initiate action—­each individual actor acquired the attributed aptitude to intervene in and manage wide domains. H ­ ere are the kernels of an ­imagined liberal world society. The individual actor at issue h ­ ere is a very par­tic­u­lar socio-­historical configuration of a ­human being—­not just a regular person shambling haphazardly through life, but an articulated and self-­directed entity, capable of pursuing strategic purposes in nature and society.7 In the ­grand pa­noramas of comparison and history, individual actorhood is anachronistic: it appears but rarely, attached to narrow fragments of the population and associated with isolated bands of ­human endeavor. The my­thol­ogy of all-­inclusive and all-­purpose individual actorhood only gains global credibility in the postwar period. While its everyday realization is decoupled from ordinary realities—­remaining very uneven and commonly implausible—­the under­lying assumptions are

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increasingly woven into the cultural and orga­nizational fabric of world society, as evinced in the expansive global ­human rights regime.8 Obviously, ­future changes in world society could lower the legitimacy of the extraordinary conceits involved. Post-­World War II globalization and liberalization reinforced each other. On the one hand, if a global interstate system came to seem too destabilized by destructive nationalisms (linked to atomic power), a global state was completely implausible. So the world’s cultural imagination shifted to imageries of empowered individuals in a universalized and rationalized frame. On the other hand, each elaboration of ­human individual rights and empowerment called for some sort of regulatory global frame. In the absence of a supra-­national state, knowledge claims rooted in the university link freedom with what may be called governmentality. ­These shifts in the global-­institutional context have several main implications for the university’s recent curricular expansion. We consider three of ­these in sequence. Constituting and Encompassing New Terrain: The Social and the Socio Sciences As they recast society along lines of universalism and rationalism, globalization and liberalization opened major new cultural terrains to academic analyses. The emergent models of society are abstract and logical, such that they legitimate teaching and research on far-­distant places, including places one has never experienced. Analyses may even extend to imaginary socie­ties with hy­po­thet­i­cal demographic structures, for example, and conjectural development patterns.9 In the medieval world, ­these would have been located in transcendental space: in the modern one, they are envisioned in secular formats, even if imaginary and theoretical. Thus, the university lays expanded claims to the social sciences and the socio-­sciences.10 The former include sociology, po­liti­cal science, economics, anthropology, geography, and often psy­chol­ogy. The latter include ­those professionalized disciplines outside the ken of the social sciences proper but no less focused on universalistic and rationalistic understandings of the ­human experience, including mundane ­human institutions (education and business) and endeavors (engineering and agriculture). ­These fields experienced striking upsurge throughout the last half of the twentieth ­century and into the twenty-­ first, far outpacing growth in other areas of the curriculum. Empirically, the social sciences expand, and the socio-­sciences expand even more dramatically. To illustrate, in ­table 5.1 we display the counts of major academic divisions (typically faculties, schools, or colleges, as in the Faculty of Commerce at the University of Mumbai or the College of Engineering at Boston University)

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Total Numbers of Major Academic Divisions in Four Areas in a Constant-­Case Sample of 42 Institutions of Higher Education in 1895, 1940, and 2010*

­TABLE 5.1.

Social Sciences Socio-­Sciences 1 (Education and Business) Socio-­Sciences 2 (Engineering) All other

1895

1940

2010

1

4

38

0

21

52

25

35

62

127

194

269

* Hybrid faculties count by first ele­ment—­e.g., a Faculty of Law and Economics counts as Law. This coding rule may lead to a conservative estimate of new social and socio-­science divisions, since new divisions are more likely to be added as the second ele­ment.

across four academic areas at three junctures. The four areas are social sciences, socio-­sciences 1 (education and business), socio-­sciences 2 (engineering), and all other academic divisions. The three time points are 1895, 1940, and 2010—at the end of the nineteenth ­century, at the outset of World War II, and at the start of the twenty-­first ­century. The data represent the forty-­two institutions of higher education from the sample of fifty introduced in chapter 2 that existed continuously between 1895 and 2010 and have complete data in 1895, 1940, and 2010. (The remaining eight institutions from the original sample of fifty ­either closed, in one case, or merged with other institutions, in seven cases, during the period of the study.) A first implication of t­ able 5.1 is that growth in the social and socio-­sciences strongly outpaced growth elsewhere in the university, especially over the latter period. Between 1895 and 2010, the number of social science divisions in our sample ­rose from 1 to 38, an arresting 3,700 ­percent increase, most of which occurred ­after 1940. The number of socio-­science divisions, meanwhile, ­rose from 25 to 114, a 356 ­percent increase. The number of all other academic divisions in the university increased from 127 in 1895 to 269 in 2010, a relatively modest 112 ­percent increase. Globalization and liberalization legitimated and galvanized the study of everyday h ­ uman society and everyday h ­ uman endeavors, and it is in ­these areas of academic inquiry where we observe the most vigorous recent curricular growth. A second implication from t­ able 5.1 is that even among the social and socio-­ sciences, growth was uneven over the period. In this group, the takeoff was earliest and the escalation was slowest in engineering, which already had a notable presence in higher education in 1895 (sometimes in universities proper, as in the College of Civil Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, and sometimes in polytechnics, such as the Department of Civil Engineering at the Technische Hochschule of Berlin). By contrast, the numbers of divisions of education and business and divisions of social sciences ­were much lower

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in 1895—­literally zero in the case of the former and one division in the case of the latter (a School of Po­liti­cal Science at the University of Bologna). For business and education, the takeoff happened between 1895 and 1940, with the number of divisions rising from zero to twenty-­one, and growth remained rapid through the l­ater period, with the number rising from twenty-­one to fifty-­two. For the social sciences, growth was very l­ imited in the e­ arlier period, rising from one to four divisions in our sample, and the real launch occurred between 1940 and 2010, with the number of divisions rising from four to thirty-­ eight. Th ­ ere is perhaps a logic to the sequencing h ­ ere. The area that is least focused on ­human be­hav­ior—­engineering—­experienced the earliest burst; it is least contingent on the cultural conditions ushered in by globalization and liberalization. The area that is most focused on h ­ uman be­hav­ior—­the social sciences—­took the longest to set sail; it is most culturally contingent. An impor­tant caveat to our observations on ­table 5.1 is that not ­every area of h ­ uman inquiry benefitted from globalization and liberalization. In par­tic­u­lar, ­those studies most strongly associated with the charismatic nation lost institutional support with the transition to a liberal world society.11 We are thinking especially of studies of national lit­er­a­ture, national language, national history, and so on. Elsewhere, for example, we have shown that the proportion of the history curriculum focused on nation-­state entities declined over the twentieth ­century, with the sharpest contractions concentrated among the charismatic dominant and colonial powers. At the same time, the proportion of history cast in world and global terms ­rose sharply.12 Even law, which remains to this day centrally focused on nation-­states, waned over this period in the university. Among the sample of institutions presented in ­table 5.1, the total number of major academic divisions in law (embedded in the ­table in the “All other” category) r­ ose from twenty-­three to thirty-­three between 1895 and 1940, but then declined from its mid-­century high back down to twenty-­six by 2010. With globalization and liberalization, the anchor weight of the charismatic nation-­ state clearly diminished. Altogether, the data ­here show the social construction and annexation of new cultural terrain by the university. Globalization and liberalization enable the rise and institutionalization—­partially within the womb of the university—of universalized and rationalized analyses of society, spawning new academic divisions focused squarely on everyday h ­ uman activity and social organ­ization. Even as the data ­here suggest the nature and direction of curricular expansion, they also suggest that curricular expansion does not consist of ­simple orga­nizational differentiation, driven by straightforward increases in size.13 The expansion ­here is more substantive than an orga­nizational differentiation imagery implies—­around ­human society, ­human individuals, and ­human endeavors—­and is informed and channeled by wider contextual changes.

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Proportion of Pure and Applied Major Academic Divisions in a Constant-­Case Sample of 42 Institutions of Higher Education in 1895, 1940, and 2010 ­TABLE 5.2.

Proportion of traditional “pure” academic divisions

1895

1940

2010

.78

.73

.68

Proportion of new “applied” academic divisions

.22

.27

.32

Total number of divisions

153

254

421

A dif­fer­ent cut on the same data underscores the key implications. In t­ able 5.2, we separate the traditional “pure” divisions of the university from the new “applied” divisions and show the proportion of each at three points in time for the sample of forty-­two institutions of higher education described above. The pure divisions encompass the faculties of the medieval Eu­ro­pean university: theology, law, medicine, and philosophy (where philosophy is an umbrella term for the liberal arts it eventually came to encompass14). The applied divisions include agriculture, engineering, business, education, area studies, and journalism, ­etc. The pure/applied distinction can be misleading to the extent that the medieval curriculum was always vocational, leading directly to c­ areers in the church, the state, medicine, and schooling (as suggested ­earlier in ­table 3.2). But still the labels capture an impor­tant difference, between academic divisions oriented on ­matters originally conceived of in divine terms and academic divisions oriented on m ­ atters originally conceived in ­human terms.15 Increasingly, the latter involve pressing but everyday banalities, such as hunger and pollution.16 The ­table shows a modest but steady decline in traditional “pure” studies as a proportion of all academic divisions and a modest but steady rise in new “applied” studies. The former falls from .78 to .68 as a proportion of total academic divisions, while the latter increases from .22 to .32 between 1895 and 2010. Th ­ ese numbers may be conservatively biased relative to the population at large since our sample disproportionately represents old and stable Eu­ro­ pean institutions. On a worldwide basis, the relative shift from pure to applied studies is almost certainly more pronounced.17 Overall, the data ­here illustrate and lend some support to our general argument. Globalization and liberalization create conditions that enable universalized and rationalized analy­sis of society, which the university si­mul­ ta­neously conducts and annexes as curricular m ­ atter. The pro­cess does not produce heedless curricular differentiation but rather substantive enlargement. The university extends its academic arms around the new domain of ­human society.

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The Agentic ­Human Actor within the University: Changes in Curricular Structure Even as globalization and liberalization facilitate the rise of models of society amenable to university study, they also facilitate the rise within the university organ­ization of empowered ­human actors who carry wide-­ranging permits to propel teaching and research in new directions. Endowed with agentic actorhood, students and professors serve as motors of curricular expansion. Of course, the relationship between the actor and the curriculum is two-­ sided. On one side, curricular expansion enables actorhood, as it disentangles the knots and mysteries of persons and the universe into orderly princi­ples and causal understandings. The pro­cess establishes the feasibility of actorhood and grounds the improbable conceit that h ­ uman endeavors are or can be rational. On the other side—­our focus ­here—­actorhood fuels curricular expansion. Supplied with reason and animated with purpose, empowered actors in the university become engines of growth, breaking through old bound­aries to claim and conjure new materials and to repurpose existing materials to myriad tastes and interests.18 All the activity—­the rich profusion of empowered actorhood—­broadens the curricular terrain. Data pertaining to ­these issues can be found in practically any university over time. First, student actors are increasingly empowered (and compelled) to choose among majors. Even small colleges are now likely to offer dozens, and large universities typically offer more than 100 majors. The growth over a half or full ­century is quite spectacular (e.g., in 1890, the University of Illinois offered 10 majors; it offered more than 150 in 2017). Many institutions even invite students to cut a unique piece from the pie of knowledge by designing their own majors, in heroic displays of actorhood.19 The pattern, though extreme in the U.S., appears everywhere around the world. Second, student actors are increasingly empowered (and compelled) to choose among courses. On one hand, this means the decline and collapse of extensive requirements, involved course sequences, and elaborate prerequisites over time. On the other hand, it means that electives and course options proliferate.20 For example, in the 1910 program in mechanical engineering at the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom, ­there is but one single unitary program that leads to the mechanical engineering degree. The first-­year courses, all mandatory and compulsory, are engineering, mathe­matics, physics, and chemistry; the second-­year courses, all mandatory and compulsory, are engineering, mathe­matics, physics, and geology; and so on. The program is easily summarized in just a few pages. By the current period, a c­ entury ­later, the range of electives and options is magnificent, with an almost endless number of dif­f er­ent pathways to the degree, the description of which requires hundreds of hyperlinked pages, including 125 for course descriptions alone.

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The course boom and the installation of choice over time are striking, and appear in field ­after field and in university ­after university around the world. Expanding university size is obviously involved. But expansion could have taken a dif­fer­ent path, simply replicating a basic pattern, as more or less happens in elementary and secondary schools, and in fast-­food establishments. In practically all fields of the university, explosions of choice in curricula and courses—­not the ­simple replication of standard routines—­are dominant. Third, student actors are increasingly empowered (and compelled) to choose topics, assignments, and means of evaluation within courses. While we lack a longitudinal sample of syllabi that would allow us to demonstrate this conclusively, it seems obvious that such data would show a worldwide drift away from old patterns of standardized and preset instruction and ­toward individualized and tailored contents. At the extreme end of the con­temporary spectrum are so-­called in­de­pen­dent study or in­de­pen­dent research courses, in which every­thing is negotiable. For example, at the University of Costa Rica, in­de­pen­dent study “es el sistema de estudio que deposita en el alumno la mayor responsabilidad de su aprendizaje, de acuerdo con sus posibilidades, características, vivencias y necesidades. Se trata de estimularlo para que utilice al máximo sus propios recursos.”21 Increasingly, even within the par­ameters of a course, student actorhood reigns supreme.22 Of course, ­there are analogous changes at the faculty level. Increasingly, professors—­also now conceived as actors—­are empowered (and compelled) to choose among endlessly varied research topics. The expanding range of legitimate inquiry may be observed in formal orga­nizational terms. For example, when it was founded in 1905, the American So­cio­log­i­cal Association was symbolically unified; ­there ­were no sections or subdivisions. In 1922, the association recognized two sections: Rural Sociology and Social Research. By 2019, ­there ­were fifty-­two sections, in subfields ranging from Animals and Society to Disability and Society to the Po­liti­cal Economy of the World System.23 The options multiply over time, not only in sociology but also in almost ­every field. Analogous data on the number and range of journals or professorships would surely show similar changes. The expanding playing field of professor actors may also be observed among research topics, the limits to which appear non­ex­is­tent. Alien abduction? See “Abducted by Aliens” in the journal Psychiatry. Burping babies? Try “A Randomized Controlled Trial of Burping” in the journal Child: Care, Health and Development. Primate homo­sexuality? Consider “Homosexual Be­hav­ior in Primates” in the International Journal of Primatology. One is hard-­pressed to identify a topic untouched by academe. Professorial actors sail through an open galaxy of research possibilities. The critical issue in the pre­sent context is not so much that choice proliferates, though that obviously occurs, but rather that empowered university actors

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exercise choice so as to propel curricular expansion. Infused with authority, students and professors improvise novel questions. Sanctioned with capacity, students and professors forge original understandings. Animated with purpose, students and professors constitute and claim virgin cultural territories. The institutional warrants of actorhood are very broad, and legitimate and authorize the widest range of scholarly adventure and discovery. The contrasts with a more constrained past—­and the possibility of a more constrained ­future—­are striking. One outcome of ­these pro­cesses is the mixing and compounding of disciplines, as empowered university actors pursue their own tastes and interests over academic fences and walls.24 For example, in the U.S. in 1900, the study of history was mostly confined to departments of history. It was narrow and substantive, focused on the rise of h ­ uman civilization. In the pre­sent day, t­ here is history throughout the university. It is encompassing and abstract, so much so that it seems as if virtually anything can be seen through a historical lens. To illustrate, we list below some courses with the word “history” in the title and their corresponding department from Stanford University, 2017–2018: 1. Social History of Vaccines (Anthropology). 2. History and Science of Our Ge­ne­tic Code (Biology). 3. Cultural History in Twenty Five Buildings (Civil and Environmental Engineering). 4. History of Polar Exploration (Earth Systems Science). 5. Street History (Education). 6. Transhistory (Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies). 7. History of Financial Crisis (Finance). 8. History of Medicine (Medicine). Of course, U.S. cases and Stanford in par­tic­u­lar may pre­sent extreme versions of the general phenomenon. For the sake of comparison, we show some corresponding courses from the 2017 Catálogo de Cursos from the Universidad de las Américas Puebla in Mexico.25 ­There again, we find “history” sprinkled widely throughout the curriculum, though certainly not as widely as at Stanford. For example: 1. Historia de la Animación y el Videojuego (Digital Animation). 2. Historia y Evolución de los Museos (Plastic Arts). 3. Historia y Filosofia de la Enfermería (Nursing). 4. Historia del Pensamiento Económico (Economics). Clearly, in the con­temporary period, university actors are empowered to be knowledge alchemists, mixing disciplinary ele­ments to create ­matters new. A very dif­fer­ent field provides a second example of the same pro­cess. In 1900, the study of mechanical engineering was mostly confined to the field of

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mechanical engineering. It was concrete, focused on the structures and functions of machines and engines. In the pre­sent day, a mechanical-­engineering frame is applied in many fields. It highlights the structural-­functional aspects of every­ thing, even bridging the man-­machine divide with bioengineering. For example, courses cover the structure-­function dimensions of master-­slave systems, animal movement, creative teams, a sustainable world, and distribution systems. To illustrate, we list below some courses with the word “mechanic” in the title and their corresponding departments in Stanford University, 2017–2018: 1. Ecological Mechanics (Biology). 2. Fluid Mechanics (Chemical Engineering). 3. Crustal Mechanics (Geophysics). 4. Celestial Mechanics (Mathe­matics). 5. Mechanics of the Cell (Mechanical Engineering). 6. Mechanics ­after Newton (Philosophy). 7. Continuum Mechanics (Physics). 8. Mechanics of the Theater (Theater and Per­for­mance Studies). Again, the Stanford case is prob­ably extreme, so again we pre­sent a comparable snapshot from the Universidad de las Américas Puebla in Mexico. As above, we find widespread application of the framework, though clearly less widespread than at Stanford. For example: 1. Mecánica de Materiales (Architecture). 2. Mecánica (Nanotechnology and Engineering). 3. Biomecánica (Biomedical Engineering). 4. Mecánica de Sólidos (Mechatronics Engineering). Empowered actors broaden and deepen and swirl together cultural and curricular materials. Increasingly in the hyper-­modern period, the university covers every­thing that exists, and constructs new domains of existence. The overarching idea ­here is that globalization and liberalization increasingly endow ­humans with actorhood. So students and professors within university organ­izations gain the legitimacy, authority, and capacity to create new curricular materials and to expand the base of academic knowledge. They do so to extravagant effect, and in ­doing so can construct new bases of authority in society. The ­Human Actor beyond the University: Changes in Curricular Contents Globalization and liberalization promote curricular expansion by unleashing empowered actors not only within the university organ­ization but also into the world at large. They disperse universalism and rationalism like pollens into everyday life. The infusion of actorhood lifts even the most banal

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­ atters—­yawning, mulching, swaddling, etc.—­into academic eligibility. Conm sider the following. First, ­there is making money. When it was easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven, moneymaking implied scheming and half-­truths, and thus was unqualified for academic consideration. But the rise of ­human actors in the global-­liberal era imbued the sphere with universalism and rationalism, legitimating it for analy­sis, in economics departments and business schools and more broadly throughout the university.26 In 1900, at the University of Birmingham, UK, for instance, zero ­percent of mechanical engineering courses mentioned the words “strategy,” “negotiation,” “entrepreneurship,” “imagination,” and/or “creativity.” In 2010 at the same university, twelve ­percent of courses did so. The learning outcomes for one such course offer a sense of mechanical engineering’s new coverage, far from the zone of machines and engines and deep in the zone of moneymaking: Financial Decision-­Making in the Business Environment • Prepare profit and loss accounts and balance sheets. • Analyze published financial statements through ratio analy­sis. • Conduct cost volume profit analy­sis. • Plan for ­limited resources and understand the behavioral aspects of bud­getary control. • Understand the dynamics of supply and demand and the nature of a market economy. • Appreciate the conflicts and paradoxes that exist in market-­economy decision-­making. • Conduct investment appraisal and understand the rate of interest for investment. Empowered ­human actors bring legitimating universalism and rationalism to moneymaking. Curricular expansion ensues around the world. Second, ­there is making history. Originally, history told the story of the nation-­state, with emphases on po­liti­cal leaders and po­liti­cal developments (as in the course on Africa and the Colonial Experience, at Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia). Everyday persons w ­ ere nowhere pre­sent. But h ­ uman actors in the global-­liberal era claimed for themselves impor­tant roles in public life, inspiring the ascent of social history, which encompasses ethnic history, ­labor history, history of the f­ amily, and so on (as in History of Ethiopian ­Women, also at Addis Ababa). Between 1975 and 1995, the percentage of history professors at U.S. universities identifying as po­liti­cal and diplomatic historians fell from forty-­seven to thirty-­five, while the percentage identifying as social and cultural historians ­rose from forty-­five to fifty-­seven.27 Recent data would

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almost certainly show ongoing change. With the rise of empowered ­human actors, regular p ­ eople gain a foothold in history, and the university expands accordingly. The shift is palpable in the history curricula of Stanford University, U.S., and the University of Toulouse, France. Around 1900, well before the global-­ liberal era, the course listings of neither university identified h ­ uman actors as causal agents in the making of history. By around 2010, well into the hyper-­ modern period, a huge cast of causal actors had appeared. In the course listings at Stanford, ­there ­were w ­ omen, New World Indians, witches, Nazi collaborators, martyrs, villains, Knights Templar, and barbarian tribes. In the course listings at Toulouse (the University of Toulouse II—­one of three successors to the old University of Toulouse), meanwhile, ­there ­were les femmes, les sexes, les ouvriers, les étudiants, and les hommes. With the rise of rationalized and universalized ­human actorhood, all kinds of p ­ eople became implicated in the making of history, and the curriculum grew to accommodate them. Third, ­there is making art. Traditionally, artistic transcendence derived from contact with the divine (through revelation, inspiration, and occasionally opium). Only the greatest works of art—­those with the strongest doses of God—­merited curricular inclusion. But in the global-­liberal era, empowered ­human actors spread universalism and rationalism to artmaking, rendering its procedural dimensions as suitable for academic study. Thus, research and teaching on the pro­cesses of playwriting, the techniques of painting, and the mechanics of composition joined research and teaching on the appreciation of ­great plays, the admiration of g­ reat art, and the esteem of g­ reat lit­er­a­ture. The latter did not dis­appear, but the former ­rose, pressing curricular expansion. Fourth, ­there is making knowledge. Conventionally, making knowledge was a rarefied endeavor, restricted to narrow professional classes. But the rise of ­human actors in the global-­liberal era opened the door to general participation, as seen in the dramatic upsurge of research methods courses, detailing the elaborate ground rules for making knowledge according to the standards of universalism and rationalism. For example, in 2018 at the University of Toronto in Canada, the School of Public Health offered more than twenty dif­fer­ent courses with the word “methods” in their titles, including: Qualitative Research Methods Introduction to Mixed Methods Research for Public Health Data Collection Methods for Research and Evaluation Proj­ects Survey Design and Social Research Methods in Public Health Applied Bayesian Methods Advanced Statistical Methods for Clinical ­Trials Epidemiologic Methods Research Methods

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Curricular attention to the research process—to ­human actors making knowledge—­climbed spectacularly over recent de­cades not only in Toronto, but also across universities and departments around the world. Fi­nally, fifth, ­there is making personhood and actorhood, the basic stuff of con­temporary h ­ uman identity. Historically—at the University of Bologna in 1500, at the University of Córdoba in 1700, or at Nanjing University in 1900—­ such ­matters ­were inconceivable in the curriculum. But in the hyper-­modern global-­liberal era, ­human identities acquired universalistic and rationalistic qualities and grew susceptible to analyses (as anticipated by John Dewey and ­others). Thus, in recent years, ­there appeared courses propagating personhood (a sense of oneself ) and actorhood (the ability to make decisions), for example, in the Life Skill Development Course at the University of Calicut, India. Life skills, according to the syllabus, “are capabilities that empower young ­people to take positive action, to protect themselves and have positive social relationships, thereby promoting both their m ­ ental well-­being and personal development as they are facing the realities of life.”28 The course includes sections on Knowing and Living with Oneself (self-­esteem, coping with emotions, coping with stress) and Developing Leadership Skills (communicating effectively, encouraging enthusiasm and belonging, treating o ­ thers as individuals, e­ tc.). As all persons come to be conceived in universalistic and rationalistic terms, the academic gaze broadens to encompass basic h ­ uman identities, and university curricula grow accordingly. Throughout the examples above, we observe new curricular possibilities emerging as the rationality and universality of empowered ­human actors spill into quotidian life. In the global-­liberal era, more and more parts of an expanding real­ity are rearranged around beachheads of actorhood.29 Thus, the wider world is opened to universalism and rationalism, and curricular eligibility is bestowed on m ­ atters formerly regarded as too trivial, too personal, or too profane to merit curricular attention. The pro­cess creates fodder for the university curriculum and contributes greatly to the expansion of academic knowledge. Conclusion Universalization and rationalization are long-­term pro­cesses in Western and now world history. They are clearly involved in the evolution and spread of the university as a very central location. Liberalization and globalization have long-­term histories too, but their explosive expansion characterizes the broadly liberal and neoliberal periods in world society since the Second World War, during which the ­people and organ­izations linked to the high knowledge system expand from ­limited populations of professionals and their students to become the dominant cultural frame of an ­imagined world society. And the content of this knowledge system expands from the domains of a few

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professions into e­ very institutional sector and ­every crevice of experience in society. Po­liti­cal systems everywhere become rationalized organ­izations populated by schooled professionals—­tied together by common analytic frames and often disconnected from their remaining peasantries. Economies are famously or­gan­i­za­tion­ally rationalized, with massive multinational structures staffed by university-­trained p ­ eople: the world economy is now heavi­ly or­ga­nized and schooled.30 ­Family and sexual life comes u ­ nder the scrutiny of the knowledge system, as do religious and recreational models. It is difficult, indeed, to think of domains of h ­ uman life that are not u ­ nder the discipline of an or­ga­nized knowledge system. ­These changes are often viewed with skepticism—­for instance, from the purchase of Foucault.31 The system is seen as dominated by ­great centers of power. It is impor­tant to note, however, that the w ­ hole enterprise is dramatically liberal in character—­organ­izing all of society as constructed and analyzable from the point of view of the empowered h ­ uman individual actor.32 The choices of this heroic construction are understood—­cognitively and normatively—to reflect the perspective and aims of the individual. The demo­ cratic polity, the ­free market economy, the individualistic familial and religious and education systems are all seen as legitimated by individual choices. The expansion of the university around the world generates a huge population of ­people who, it is i­ magined, can make such choices, and can analyze the world as the product of such choices. We can suppose that the g­ reat liberal explosion of the last half c­ entury creates—as all such movements do—an unrealistic world, out of touch with (or decoupled from) much experience in, and power arrangements in, real­ ity. It is easy to envision ­future university developments that constrain the liberalism of the recent periods. Perhaps curricula and foci w ­ ill be more constrained to reflect not the unlimited vision of ­imagined individuals, but the corporate purposes attributed to families, nations, ethnic groups, religious formations, and perhaps even a world order. And perhaps the universities of the ­future, assuming the university retains some dominance, ­will be structured to emphasize knowledge that is neither universalized nor globalized—­though that might involve, as in the past, a more constrained label than “university.” Even if the university retains its rather sacred authority, the canopy involved might not be global.

6 The Expanded University and the Knowledge Society LINK AGES AND BOUND­ARIES

The foregoing chapters discussed the spectacular global expansion of the university. Th ­ ere are more universities (chapter 2) educating more p ­ eople (chapter 3) and constituting more cultural domains (chapters 4 and 5) than ever before. The schooled p ­ eople flow into a wide range of roles in society, often as cosmopolitan or global elites. The cultural materials created or expanded by the university also flow into all sectors of con­temporary society—­reconstituting old domains and creating many new, often professionalized, ones. The university’s massive penetration produces new forms of social organ­ization and new labels for and conceptions of society—­the knowledge society, the knowledge economy, and their kin.1 All of this can be and often is seen as pro­gress. But it also can be seen, and often was seen, as a plot by unproductive elites to dominate social life. The main lines of expansion run from the university to the knowledge society, but consequential forces obviously work in the other direction, as evolving modern and hyper-­modern socie­ties constantly expand the academic arena—­creating more universities, sending more ­people to them, and creating more tasks for the knowledge system to manage. Con­temporary socie­ties are rationalized prob­lem factories, and m ­ atters formerly left to the fates are now packed off to the university: new diseases to cure, newly conceptualized injustices to correct, potential extraterrestrials to contact. Again, all of this can be seen as Pro­gress—­but also criticized as contaminating the knowledge system with crass social interests. 105

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It culminates in a vastly expanded interface between university and society—­ the focus of this chapter. It is conventional to see this interface as a membrane that grows increasingly porous over recent de­cades, but it is better to see it as porous by definition, given common cultural and historical denominators. At the institutional level, the university and knowledge society are two sides of the same coin: the bound­aries are blurred. The main structures of the knowledge society depend on meanings and identities built up in the university. Indeed, the educational status of persons undergirds ­every con­temporary stratification system; and the educational content of roles is the main ele­ment in occupational stratification. Seen the other way, e­ very component of con­temporary society enters into the university as a focus of research and teaching. Economic roles and activities and structures are all populated by university-­based ­people and animated by university-­based knowledge. So also with po­liti­cal and religious systems, and the rules and roles of familial and reproductive life. While the university and society share common institutional bases, their agendas and perspectives are quite distinct. On one side t­ here are the interests thought to make up society. On the other side ­there are the collective truths within which t­ hese interests may play out. As normative and orga­nizational ­matters, they must be kept apart. Elaborate orga­nizational structures arise to manage the bound­aries. Due to institutional interpenetration, t­ hese often become orga­nizational flashpoints. Large lit­er­a­tures arise, filled with anx­i­ eties, about the proper lines of demarcation and their putative violations. On the university side, the main fear is of corruption by the forces of power and money. On the side of the knowledge society, the fear is that the preemptive authority of academic knowledge and personnel takes on a life of its own, in­de­ pen­dent from the ­actual public good and weakened by “demo­cratic deficits.”2 In the premodern world of Eu­rope, neither the institutional merger nor the orga­nizational separation seemed critical. Both the university and society operated on narrow bases, hemmed in and circumscribed by the dominant institutions of church and state. The university-­society interface, such as it was, materialized in four specialized professions—­theology, law, medicine, and academia. The links ­were ­limited and ritualized. The Enlightenment spurred growth on both sides, catalyzing a broad transfer of immanence from divine realms to the ­people and ­things of the world,3 which challenged the infinite incomprehensibility of the universe, and broadened the possibility of rationalized ­human activity. As the Enlightenment wedged a distance between the university and religion and constrained the religious status of academics, so it also built up the connective tissues joining the university and increasingly sacralized society, even to the extent of envisioning the former in direct ser­vice to the latter (an idea ­later embodied in U.S. land-­grant universities). Over the last ­century, and especially in the high modern and hyper-­ modern periods following World War II, universalization and rationalization

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intensified, strafing the w ­ hole world with real and i­ magined causal flows and opening opportunities for analy­sis. This generated both enormous expansions in the university and parallel expansions in what could be conceived of as “society,” which coalesced around broad goals of pro­gress and justice. The university assumed primary roles in the pursuit of both.4 The university-­society interface broadened, and a profusion of orga­nizational stresses and conflicts—­ and boundary-­forming structures—­ensued. From one side, it seemed that the university surged invasively into society, imposing university knowledge and roles onto ­every arena of ordinary life. Individually, degrees became mandatory for most desirable positions, and collectively far beyond the medieval professions, academic knowledge and personnel commanded deference. As one goes about one’s affairs in society ­today—in politics, the workplace, f­ amily life, etc.—­education is relevant and often required by rules and regulations. In many cases, degree-­certified persons carry academic knowledge individually, but in almost ­every case they are licensed to transmit it, and academic advice carries supreme relevance and authority, backed by professional con­sul­tants and often by law. Any organ­ ization can legitimate expenditures on academic consulting; the same outlay on spiritual counsel is now less plausible (as demonstrated by the reaction to the White House astrologer during the Reagan presidency in the U.S.). From the other side, society appeared to surge into the university, and fears of corruption became endemic. With the elevation of more and more dimensions of h ­ uman experience to a state of analyzability, many formerly inscrutable dimensions of social life presented themselves for academic consideration, especially in the social sciences and in the socially oriented biological and physical socio-­sciences. With this broad invasion of the ivory tower came massive infusions of money and power­ful social interests, activating the common fears that pockmark the con­temporary landscape. Formerly chaotic ­matters of work, life, politics, and the workplace became meaningful foci for academic analy­sis and prescription, and rationalized actors from t­ hose domains circled back to the university, with both demands and offerings (sometimes in the form of millions of dollars). The university-­society interface enlarged throughout this period, as did attempts at orga­nizational boundary-­formation and re­sis­tance. Thus, our period of massive university expansion features a huge lit­er­a­ture sounding the alarms over vari­ous boundary issues. ­Here, we consider the ensuing transformations: • First, we review the expanded interfaces between university and society at three levels, corresponding to the preceding chapters: the university, university personnel, and university knowledge. • Second, we consider the orga­nizational issues that arise from the con­ temporary “merger” of university and society. Elaborate ritualized

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bound­aries form, attempting to structure the inconsistencies between a university focused on truth and a society or­ga­nized around interests. The hallmark concern is to protect the nominally pure university from society, but more recently a populist concern arises to protect society from the university. • Third, we return to the core issues of this book, emphasizing the causal role of the university in constructing the knowledge society.

The Expanding Interfaces between University and Society INTERFACES AT THE UNIVERSITY LEVEL

In mainstream thinking, the university arose primarily to fill slots in the extant social role structure. A ­ fter the Enlightenment, the number and character of ­these roles changed (for one ­thing with the rise of the sciences), and university expansion made sense. But still the core imagery was that the university existed to ser­vice a handful of social roles. Indeed, ­until very recently, expansion beyond core social requirements was seen as potentially dangerous and threatening to the social order. It was understood, in an extensive popu­lar and academic lit­er­a­ture, that effective po­liti­cal controls would and should keep the university and its sometime dissident intellectuals in check.5 Under­lying this conventional storyline is a vision of society as a functional system of interdependent roles (perhaps functioning mainly for some elites), growing numbers of which, with modernity and complexity, require training and socialization. The university in this narrative produces personnel for an essentially determined society. Society may expand for exogenous reasons (in most fash­ion­able accounts, economic), spurring growth in the university. But the stimuli for change are thought to be external to society itself, or perhaps its environments, not in the university. The interface between the university and society is thus l­imited and unproblematic: the main aim is to keep the university in its proper place, and to avoid overexpansion. The postwar period saw the rise of ideologies of development, reaching to the former world peripheries, and this core model opened to include the possibility that a planned ­future society might require a good deal more education than the pre­sent one.6 Secondary education, producing skilled and literate workers (seen as ­human capital), received special emphasis.7 But during the last half-­century, the ideological under­pinnings of this longstanding model broke down in liberal and neoliberal theory and real­ity. It came to be understood that expanded education, beyond pre­sent and anticipated needs, could be a direct stimulus for pro­gress, not simply a response to it. The structures and functions of society could themselves be products of improved

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and expanded schooling. In the language of 1960s economics, schooling could produce ­human capital.8 In ­later social scientific thinking, schooling could produce all sorts of “capital”—­human, but also social, cultural, and technological.9 In the expanded model, culminating in the concept of the knowledge society, the ­people and ideas generated by the university contribute directly to social and economic pro­gress. A core term is “innovation,” a formerly dubious phenomenon now seen as the key to pro­gress. In contrast to its pre­de­ces­sors, the con­temporary university prides itself on being a hub of innovation. Early in the twentieth ­century, the term never appeared in the materials of Stanford University, the University of Birmingham, and Tokyo University, for example. Early in the twenty-­first c­ entury, the term has appeared prolifically, e.g., in courses on Creativity and Innovation and Economics of Innovation at Stanford, in an oxymoronic mission statement at Birmingham (“a tradition of innovation”), and in Tokyo’s Innovation Summer Program. The university-­society interface is generative in the new model, building society as much as serving it. One indicator of the revised thinking is the rise over recent de­cades of a massive higher education policy field, at national and international levels. Among intergovernmental organ­izations, for example, UNESCO has dramatically increased its focus on universities,10 and the World Bank and the OECD now actively discuss educational and research policies, with much focus on higher education. Elaborate policy prescriptions have been developed and put forward—­e.g., at the UNESCO World Conference on Higher Education and in the OECD Higher Education Program—as the university has come to be seen as a g­ reat engine of social pro­gress across the spectrum of institutional sectors. The intergovernmental policy profusion reached a culmination in 1999 with the rise of the Eu­ro­pean Bologna Process—­a globally influential and self-­ conscious effort to build the world’s leading knowledge society (or knowledge economy, an almost equivalent term) principally via the standardization of university credits and degrees throughout the region.11 The imagery invoked in the Bologna Pro­cess is often economic. But it is economic in a sense that transcends any ordinary definition, as it includes the development of essentially all the institutions of society, now monetarized. Related and parallel changes have occurred at the level of individual nation-­ states. Many po­liti­cal party platforms now give central attention to educational ­matters,12 and many national ministries pursue initiatives to develop higher education and even to build so-­called world-­class universities. For instance, in 2016, India’s Minister of Finance unveiled plans to boost twenty universities to world-­class status.13 As illustrated in figure 6.1, the term “world-­class university” has exploded in usage over recent de­cades.14 Universities have responded in kind, declaring their own aspirations to attain world-­class status. The cata­logue for the International Exhibition & Conference

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3,500 3,000 2,500 2,000 1,500 1,000 500 0 1900 FIGURE 6.1.

1910

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Frequency of the Term World-­Class University in the Google Corpus, 1900–2000.

on Higher Education contains many examples of the rhe­toric involved, which is sometimes high-­blown and decoupled from realities on the ground.15 • China: “At the end of the 20th ­century, the Chinese government put Peking University at the top of its agenda for promoting higher education, with the aim to build a world-­class university in the 21st ­Century.” • Saudi Arabia: “Al Faisal University’s mission is to be a student-­centered university which creates and disseminates knowledge through world-­ class undergraduate education programs.” • South Africa: “The Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) is a world-­class, socially responsive university that embraces the cutting-­edge of technology.” • South K ­ orea: “­Korea Tech has grown to become a world-­class university in practical engineering education and in lifelong learning.” • United Kingdom: “Cranfield University is a unique, forward-­thinking institution where world-­class research and innovation lead to world-­ changing solutions.” • United States: “Ohio University prides itself on outstanding academic programs and world-­class research opportunities for its students at all levels.” The dream of the world-­class university—­even where it is an “implausible dream”16—is now widespread. More generally, the university sweeps into the newly rationalizing domains of society, with ­grand articulations of the university’s mission to ameliorate social ills and generate social goods.17 Expansive mission statements are conventional features of the con­temporary university. They commonly envision

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the university as an agent of social betterment, not simply a respondent to social (let alone religious) needs. Over recent de­cades, in par­tic­ul­ ar, the tendons joining the university and society grew thick, promising not only better understanding but also a better ­future. Critical voices—­often strong over the centuries and still strong in the immediate post-­War period—­have been muted and marginalized. In the last de­cade, however—­which has seen lowered legitimacy for liberal and neoliberal visions—­they may be returning.18 INTERFACES WITH UNIVERSITY PERSONNEL

The university-­society interface expands not only at the level of the university as a w ­ hole. It also, and very dramatically, develops at the level of university personnel: between society and students, gradu­ates, and professors. One of the prominent touchpoints is occupational. Employers increasingly require bachelor’s degrees for all kinds of jobs.19 In some occupations, t­ here is a wide credential gap, i.e., disparity between the percentage of job postings that demand a B.A. and the percentage of current jobholders that have such a degree. For example, about two-­thirds of the job listings for executive secretaries and assistants call for candidates with B.A. degrees, while only about a fifth of t­ hose employed as such hold them. In other occupations, such as entry-­level information technology help desk positions, ­there is minimal correspondence between skill requirements and degree requirements. The skill sets indicated in job postings are not typically taught in university settings, and t­ here is ­little difference between skill requirements for jobs that require degrees and ­those that do not. Yet the preference for degree holders has increased. Clearly, some employers use the B.A. as a broad recruitment filter rather than a certification of skills.20 More generally, education has become a defining feature of e­ very modern stratification system: large numbers of occupational positions are linked to educational requirements, and higher levels of education lead to social and economic success.21 The most respected positions in any modern society are ­those with the highest levels of educational credentials: ­these often play a larger role than do ­factors associated with po­liti­cal or orga­nizational power or financial returns. As one consequence, ­great concern arises in con­temporary socie­ties about access to faculty and student positions in the university. Expanded orga­ nizational procedures arise to regulate faculty se­lection and ensure fairness and efficiency in hiring and promotion. Even more elaborate procedures arise to manage the admission of students, so as to ensure equalities of opportunity for aspirants of differing gender, ethnic, and social statuses.22 ­These become all-­ important m ­ atters, often discussed at national and international levels. Tests

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are created and expanded to combat explicit bias, but they are immediately subject to criticism for implicit bias or downright in­effec­tive­ness. As a further consequence, con­temporary universities pile up orga­nizational structures—­above and beyond academic degrees—­linking their students to current and ­future social prospects, occupational and other­wise. • Credential and certificate programs arise to signify that a student has attained a level of vocational or professional specialization. For example, Arizona State University offers gradu­ate certificates in homeland security and sustainable tourism. • Internships are very common: they allow students to test-­drive ­future jobs, providing them direct experiences and linkages out into the occupational structure. Universities may partner directly with employers to create opportunities, perhaps following the fifteen best practices for internship programs established by the U.S. National Association of Colleges and Employers.23 • Similarly, ­under the rubric of civic engagement, “ser­vice learning” arrangements spring up, enabling students to play roles related to community welfare and public aid.24 In Valparaíso, Chile, for instance, ser­vice learners may work at a community center, a health clinic, or even a local zoo. “Tasks may include planting and transplanting seeds, maintaining paths and trails, feeding and caring for the animals, assisting in the animal clinic, and working in the conservation center.”25 • ­Career centers and ser­vices come to be routine components of the con­temporary university: they rationalize and facilitate the movement of students out into the increasingly education-­driven society. For example, the Office of Counseling and ­Career Ser­vices at De La Salle University in the Philippines is “committed to facilitate the students’ holistic well-­being ­towards better life adaptability and social integration.”26 All of ­these arrangements ­were rare or missing in the typical university of the early twentieth c­ entury. Their widespread presence t­ oday signifies the strength of the personnel interfaces between the university and society. Beyond the channels linking students and gradu­ates to society are channels d ­ oing the same for university faculty. Professors and researchers serve as direct participants in the wider world. Con­temporary media, for example, are filled with faculty commentators and bloggers, and consulting arrangements are commonplace. Often, such relationships are or­ga­nized by the academic institutions themselves: universities and relevant professional associations appoint communication and media directors and construct policy centers.27 They conduct forums to advise and instruct across a very wide range of issues and topics. Like gradu­ates, professors are deemed relevant and empowered

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to help in e­ very institutional sector of modern society, from the f­ amily to the state. INTERFACES WITH UNIVERSITY KNOWLEDGE

The third aspect of the elaborated interface between society and the university is along the dimension of university knowledge. A main thrust of the expansion and change laid out in chapters 4 and 5 involves an explosion of academic fields anchored openly in the expanded groundwork of society, e.g., environmental sciences and disability studies. A good-­sized university may now have 100 or more departments, a ­great increase over the past. This growth is extensive but hardly willy-­nilly. Some parts of the university grow more than o ­ thers, and some experience relative decline.28 Famously, the humanities suffer, tied as they are to the earliest pillars of rationalization, the church and the state. The natu­ral sciences for the most part do better, especially ­those believed to generate technologies impor­tant in society. The big winners are the social sciences and the socio-­sciences. They encounter society directly, at the con­temporary frontiers of rationalization. They address economic development, civil society, social equality, individual empowerment, communications, h ­ uman health, material well-­being, and so on. The very biggest winners are the so-­called applied versions of ­these social and socio-­sciences—­business, education, policy, medicine, engineering, and their kin. Their vision is global, and they assume that nature and society are sufficiently rationalized that academics may undertake practical arts.29 The knowledge interfaces between the university and society also broadens within academic fields, as discussed in chapter 5. As society itself emerges on rationalized footing, disciplines reach more widely and deeply into daily life.30 For example, lit­er­a­ture steps beyond the canonical masters to consider ­children’s books, best sellers, comics, and even graffiti. Economics moves from the marquee questions of capital markets and ­labor supplies to consider the rationalities of drug addiction and the intra-­household division of l­ abor. Biologists contemplate not only the languages of w ­ hales and songbirds but also t­ hose of teen­agers. Engineers embark upon the construction of toilets and knees as well as bridges and dams. As a specific illustration, Stanford University around 1910 offered just two courses that included the words “­women” or “­woman” in their titles or descriptions. About a hundred years ­later, nearly 150 courses did so, including En­glish 112A, Wicked Witches of the West: Dangerous ­Women in Greek and Shakespearean Tragedy. Similarly, “child” or “­children” occurred in only four courses at the early timepoint, but in 99 courses a ­century ­later. In a completely dif­fer­ent arena, language instruction tends to broaden beyond classical or civilizational cores to m ­ atters of practical social

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Foreign Languages Taught at the Universities of Birmingham and Toulouse, Circa 1910 and 2010

­TABLE 6.1.

Birmingham 1910 Anglo-­Saxon, En­glish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Latin, Spanish Birmingham 2010 Arabic, Basque, Catalan, French, Galician, German, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Japa­nese, Mandarin, Polish, Portuguese, Rus­sian, Spanish, Yoruba Toulouse 1910 Aramaic, En­glish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Latin, Spanish Toulouse II 2010 Arabic, Catalan, Chinese, Croatian, Dutch, En­glish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Japa­nese, Latin, Occitan, Polish, Portuguese, Rus­sian, Sanskrit, Spanish, Swedish

utility—­means of communication more than carriers of culture.31 ­Table 6.1 provides an illustration. For the universities of Birmingham, United Kingdom, and Toulouse, France, it compares foreign-­language offerings at two periods a ­century apart. Around 1910, both universities offered instruction in nine languages—­all linked to the church and state and traditional concepts of high civilization. Indeed, eight of the nine languages w ­ ere the same across both institutions, suggesting a shared and common frame. Around 2010, the two universities offered instruction in sixteen and twenty languages, respectively—­ many known more for everyday communications than as carriers of official culture. Even at this l­ater time point, the majority of languages (twelve) are the same in both contexts, though the emphasis has shifted ­toward conversation in everyday life. Even as the university extended its contact with and coverage of society in the curriculum proper, a parallel supra-­curricular structure arose. It took the form of research centers and institutes.32 ­These bodies play the headlining translational role in the con­temporary university—­tying formal academic knowledge directly into the rationalized social structure. In contrast to traditional departments and faculties, centers and institutes typically lack academic privileges. They seldom grant degrees and rarely hold faculty lines. But they command attention from the public (and university media officers) and generate waves of frisson as they plug into the impor­tant nodes of the societal ner­ vous systems. Even more than departments and faculties, centers and institutes can relate to almost any recognized component of the late modern society. Practically every­thing is legitimate fodder. Throughout the post-­World War II period, t­ hese supra-­curricular structures have expanded so rapidly as to challenge the dominance of the disciplines

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in the university.33 The disciplinary structures, tied to segmented bodies of knowledge, weaken. They are oriented on the old silos of existential truth, not on the boundless terrain of rationalized and universalized social issues. The centers often seem to require interdisciplinary approaches and problem-­ centered foci.34 To illustrate the vast scope of the supra-­curriculum, we show in ­table 6.2 the institutes and centers of two respected world universities in 2018: Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and the National University of Singapore. They cover a flamboyantly broad agenda: forensics and security, peace and h ­ uman rights, orga­nizational effectiveness, global health, environmental sciences, solar energy, and so on. And most would have been inconceivable a ­century e­ arlier (e.g., we show ­later that all but one of Harvard’s arts and sciences centers postdates the Second World War). While purely technological development can account for some of the recent new centers (e.g., in nanoscience), the change is dramatically greater than that. Centers and institutes apply academic knowledge directly to the solution of social prob­lems and the advance of social goals. As such, they broadcast their functional relevance. But, of course, the functional relevance of academic knowledge is contingent on the rationalization and universalization of real­ity. An academic fix only works in the academically ­imagined world. The embeddedness of centers and institutes in society shows in other ways, too. They often have in­de­pen­dent funding streams, originating outside the university, and they often use benefactors’ names—­family or corporate names—in their titles (though for the sake of parsimony we have excised t­ hese names from ­table 6.2). Both features embody the boundary-­spanning properties of centers and institutes. They are of the university and of the wider world. Consider the following, for example: In 1984, the University of Chicago established the MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics through the generous support of Dorothy J. MacLean and the MacLean f­ amily. The MacLean Center was the nation’s first program devoted to clinical medical ethics, and it remains the leading center for the teaching and study of clinical ethics. Since 1986, the MacLean Center has directed a renowned ethics fellowship program. . . . ​The MacLean Center strives to address medical-­ethical issues from multidisciplinary perspectives.35 Of course, universities and schools may also be named a­ fter benefactors, especially in liberal polities. For example, Vanderbilt University in the U.S. is named ­after shipping magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt, and the Saïd Business School at Oxford University is named ­after financier Wafic Saïd. But it is the rare department that adopts a benefactor’s name. Departments retain stronger attachments to transcendent truths, and they generally remain above the fray. Centers and institutes also display their relevance and currency stylistically. They very often use acronyms, such as CMAM (Centro de Micro-­Análisis

Research Institutes and Centers at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and the National University of Singapore in 2018* ­TABLE 6.2.

Universidad Autónoma de Madrid Alimentación Avanzada en Ciencias Químicas Avanzada en Física Fundamental Biología Molecular Biología Molecular Severo Ochoa Estudios de Asia Oriental Biotecnología Catálisis y Petroleoquímica Centro de Micro-­Análisis de Materiales Cerámica y Vidrio Ciencias de la Antigüedad Ciencias de la Educación Ciencias de Materiales Ciencias Forenses y de la Seguridad Ciencias Matemáticas Ciencias Materiales Cultura de Paz y Derechos Humanos Derechos Humanos Demoracia, Cultura de Paz Derecho Local Derecho Registral Estudios de la Mujer Estudios Urbanísticos, Terriroiales y Ambientales

Evaluación de la Ciencia y la Universidad Física de la Materia Condensada Física Teórica Fundación Jiménez Díaz Hospital Universitario 12 de Octubre Hospital Universitario de La Princesa Hospital Universitario La Paz Hospital Universitario Ramón y Cajal Investigaciones Biomédicas Investigacion de la Alimentación Justicia Adminstrativa La Corte en Europa La Efectividad Organicational Medicamento Micro-­Análisis de Materiales Microelectrónica Migraciones, Etnicidad y Desarrollo Social Museo Virtual de Ecología Humana Música Nanociencia Necesidades y Derechos de la Infancia Predicción Económica

National University of Singapore Advanced 2D Materials Application of Learning Science Asia Research Biomedical Global Health Research Cancer Clinical Imaging Data Science East Asia Energy Studies Environmental Life Science Engineering Environmental Research Global Asia International Law Life Sciences Logistics—­Asia Pacific Maritime Studies Mathematical Sciences Mechanobiology Medical Engineering & Commercialization

­Middle East Nanoscience & Nanotechnology Neurotechnology Nuclear Research & Safety Initiative Operations Research Public Understanding of Risk Quantum Technologies Real Estate Remote Imaging, Sensing & Pro­cessing Research Risk Management Solar Energy Research Smart Systems South Asian Studies Synchrotron Light Source Temasek Laboratories Temasek Life Sciences Laboratory Tropical Marine Science ­Water and Soil Research

* ­These condensed listings (stripped of proper names and references to “center,” “institute,” e­ tc.) come from the university websites. See http://www.uam.es/UAM/Institutos-Universitarios-de-Investigación/1242667526847. htm?language=es and http://­www​.­nus​.­edu​.­sg​/­dpr​/­researchNUS​/­research​-­capabilities​.­html. Last accessed July 2019.

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de Materiales), and the acronyms often include fash­ion­able symbols, such as TL@NUS and I+12 (Temasek Laboratories at National University of Singapore and IIS Hospital Universitario 12 de Octubre at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, respectively). They also often adopt stylish abstract log­os.36 At first glance, their webpages may be difficult to distinguish from ­those of consulting agencies. Once again, t­ hese patterns are not evident among departments, which hew more closely to traditional forms. Of course, long before centers and institutes populated the university-­ society interface, museums and collections did so. Th ­ ese old-­style holding pens of inert descriptive knowledge lost centrality as the university became a positive actor in social life—­a causal component of the knowledge society as an action system, oriented on making a difference.37 The static knowledge of the collection and showcase gave way to the active knowledge of the seed grant and working paper. T ­ able 6.3 illustrates the shift with a listing by year of the founding dates of museums and collections in one column and centers and institutes in the next column affiliated with Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Of the twelve museums and collections, ten w ­ ere founded before World War II. Of the thirty-­six centers and institutes, thirty-­five w ­ ere founded ­after. The pattern suggests a basic epistemological shift at the university-­society interface. The newer touchpoints are less monuments to knowledge than hubs of application. One can find many related examples. As museums gave way to centers over the twentieth ­century, so also did libraries give way to learning centers, archives to databases, observatories to laboratories, theaters to per­for­mance spaces, galleries to studios, and so on. Even the old august museums became less museum-­like. ­Under con­temporary circumstances, museums empower individuals to experience knowledge firsthand; they emphasize touching, interacting, engaging, and creating—­activities verboten in the customary silence of the marbled exhibition hall.38 As the university extends curricular and supra-­curricular structures into society, society si­mul­ta­neously reaches into the university for ever-­bigger helpings of academic knowledge. If society is the rationalized body of h ­ uman activity, then the expansion of society necessarily enlarges the space for rationalized understandings. Essentially by definition, the rise of the knowledge society signifies the rise of academic activity. Thus, the con­temporary explosion of the university, university knowledge, and university personnel, along with the corresponding rise of a knowledge society, creates a blanketing university-­society interface across ­every rationalized arena. The broadened juncture highlights the university’s “relevance” to and “importance” in society. But at the same time, the interpenetration fuels fears and re­sis­tance.

Chronological Listing of Museums and Centers Affiliated with Harvard University’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences by Founding Date* ­TABLE 6.3.

Museums and Collections 1847 1858 1859 1866 1872 1889 1891 1895 1902 1907

Centers and Institutes

Anatomical Museum Herbaria & Botanical Museum Museum of Comparative Zoology Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology Arboretum Semitic Museum Mineralogical & Geological Museum Art Museum Germanic Art Museum Museum at the Harvard Forest 1928 

Harvard-­Yenching Institute

­World War II 1948  Center for Rus­sian & Eurasian Studies 1949 Collection of Scientific Instruments 1954  1955  1957  1958  1963  1964  1964  1969  1973  1973  1973  1975  1978  1980  1984 

Center for M ­ iddle Eastern Studies Center for East Asian Research Film Study Center Center for International Affairs Center for the Visual Arts Center for Studies in American History Data Center Center for Eu­ro­pean Studies Center for Astrophysics Institute of Japa­nese Studies Ukrainian Research Institute Institute for African & African-­American Research Center for Jewish Studies Rowland Institute Humanities Center

1993  1994  1997  1998  1999  1999  1999  2001  2001  2004  2004  2004  2004  2005  2005  2006  2006  2006  2014 

Korea Institute Center for Latin American Studies Asia Center Institute for Quantitative Social Science Center for Nanoscale Systems Center for Systems Biology Materials Research Science & Engineering Center Nanoscale Science & Engineering Center University Center for the Environment Center for Brain Science Center for Research on Computation & Society Institute for Theory & Computation Stem Cell Institute Center for Geographic Analy­sis Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering Center for Hellenic Studies Institute for Quantum Science & Engineering Institute for Bionano Science & Technology Center for African & African American Research

1985 Asian Art Museum

*These data are current through 2015. We have abbreviated some names to fit the ­table. For example, we have removed David Rocke­fel­ler from the David Rocke­fel­ler Center for Latin American Studies. See http://­www​.­harvard​.­edu​/­resources​ -­offices​/­museums and http://­www​.­fas​.­harvard​.­edu​/­pages​/­centers​-­institutes​-­societies (last accessed July 2019). For brevity, we show only ­those museums and centers associated with Harvard’s oldest unit, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. The pattern in newer units is likely to be even more pronounced.

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Regulating and Monitoring the Interface: The University as Organ­ization On one side, the expanding university-­s ociety interface fuels fears that society—­capitalism, the state, the masses, or other interested parties—­will corrupt the university.39 Sometimes the feared corruption is quite vulgar, e.g., with funders controlling hiring or dictating research findings. But often the fears are more sophisticated, e.g., seeing more hegemonic forms of power as shaping teaching and research agendas. On the other side, the elaborating interface fuels fears that the university—­and especially its credentialism and formalism—­will limit creativity and variety and undercut the meaning and value of au­then­tic ­human experience.40 Again, some of the fears have a vulgar quality, e.g., envisioning the replacement of hard-­won experience with empty credentials. ­Others are more sophisticated, e.g., seeing vari­ous academic ideologies replacing and displacing established competences. The issues h ­ ere are partly causal—­which side of the university-­society relationship is dominant? And they are partly normative—­who is polluting whom? The causal and normative concerns lead to g­ reat orga­nizational emphasis on regulating and monitoring the interface. Within the university, an array of policies and practices arises to limit the influence of outside interests. To check the effects of society on the university, conflict-­of-­interest policies, for instance, materialize to describe the proper and improper impacts of external funding.41 The guidelines at McGill University in Canada, for example, establish that: An apparent FCOI [financial conflict of interest] exists when a significant financial interest could lead an in­de­pen­dent observer to reasonably question ­whether the design, conduct, or reporting of research, or the teaching or mentoring of students and trainees, or faculty ser­vice or professional practice might be influenced by the potential for personal gain.42 Similar—­almost verbatim—­guidelines are widespread. Meanwhile, to govern the effects of the university on society, institutional review boards arise to establish the proper limits of academic influence on, and meddling in, public life.43 Institutional review boards trace their origins to the Nuremberg Code of 1947, which condemned Nazi doctors for conducting medical experiments on nonconsenting prisoners. The general idea is that regulations set the terms of productive engagement between the university and society, and stave off the threat of mutual destruction. Discussions of ­these ­matters tend to accept a false dichotomy. They often forget the common denominators that conjoin “society” and the university in interpenetrated interdependence at the institutional level. The elaborate attention to boundary work clearly helps maintain everyday orga­nizational

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differentiation—to separate the interests of society from the truths of the university—­while permitting and encouraging interlinkages in fact. Over the modern and hyper-­modern periods, thus, the university followed the arrow of rationalization into the heart of ­human endeavors, fueling the rise of conceptualized society and now the knowledge society. The con­temporary university is no longer characterized by dramatically distinguished disciplines mapping isolated islands of rationalization. Instead of walls of ivy and gates of iron, the university now is brazenly open—­a hub and incubator more than a ­temple.44 Naturally, this shift, which has religious-­like dimensions, generates many normative reactions. In the course of this pro­cess, the university loses something of its guild-­ like qualities, and it comes increasingly to resemble a standard rationalized organ­ization.45 Administration expands and takes on a managerial character. Roles in the administration parallel ­those found elsewhere—­personnel ­people, accounting ­people, a ­legal department, and so on. A ­whole industry of higher education con­sul­tants arises, reflecting current orga­nizational theories and ideologies rather than anything very special about the university. The university often becomes an instance of a wider category of entities known as nonprofit organ­izations.46 Correspondingly, traditional academic roles change character. Professors tend to lose special guild privileges: even tenure is threatened.47 Some of their more exotic personal styles of appearance, clothing, and interaction give way to normal pre­sen­ta­tions of self.48 Similarly, student roles lose some of their distinctiveness: paternalistic patterns are delegitimated, as are dramatically distinct student cultures (reinforced, e.g., by hazing). Students become something like normal persons in society. Observers often note this w ­ hole breakdown of a bounded and distinctive academic organ­ization and subculture and treat it as a component of the overall standardization and massification of the university. While certainly true, it is impor­tant si­mul­ta­neously to note the parallel transformation in society outside the university, which takes on a much more academic cast than in the past. Organ­izations and states often have elaborate, and quite academic, research departments, and even individuals conduct research-­like activities on m ­ atters such as nutrition, ­music, and birds. Across the sectors of con­temporary society, research and training programs arise with academic tones and clearly schooled formats. For example, a child can be schooled at baseball, now; and the schooling pattern for this game extends all the way through the university and into the professional leagues. In any domain of social life, academic knowledge and language tends to penetrate and reconstruct former idioms. All the forces that in practice spur university expansion can be seen both as enhancements to the collective good and also as instruments of corruption. ­Every social interest or orga­nizational rationalization that enters into

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the university can be understood as degrading a formerly purer enterprise: the cap­i­tal­ist economic interests bringing in money, the pressures from the state and public for relevance, the student demands for c­ areer benefits, and the eagerness of the professors for research funds and public acclaim. This duality helps account for the strange grimness that characterizes scholarship on the university—an institution that by any reasonable standard has been astonishingly successful over the ­whole modern period. Observers tend to be presentist in orientation, but at the same time gesture to a distorted history of the university, implicit in which is a fuzzy narrative of decline from a past Golden Age, in which purity reigned.49 In the fabled Ivory Tower, students and professors had enormous capacity and integrity, and pursued the highest intellectual calling with monastic devotion. When this glorious era is thought to have occurred varies from country to country. U.S. scholars might put it around 1960, before the deluge of 1968. Germans might put it much ­earlier, around 1905, before the catastrophic twentieth ­century got seriously underway. ­These visions misconstrue both the nature of the university and the nature of con­temporary society. They imagine the university as a locus of high culture, and they imagine it being perverted by the inroads of a profane or mundane society. They are wrong on both counts. First, the university, rather than floating on a cloud of purified transcendence, always was associated with rationalized h ­ uman activities. Even in the early modern period, the university produced the doctors, l­awyers, priests, and teachers of society, linking them to transcendent meanings and forces. Second, the society that penetrates the expanded university is by no means profane or mundane. On the contrary, it is a co-­creation of the same rationalizing forces that gave rise to the university, and to an astonishing extent its roles and cultural contents are direct products of the university. What is sometimes called the secularization of society in the ­whole current period can also be seen as involving much sacralization. When we think of society, thus, we must think of the knowledge society—­ not a dull and provincial affair but a highly schooled enterprise, built on the foundations of schooled personnel and schooled knowledge from the university. In the same way that the old merchant of Siena—­filled with as much transcendent spirit as venal careerism—­might have made a gold offering to the cathedral, the modern elites make offerings to the university in the name of collective goods—­better education, a cure for cancer—as much as personal glory.50 What is more—­and what is critical for our analy­sis—we must think of the knowledge society not only as a source of demands and resources, but also as the outgrowth or mirror of the university. The university spawns, nurtures, and anchors the knowledge society at least as much as it caters and kowtows to it. Thus, in the following sections, we stress the university’s role in constructing the knowledge society and vice-­versa. In practice, the two pro­cesses

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parallel each other, overlap, and build up the university-­society interface. For example, as university researchers forge new understandings of child abuse in society, social reformers mobilize university research with demands and money. Thus can appear a center concerned with child abuse, generating both research on the prob­lem and programs and policies for its solution (for example, the Center on Trauma and C ­ hildren at the University of Kentucky). The University as Builder of a Knowledge Society The con­temporary knowledge society is filled with rationalized roles and articulated cultural domains that derive fundamentally from the university. As the knowledge and roles involved are constructed, their rationalization increases, and many ele­ments come to be financialized and incorporated into a ­great societal “economy.” The possibility of understanding and managing economic ­matters arose with rationalization and burgeoned in the con­temporary knowledge society. Universities spurred the formulation of basic economic theories—­contract theory, monetary theory, agency theory, ­labor market theory, etc.—­which in turn spurred the development of society and expansion along the university-­ society interface. The pro­cess extended to include roles far removed from what was once ­imagined as the economy. Thus, the university builds the knowledge society by fueling ­great expansion and transformation in economic institutions. It enables the installation of prices and values across a vastly expanded territory (e.g., one may now buy and sell thoughts, in the guise of intellectual property). It enables the creation of a hugely expanded role structure associated with production and exchange, involving a ­great many more schooled ­people, filling roles that did not previously exist. Many of the most vis­ib ­ le changes appear in the world of occupations. A ­ fter all, occupationalization is a dominant feature of the knowledge society. By formal education, the university converts traditional activities (such as caregiving) into panoplies of salaried positions (such as preschool teacher, nurse, home health aide, ­etc.). ­These new roles are typically seen in economic terms, and the resources devoted to them count as if they contributed to monetarized economic production. Many of the new roles fall in the professional and ser­ vice sectors, as discussed in chapter 3. The university certifies both the roles and the capacities of the persons assigned to them. Indeed, large numbers of degree-­certified professionals and man­ag­ers work in ­every sector of a con­temporary firm: e.g., engineers in production, safety, and environmental protection; scientists in research and development; MBAs in management, marketing, and sales; social scientists in ­human resources, community outreach, and ­labor relations; and ­lawyers across the board. National and transnational corporations become accountable to all sorts of

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standards in hard and soft law and establish officers and departments accordingly in relation to environmental and safety issues and a wide variety of “stakeholders” across multiple communities (e.g., in the surprising phenomenon of corporate social responsibility51). The p ­ eople outside the firm who create and transmit the pressures involved are commonly products of higher education, and so are the cognate ­people inside the firm who address them. In the wider marketplace and context are many other roles, often highly schooled and professionalized. Consumers, producers, investors, workers, and man­ag­ers all are surrounded by skilled advisors and consulting firms. Whole industries develop around new commodities (e.g., computer games, not to mention the computers on which they are played) and elaborated old ones (e.g., organic fruit, impossible meat52). ­These industries arise on university bases—­academic knowledge and degreed personnel—­and they sustain a rich set of interface structures, including degree programs (e.g., the computer game science major at University of California, Irvine) and research centers (e.g., the International Centre for Research in Organic Food Systems at Aarhus University in Denmark). The knowledge system rooted in the university constantly generates new sorts of products, new models of consumption, and new markets of exchange. ­These may involve new pleasures for consumers (e.g., avatar games), new dangers from the environment (e.g., herbicides), newly perceived social prob­lems (e.g., bullying), new sorts of injustices and inequalities (e.g., the disabled), or new sorts of deviance (e.g., nontransparency). It is, indeed, a main job of the expanded university to discover new issues and prob­lems and to produce ­people and knowledge to address and resolve them. Alongside economic development, the promise of comprehending and governing po­liti­cal ­matters emerged with modern rationalization and blossomed in the con­temporary knowledge society. Universities catalyzed the articulation of po­liti­cal theories—­democratic theory, libertarian theory, public choice theory—­which in turn fueled the growth of society and build-up along the university-­society interface. The pro­cess spurred enormous growth and transformation in po­liti­cal institutions. The old politics of power gave way to the new politics of policy—­ theorized and analyzed. Around the world, domains of governance and structures of government elaborated accordingly.53 All sorts of social functions, many formerly l­ittle managed, came u ­ nder the regulation of the polity. Con­ temporary state officials superintend f­ amily affairs, including conflicts. They supervise standards of accounting, environmental responsibility, education, and so on. They operate elaborate welfare and military machineries. Local, regional, and national personnel are likely to be rather highly schooled in the con­temporary world, and the rationalized knowledge on which their authority is based is ordinarily produced by the university.

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In parallel ways, the university has helped reconstruct all the other institutions of con­temporary society and incorporated them ­under broad rubrics of the economy. Religious and recreational and medical structures have become rationalized around academically defined roles and rules. So have educational ones. So have gender and ­family structures, now scrutinized by academic researchers and schooled professional advisors. The proliferation of interface structures is easy to interpret as pollution. But as we have also emphasized, the society at the gates of the university is not a chaotic or bedev­iled realm—it is a body of rationalized activity, and it is rationalized around persons and understandings generated by the university. Of course, the old social pressures on the university remain, though in much weakened form. Professors, and sometimes students, may still be expected to display academic judgment and decorum. Academic freedoms demand as much. Th ­ ese pressures emanate from the traditional understanding that the forms and rituals of academic life are distinct from ­those of society, and indeed that academic learning is not in itself sufficient preparation for life in society. According to the old chestnut, ­those who cannot do, teach. In this older vision, considerable real-­world experience in society itself is necessary, no ­matter how much academic preparation one has. This old differentiation, celebrated in much my­thol­ogy about academic life, is greatly weakened in the con­temporary period. The new ideology asserts the idea that teaching and research do, and should, have direct significance for successful social life. Pressures arise, that is, for something called relevance, as opposed to the arcane and “academic.”54 So resources and pressures flow in for relevance. The centers and institutes displayed in ­table 6.2 are largely funded by interested parties in society, economy, and state. So are the expanding professional schools and professional programs. Even the traditional disciplines are now expected to close the distance between academic inquiry and lived experience. They should display evidence of their relevance to ongoing social life. Naturally, this is easier for some fields than ­others. Fields that offer concrete solutions to concrete social prob­lems—­what we call the socio-­sciences (including medicine and engineering)—do the best. Flourishing less are the humanities, which are only abstractly associated with abstract ­human goods.55 The criticisms of all this tend to have a one-­sided quality. Critics forget that at the same time that more relevance is being asked of the university, more relevance is si­mul­ta­neously being asked, or demanded, from ­human society, now in part structured at the global level. A g­ reat many ­matters—­from earthquake preparedness to Alzheimer’s prevention—­can no longer be left to the fates. Now they demand inquiry and management from the university and society, often in partnership. Critics fear that raw economic or po­liti­cal or social interest bends the university to its ­will and suppose the con­temporary

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university is simply subject to sectarian interests. And such vulgar effects may be found—­a corrupt corporation or regime that supports a university institute to generate distorted research, a wealthy mogul or magnate who underwrites a program decrying the evils of market regulations, or an ethnic or religious group that funds chauvinistic ideas. But t­ hese are not the main directions of change, as an inspection of ­table 6.2 reveals. The structures of the knowledge society are more specialized and rationalized than that. Certainly, one may identify some interests ­behind an institute for stem cell biology or the environment or molecular engineering. But the interests involved are themselves quite academic—­components of the knowledge society. Research funding may reflect immediate corporate interests, but almost certainly it si­mul­ta­neously reflects broad conceptions of the needed scientific developments. Similarly, the po­liti­cal interests seen to be knocking at the university’s door reflect broad academic understandings of social prob­ lems and conceptions of needed social development (vis-­à-­vis climate change, for example). E ­ ither way—on the wings of interest or the wings of truth—­all sorts of social prob­lems are brought to the university, from poverty and AIDS to aging and deforestation, ­etc. The larger point ­here is that the formerly restricted interface between the university and society is now both expanded and elaborated along a much broader range of domains and personnel. The old walls around the old ivory tower may be knocked down once rationalization tames vast stretches of the exterior. The differentiation between the academic enterprise and rationalized economic utility or po­liti­cal authority may be sharply defined in the abstract and in ­legal rituals. But at a deep cultural level and or­gan­i­za­tion­ally, it is quite thin. University-­like arrangements pop up everywhere in society, and all kinds of social interests sweep into the university. Conclusion The con­temporary expansion of the university goes on in parallel with the reconstruction of society and wider real­ity along highly schooled lines. The university becomes “relevant” in many more domains, and its knowledge and personnel penetrate formerly segmented territories. Essentially e­ very institution in con­temporary society is subject to the authority of university training and knowledge. And in the same way, essentially ­every institution in society now penetrates the university, presenting issues and agendas for resolution. When a prob­lem or need is perceived, demands and resources flow to the university to deal with it. So when societal relations to the natu­ral world become problematic, as with con­temporary environmental issues, university ­people provide analyses and train personnel to use them.56 When issues arise over the standing of

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individuals and special groups in society, social and medical and engineering solutions are sought. When conflicts and inconsistencies arise in society, academic ­people provide analyses, pointing the way to tranquility and transparency. Naturally, all the new pressures and opportunities, beyond expanding the university, tend to transform it. It loses some of its old sacralized charisma, becoming a normal organ­ization (i.e., a “nonprofit”). But it grows to encompass a more sacralized secular world. Old batches of deep knowledge and understanding lose centrality,57 and formerly vulgar m ­ atters become foci of attention and must be treated with academic re­spect. So the modern student or researcher is less likely to study sacred texts and more likely to address social prob­lems with ideas thought applicable everywhere: as we noted above, the question of who in the f­ amily should take out the garbage may occasion academic discussions at the highest, perhaps even global, levels. Of course, if the university is transformed by the changed relation, so is society. In the next chapter, we discuss the social changes involved in the schooling of society, and its transformation into the knowledge society. The con­temporary transformation of society and the university bring them into enriched harmony. A thick old boundary protecting the university from barbarous invasion becomes thinner and more transparent. Dozens of gates appear along an elongated interface, with school knowledge and personnel flowing into society, and social demands (and resources and opportunities) flowing into the university. Many new prob­lems of regulation arise, to ensure that the university remains properly “academic” against the feral undercurrents perceived in the wider context. It seems a bit unfair to heap so much attention on one side of the equation—­ imagining that social forces threaten the university. Equivalent concerns might focus on the ways the university threatens the social world. Ivan Illich (1971) famously proposed the deschooling of society, essentially arguing that it should be illicit to introduce academic authority and credentials into social life, occupational allocation, and so on. He was representing an older and more traditional worldview, perhaps a medieval one. But one can find pockets of similar sentiments still among the populations of the world, where ­people feel themselves unjustly trapped outside the gates of rationalized pro­gress and left ­behind. Increasingly, forces now called “populist” attack the culture of the university and the knowledge society with which it is linked. One can imagine a ­future in which such forces gain standing around the world, particularly in more illiberal contexts.58

7 Reflections on the Global Knowledge Society The foregoing chapters have focused on the worldwide expansion of the university, particularly in the periods since World War II. The high and hyper-­ modern periods involved striking changes—­something of a binge—­toward liberal and ­later neoliberal visions of a world of empowered individuals in a rationalized environment. This produced an enormous educational expansion, in numbers of participants and ranges of knowledge, so the university became the centerpiece and institutional locus of a new kind of society—­a “knowledge society.” In this chapter, we reflect on the properties of a society that depends so heavi­ly on a knowledge system that so often in the past seemed exotic and far removed from ordinary social experience. Con­ temporary world society is an ­imagined community,1 and the imagination involved is heavi­ly rooted in the knowledge system and personnel products of the university. The interrelationships are so close that it is reasonable to think of the con­temporary university not as standing apart in a bounded or elevated domain but rather as the platform on which the new society is erected. We begin by describing the sweeping changes involved. Then we consider in turn the nature of the Knowledge and the conceptions of Society, as they are sometimes now capitalized in the Knowledge Society. Fi­nally, we consider the stratification system that results, and ­future prospects. If the period since World War II represents a binge involving explosive scientific and educational expansion far beyond obvious functional requirements, it is useful to imagine changes that might follow when the period passes—­which recent analyses suggest has been the case since perhaps 2010. 127

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The Knowledge Society Many analysts call attention to the distinctive features of con­temporary society (now often seen on a global scale) and contrast t­ hese with the models and realities of socie­ties prevalent half a ­century ago. World War II and its aftermath serve as general break points, ­after which social changes across a number of dimensions marked a general transformation. The university and the knowledge system are generally seen as crucial components of the new order, and the rationalization of society and models of society around schooling and schooled knowledge is central.2 ­There follow the fash­ion­able terms for the new order: knowledge society, knowledge economy, information society and economy, learning society and economy, postindustrial or postmodern society, and so on.3 Theories of the causal forces producing this new world abound. The most traditional and functionalistic ones portray an economic development from socie­ties rooted in agriculture to t­ hose grounded in industry to t­ hose with expanded “ser­vice sectors.”4 Related ideas stress the evolution of values as economic development satisfies basic material needs.5 ­These lines of thought lose force as it becomes clear that the broad social changes involved characterize all sorts of con­temporary socie­ties, not simply the most developed ones.6 It is difficult to see the ­great and worldwide expansions of the modern institutional ­orders as especially functional for a par­tic­ul­ ar advanced stage of social development. More plausible theories, akin to our own arguments, stress po­liti­cal and cultural pro­cesses operating at the global level.7 World War II and its aftermath—­ especially the end of the Cold War—­weakened the global institutionalization of the closed national state and economy. More open-­system models, rooted in expanded scientism and expanded views of the rights and capacities of individual ­human persons, arose. Th ­ ese envisioned and promulgated extraordinarily broad conceptions of society and social institutions. Such models w ­ ere especially useful as attempts to perceive pos­si­ble order in an expanded but stateless world society, supporting a community ­imagined at a supra-­national scale. At ­every juncture, the models invoked the university, anchoring the legitimacy and buttressing the authority of the rationalized culture and degree-­certified personnel. The new model of society spells a w ­ holesale transformation of social life across ­every institutional sector. Economy. With the knowledge society, a huge meta-­e conomy arises around the old economy, encircling the production of material goods with the production of ideas of goods, a.k.a. ser­vices.8 Increasingly even the commodity economy is filled with man­ag­ers who have ­limited awareness of (or concern with) what is actually being produced and workers who program machines to perform l­abor.9 New professionals conduct research and development,

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planning, marketing, safety, environmental management, personnel management, l­egal work, finance, and much complex accounting. Consulting and advising structures proliferate globally.10 Thus, the very definition of economic activity is transformed. Marketers and apple brands, for instance, displace farmers and apples, as noted above. Many parts of society, far removed from the agricultural and industrial sectors, come to be monetized and seen (and mea­sured) as part of “the economy.” So, a new economic category—­the “ser­v ice sector”—is conceptualized, which encompasses among other groups the professionals discussed in chapter 3, who require specialized university credentials. The category refers more broadly to a motley set of valued and paid activities conceptualized not as part of a production system but as somehow serving such a system. It incorporates every­thing from schooling to medical care, recreational activity, transportation, and po­liti­cal structure. And in con­temporary knowledge socie­ties, this mea­sured “ser­vice sector” grows dominant. The economy of the United States in 2015, as reported in The World Factbook, was 1 ­percent agricultural, 19 ­percent industrial, and 80 ­percent “ser­vices.” The calculations involved are admittedly primitive—­much of the reported industrial activity is essentially management, and some of the reported ser­vice activity is quite tangible. Regardless, it is quite clear that the ser­vice sector prevails, and not only in the U.S. In 2015, the ser­vice sector made up 53 ­percent of the economy in China, 55 ­percent in Nigeria, and 62 ­percent in Mexico. Th ­ ere is variation, to be sure, but less so than older functional theories might suggest. ­Table 7.1 shows the rise of the ser­vice sector in sixty-­one countries in 1970, 1990, and 2010.11 Across this broad sample (which includes all the in­de­pen­dent nation-­states for which the World Bank has data), ser­vices as a percentage of GDP ­were on average 44 ­percent in 1970, 47 ­percent in 1990, and 53 ­percent in 2010. Over this forty-­year period, the ser­vice share shrank in only ten of the sixty-­one countries, most of them poor and peripheral (e.g., Chad, Madagascar). Polity. Similarly, with the knowledge society, a huge meta-­polity arises around the old polity, ensconcing government in systems of ideas of governance, rationalized as “policy,” and mea­sured as part of the ser­vice sector. Planning and analy­sis grow pervasive at the local, national, and transnational levels.12 The old functions of government are theorized and subjected to evidence-­based policymaking. “Intelligence,” for example, becomes a major feature of police work and national security and institutionalized in universities (such as the U.S. National Intelligence University, founded in 1962). At the same time, new functions of government multiply, as evidenced by the worldwide expansion of national state ministries.13 Again one finds research, planning, safety, environmental management, personnel work, and many countings and accountings (often monetarized). The doctrines of the “New Public Management” turn formerly passive public agencies into rationalized

Ser­vices as a Percentage of GDP in 61 In­de­pen­dent Nation-­States at 1970, 1990, and 2010 ­TABLE 7.1.

Algeria Argentina Benin Bolivia Brazil Burkina Faso Burundi Cameroon Central African Rep. Chad Chile China Colombia Congo, Rep. Cote d’Ivoire Cuba Dominican Republic Ec­ua­dor Egypt Fiji France Ghana Guyana Honduras India Indonesia Iran Japan Jordan ­Kenya ­Korea, Rep. Lesotho Madagascar Malawi Malaysia Mali Malta Mauritania Mexico Nepal Netherlands Niger Norway Oman

1970

1990

2010

45 48 52 46 49 46 19 50 38 47 51 24 46 58 50 68 45 51 42 48 60 25 41 45 38 36 43 51 69 47 48 41 59 39 37 22 41 32 55 21 57 28 63 7

40 56 53 48 53 50 25 46 30 53 50 32 45 46 41 67 52 49 52 56 70 38 37 51 44 41 54 60 66 51 54 41 59 26 43 43 41 42 64 32 67 49 63 43

37 61 49 50 68 41 43 47 32 34 57 44 58 21 53 74 65 53 48 69 79 49 59 60 55 41 52 71 66 51 59 60 56 52 49 39 65 37 61 48 76 43 59 36

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­TABLE 7.1.

(continued)

Pakistan Philippines Rwanda Saudi Arabia Sierra Leone South Africa Sri Lanka Sudan Suriname Swaziland Thailand Togo Tunisia Turkey Uganda Venezuela Zambia Zimbabwe Average

1970

1990

2010

41 39 30 37 41 55 47 42 46 38 49 45 56 37 33 55 29 52 44

49 44 43 45 34 55 47 44 67 46 50 44 49 50 33 34 28 50 47

55 55 55 39 37 67 61 47 52 42 49 52 60 64 52 42 54 55 53

accountable organ­izations, staffed by educated ­people making decisions obviously informed by university knowledge and its con­sul­tant carriers.14 In the economy and the polity, ideas of goods and governance displace ­actual material goods and governance. Related transformations occur across the spectrum. The rise of the knowledge society reconstitutes institutional sectors with ­little formalization in older models of society. Family. The essential nurture and care-­work of the ­family, for instance, becomes formalized and rationalized. A professionalized meta-­family arises to help with marriage and marital counseling, divorce, sexual conflicts and issues, ­legal arrangements, childcare, reproduction, foster care, adoption, child protection, financial planning, and so on. Industries arise around specialized agendas like tracing genealogies, DNA analyses, finding mates, or changing sexual identities and organs. Even at the center of ­family life, a university-­educated parent is thought superior to the alternative,15 ­because the former plays the role with articulated purposes and rationalized strategies and delivers access to a dizzying array of support structures and a network of or­ga­nized professional consultancies—­medical, psychological, educational, social, recreational, cultural, e­ tc.16 Recreation. Likewise, with the rise of the knowledge society, informal play of the rocks and sticks variety gets subsumed by the elaborately rationalized framework of “recreation:” ­little leagues, tourism, computer games, and so

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on. The 2016 rulebook of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA’s Laws of the Game) runs more than 200 pages, for example, and includes detailed descriptions of ­legal and illegal kickoffs, ­free kicks, penalty kicks, goal kicks, and corner kicks, among many other ­matters.17 Even plain old camp counselors, whose job is part tour guide and part babysitter, should hold a bachelor’s degree or higher. They are recreation professionals.18 ­People now can take formal instruction and participate in a wide variety of activities once left to informal and folkish life. Religion. The university and the knowledge society also reconstitute religious bodies, from closed and binding corporate structures to open and voluntaristic communities. The new-­form fellowships undergird faith with understanding and build expansive and elaborate associational structures.19 A wide variety of formal organ­izations, including media experts and publishing authorities, emerge to cater to and serve them. At the same time, outside of religion proper, alternative rationalized belief structures proliferate that offer keys to fundamental order and meaning. The most striking of ­these is obviously the university itself. Charity. ­Under conditions of the knowledge society, traditional acts of charity (e.g., alms for the poor) get theorized and structured u ­ nder the aegis of nonprofit organ­izations (e.g., Oxfam International). Nonprofit studies—­examining the management and effectiveness of the sector—­explode in the university, producing schooled knowledge and degree-­certified professionals.20 A huge range of local practices to help the needy undergoes rationalization and formalization. Education. Also, with the knowledge society, rationalized pedagogies infuse all sorts of mundane local instruction. Formalized educational theories and practices arise for every­one from toddlers to retirees,21 ­under a world-­ legitimated agenda of “lifelong learning.”22 At ­every level, enrollments skyrocket.23 School-­like structures and their associated professionals proliferate far outside of conventional settings: in athletics, in industry, in the military, and in preparation for marriage and childbirth and death. In short, the institutionalization of the knowledge society implies an enlargement of the w ­ hole body of rationalized h ­ uman activity, i.e., of society itself. Across ­every sector of ­human life, the fabric of generalized causal interconnection grows richer, and new role structures arise with education as defining ele­ments. The role of the university in the knowledge society is obviously central—­ unprecedentedly so. It anchors the very meaning and possibility of the new real­ ity. Just as mass education transformed peasants and tribespersons into “persons” and “citizens,” so too does university education transform persons and citizens into strategic “actors,” with considerably augmented authority.24 Terms such as “innovation” and “entrepreneurship” enter the vernacular, and ­there emerges a “creative class,” generally schooled in the university.25 The assumption arises

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0.00050 0.00045 0.00040 0.00035 0.00030 0.00025 Scholastic

0.00020 0.00015 0.00010

Egghead x 10

0.00005 0.00000 1960

1965

1970

1975

1980

1985

1990

1995

2000

The Declining Frequencies of “Scholastic” and “Egghead” (x10) in the Google Books Ngram Corpus 1960–2000. FIGURE 7.1.

that all sorts of everyday ­people carry around, or should carry around, ­great stores of rationalized knowledge (despite findings that they may not do so in practice26) and thus have the ability to navigate general real­ity and produce social change. ­Under ­these conditions, it becomes reasonable to write about the “professionalization of every­one.”27 Concomitantly, the image of the impractical and out-­of-­touch schoolman—­Homo academicus—­recedes,28 and associated words such as “scholastic” and “egghead” plummet in usage, as shown in figure 7.1.29 ­These observations suggest two broad questions. First, what is the nature of knowledge in the knowledge society? And second, what is the associated conception of society? Conceptions of Knowledge All h ­ uman aggregations rest to some degree on shared understandings.30 Even the simplest groupings have culture. And complex socie­ties, certainly including the modern nation-­state version, are made up of quite elaborated structures of meaning. Using a tool or raising a child can involve a g­ reat deal of sophistication, often difficult to formulate or summarize in words. Clearly, the knowledge characteristic of the knowledge society is dif­fer­ent. In contrast to the alternatives, the knowledge of the knowledge society is universalistic. This means (a) that the knowledge framework admits no

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limits. It is based on an epistemology that aims to encompass all t­ hings, such that all t­ hings share an ultimate consistency and interconnection. The claim is that every­thing particular—­every beetle in e­ very ball of dirt, e­ very teardrop in e­ very child’s eye—­may be understood as an instance of one or more general categories. It means (b) that the knowledge in substance is abstracted from place and time. Knowledge, thus, is dif­f er­ent from other types of meaning, which may be quite parochial. For example, understanding how to fish a par­tic­u­lar lake or traverse a specific terrain is not what we have in mind h ­ ere. Nor is the craft of a skilled woodworker or midwife. What turns ability and skill into knowledge is a single framework offering a generalized understanding of abstract society, nature, and h ­ uman personhood; and, of course, a schooled person may have the knowledge without possessing the ­actual skill. This special kind of understanding—­i.e., knowledge—­may not reveal itself in everyday circumstances. A person can or cannot make a pudding, but pudding knowledge—of its physical properties, its biochemical composition, its nutritional values, etc.—is altogether dif­fer­ent. Its proof, so to speak, is not in the pudding but rather in the university, which contains the libraries and laboratories, the professors and proof theorems that establish truth. The university comes with a distinctive account, constructing and defining this knowledge. It provides an institutional locus for its production (discovery), validation (testing), and transmission (teaching). The value of knowledge exists beyond its demonstrable utility. The cardiologist’s comprehension of heart disease stands fast even when the heart patient dies. Over and above its practical efficacy, real knowledge rests, and derives value from, a host of assumptions that would once have had a religious character. Its arrangements are to be rational, its conception of nature valid, and its relation to universal laws in accordance with real­ity. The special value of “Knowledge,” compared with ordinary understanding, derives less from its effectiveness in activity than its ceremonial reflection of higher truth. Thus: The “Knowledge” of the knowledge society is valuable ­because it adds abstract, permanent, and universal value to the local situation. In the extreme, this general preference for knowledge over capacity is written into modern ­legal systems: for instance, a work organ­ization must have an injured worker treated by a certified doctor, not someone with proved therapeutic skills. And a school must have a pupil instructed by a credentialed teacher, not by a capable neighbor or parent. Further, the value (and price) of the relevant knowledge is commonly in­de­pen­dent of ­whether the patient lives or the child learns. Once we understand the supra-­empirical and quasi-­religious character of knowledge, it becomes clear how it all holds together in the university and lends itself to standardized assessment. If knowledge embodies the Infinite,

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and if the Infinite is integrated and constant, then so too is knowledge. Consilience and consistency enable commensurability.31 Thus, the contents of knowledge—­physics and philosophy, economics and ecology—­can be evaluated in interchangeable test points, credit units, and ultimately money. This last idea is key. The standardization of knowledge allows it to be priced and instrumentalized. The knowledge society becomes a knowledge economy, or­ga­nized around the production and consumption of knowledge seen as goods. It becomes reasonable to see any given mea­sure of knowledge as contributing to the societal production function. Thus, in con­temporary socie­ties, it is generally legitimate to pay p ­ eople more if they have a university education—­over and above any mea­sure of effective per­for­mance. Quality of per­for­mance ­matters—­more in stark situations like athletics—­but education often m ­ atters more. Indeed, direct mea­sures of abstract knowledge—­assessed, for example, with test scores—­often count a good deal in obtaining positions and getting promotions, even when they are poor predictors of a­ ctual abilities to perform required tasks. D ­ oing well in school, or on tests, ­matters.32 Critics call this credentialism.33 The contrast is with an i­magined more realist and functional society, in which the value of every­thing was objective, and efficiency was calculable. This seems naïve. In ­every society, meanings ­matter, and meanings linked to core (often religious) values ­matter more. In the hyper-­modern knowledge society, activities linked to universal rationalized abstract princi­ples have such standing: degrees indicate the proper linkage, perhaps more than effectiveness in action. In an older world, one properly paid more for a higher ranked priest; in the con­temporary one, the therapist with a doctorate gets more than the one with a master’s degree. The doctorate places the holder closer to an assumed transcendent real­ity—­what might once have been called God. A main feature of the knowledge society is that its cultural and role structures are established by definition rather than by clear exchange or orga­ nizational relationships. The higher educational system in general and the university in par­tic­u­lar are the crucial producers, loci, transmitters, and guardians of the definitions involved. The university defines both expertise and expert, articulates their functional value, and organizes this value as consequential for an envisioned social pro­gress on scales of universal significance. Thus, the work of the properly professionalized researcher, professor, or con­sul­tant enters orga­nizational, then national, and now even global conceptions of a unified gross national or world product and is thought to spur growth in this product. Huge fractions of the so-­called ­labor force do no ­labor and generate activities that can be thought of as “products” only through exercises in faith: the university is the church of that faith.34 The culture and roles that spring from its nave would make ­little sense to unschooled ­people in an unschooled society.

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The centrality of universalized knowledge in the con­temporary world greatly facilitates the worldwide diffusion of a wide range of social standards and norms. If local activity is perceived in light of general rules, and if t­ hese rules have standardizing and rationalizing qualities, then par­tic­u­lar local worlds can be seen and assessed by nominally objective general rules. The universalistic character of the con­temporary knowledge system thus facilitates the global diffusion of standardized institutional arrangements.35 Conceptions of Society At the heart of the knowledge society is not only a distinctive form of understanding. ­There is also a distinctive form of ­human community. Older models of “the ­people” defined ­human groupings particularistically, in terms of place, religion, culture, or history. Racial or ethnic or po­liti­cal proper nouns demarcated the p ­ eople. One spoke, thus, of the American p ­ eople or sometimes slave or Eskimo or Muslim ­people. The essential features of such groupings ­were incommensurable. One could have typologies of po­liti­cal or familial or religious structures, but they did not reduce to ­simple continua. Attempts to do so—­say, to or­ga­nize socie­ties on a continuum of economic development—­ran up against criticisms emphasizing cultural distinctiveness or uniqueness. The nation-­state model of society, which grew dominant over the nineteenth ­century and peaked in the m ­ iddle of the twentieth c­ entury, tamed and routinized the older models, in part by organ­izing them around rationalized proj­ects of development, seen as pro­gress and justice.36 Economic and po­liti­ cal development w ­ ere institutionalized in the standard terms of GDP/capita and eventually, a­ fter a long Cold War, democracy. Schooling was envisioned to be central to both. Yet while the nation-­state model of society was extensively rationalized around proj­ects of social good, it held onto one dramatic irrationality: a notion that the fabric of social interconnection broke fundamentally at national borders. The idea—­dramatized in lit­er­a­ture and song not to mention passport control offices and huge volumes of social-­science lit­er­a­ture—is that t­ hose borders represented hard stops in the sediment of real­ity.37 More recently, in the post-­World War II years, and especially with the neoliberal wave that marked the end of the Cold War, globalizing cultural changes made it pos­si­ble and necessary to think beyond the borders of the nation-­state to envision a generalized and encompassing knowledge society without any further modifying qualifications. Society, in the new scheme, is a dramatically more universal, abstract, and rationalized construction than in previous uses. It is a globally rationalized body of activity, associated with global conceptions of pro­ gress, beyond national development. We can distinguish three major changes.

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First, if ­people everywhere are seen to have very similar under­lying qualities, a general model of society becomes conceivable. If p ­ eople are fundamentally very dif­fer­ent, it becomes difficult to formulate all the social scientific rules defining what a society is. And through most of the Modern period, ­people w ­ ere understood to be very dif­fer­ent. Common racial ideas essentialized difference, and even more common ideas of the deep historical and religious embeddedness of ­peoples worked in the same way: it was, for instance, easy to generalize about the difficulty Catholic countries had in sustaining democracy.38 All such lines of thought, associated with ethnic nationalism, have under­gone a good deal of delegitimation, and it would now be much more difficult to formulate public ideas about how certain ­peoples are not suited for education, democracy, or development and require a premodern and authoritarian polity. A world in which one can think of a psychologized self and universal ­human rights, for instance, is a world in which one can imagine a general and universal model of society.39 Second, it is easier to envision a general model of society if ­human social life is understood to occur in a natu­ral environment with common, standardized, and analyzable dimensions. If natu­ral settings (including the ­human physiology) are unique, socie­ties are likely to be seen as unique too. In an older period, it was easy to propose that social development could not occur in the tropics or in the arctic.40 In con­temporary knowledge society terms, such environmental differences can be analyzed and resolved. A striking feature of the postwar world is an explosion in standardizing and authoritative scientific analyses of nature (including ­human nature) and the wider universe.41 And, of course, scientific authority is rooted in the university. As it expands, the university expands, too, very dramatically into the domains of natu­ral and environmental sciences.42 Third, it is easier to envision a generalized knowledge society if ­human social organ­ization is seen as susceptible to rationalistic social scientific analy­ sis. ­There come to be, ­under such conditions, right ways to do ­things everywhere and anywhere—­a world of standards.43 In the con­temporary world, for instance, supra-­national organ­izations can demand that all countries everywhere be held to uniform benchmarks of transparency or corruption (e.g., Transparency International’s Corruption Index). In older analyses, most features of social organ­ization would have been seen in particularistic terms, not quite comparable across cultures let alone subject to universalization. Rationalized analyses are facilitated by the enormous con­temporary growth of the social sciences in the university.44 Abstracted notions of society result from, and enable, social and applied sciences. In the extreme, ranges of what was once called local culture come now to be analyzed as mistaken, or even as “corruption.” ­These tripartite changes—­standardized and rationalized abstract models of the ­human person, nature, and ­human society—­are all historically rooted

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in the university, which generates and legitimates the models involved. Some features of the generalized knowledge society: (1) The knowledge society rests on bedrock universalism. Older models of society, including the recently dominant nation-­state model, assumed fundamental fissures in the social, natu­ral, and/or cosmic infrastructures. Such assumptions nurtured the rise of multiple nation-­states and multiple modernities, with special Asian, American, or Eu­ro­pean values.45 Such ideas have been difficult to sustain in the last half-­century, despite many efforts to do so46: they have been undercut by a global vision, order, and stratification system dependent on the university. We suggest below that a variety of reactions in very recent years may mark the weakening of the sweepingly universalistic order. If ­humans are at bottom alike, if nature is seen as everywhere ­under the same scientific laws, and if rational princi­ples of social organ­ization hold everywhere, then the knowledge society may be as one. Even per­sis­tent nation-­ states, on empirical inspection, are l­ittle differentiated from one another.47 At least in the con­temporary period, they define their distinctive virtues in quite standard ways.48 (2) The knowledge society envisions ultimate unity and integration. Older ontological systems stressed fundamental dissonance—­dueling gods or a chaos of spirits. The historic Western world envisioned a g­ reat opposition between good and evil. The postwar period gave rise to a dif­fer­ent line of thought. Perhaps ordinary ­humans, touched by divine grace—­and/or education—­ could and should create the perfected world.49 In this view, the laws of nature and the laws of society have no ultimate inconsistency. Nor, pace Freud, do ­humans. And ­humans are not in ultimate opposition ­either to nature or society. Conflicts, seen in this light, reflect superficial ignorance rather than profound opposition. Importantly, education—­the secular salvation of the postmodern system—­can resolve what oppositions appear to exist. Ultimately, the ontological system, and the knowledge society that arises from it, is understood to be unified and integrated, ­under elites rooted in the globalized university. Of course, more critical notions persist and may have gained force in very recent years. One idea is that society (a.k.a. the iron cage of rationality) destroys true humanity. Another is that ­human personhood is itself a battleground of good versus evil, mind versus body, h ­ uman nature versus animal instinct. Additionally, ­there are ideas that nature is filled with irreconcilable forces, that society (e.g., in the guise of capitalism) is fundamentally incompatible with nature,50 and that society itself is riddled with conflicts and contradictions (e.g., among nation-­states, between classes). If such doctrines of ultimate division ­were dominant, ­there could be neither a unitary knowledge society nor a unified university. The shrouded knowledge establishments characteristic of the nation-­state and cap­i­tal­ist systems—­e.g., the Central Intelligence Agency, the Google X Lab—­represent alternatives

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to the university, displaying ­little in the way of universalism, communism, disinterestedness, or or­ga­nized skepticism.51 Alternatively, a riven ontological system might produce schools of white and black arts. ­Because the integrated lawfulness of the ­whole cosmos is so strongly established in princi­ple, it is pos­si­ble to treat the knowledge system as unified in the university. So con­temporary persons can balance business school credits on the efficient merchandising of sugar to ­children, with medical school credits on the correction of the resultant diseases. And schools of engineering can sit securely next to schools of environmental science. Or the Eu­ro­pe­ans, with the Bologna Pro­cess, can override accreted historical differences with a generalized policy for a standardized university system and “knowledge economy.” The dominant princi­ple is that apparent local inconsistencies in the cosmos can be overcome with a proper understanding of the ultimate unity of nature, ­human life, and society, and of all three together. (3) The knowledge society assumes the possibility of general pro­gress. If the natu­ral world is lawful and consistent, if ­human individuals are empowered and competent in this world, and if society harmonizes with nature and humanity, then it becomes reasonable to imagine pro­gress and to conjure an integrated and rational standard of it. Nature can be better understood, ­humans more fully empowered, and society a more rational enterprise. And the pro­gress involved can be mea­sured, with criteria for evolutionary development. Ideas of this sort permeate post-­Enlightenment modernity, and the con­temporary expansion greatly expands their reach. ­Human socie­ties could be ranked on a unitary mea­sure of development, and the knowledge society drives the expansive meaning of this concept into the widest range of social arenas. Critics sometimes decry the rationalization involved, but often propose further expansions as correction.52 In the hyper-­modernity of the twentieth c­ entury, formal scales arose. They cluster around a few core correlated indicators: the GDP/capita, vari­ous ­human development indices, scales of health and education, and most recently indices of sustainability. All of ­these mea­sures are built on ideas of an ultimately consistent standard of pro­gress. This is inevitable given the princi­ples of ultimate cosmic unity noted above: it would be by no means inevitable in another grounding frame. One can easily envision a Freudian or Marxian or humanist synthesis involving an ultimate or penultimate conflict between civilization and id, or economic growth and mass poverty, or expanded differentiation and soullessness. It is clear that a dominant culture celebrating one or another of ­these more inconsistent models would generate an educational system far from one built on the unity of knowledge and training in the university. It is easy to imagine another sort of system, and stresses over the unity of knowledge exert tensions both generally and in academic circles. Classicists in their cups certainly ridicule the pretensions of the business school p ­ eople; and

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the latter return the ­favor with relish. But in fact, both groups and both sorts of knowledge are institutionalized in the university. Both give academic credit, and both bring returns on the ­labor market. The students of social stratification, in fact, ordinarily do not distinguish among vari­ous degree holders in their analyses and predictions: the expectation (and finding) is that academic degrees of any sort ­will generate higher incomes and more social status, now on a global scale. The princi­ples of the ultimate unity of h ­ uman individuals and society, and of both with a universal and consistent nature, mean that mea­sures of pro­gress almost inevitably involve strong economistic ele­ments, as with the rise worldwide of the GDP/capita. The modern natu­ral laws make it pos­si­ble to imagine an individual and social life dominated by notions of efficiency.53 But ­there is a counterweight ­here, b ­ ecause modernity involves the ultimate validation of the ­human individual and individual welfare. Thus, it is not GDP but GDP/ capita that becomes the standard baseline mea­sure of development. And now even GDP/capita is, in most schemes, to be accompanied by more humanized and environmentally sensitive gauges of equality, satisfaction, competence, empowerment, and the like: such ideas are incorporated into the vari­ous indices of ­human development.54 Rationalization and Professionalization in the Knowledge Society As the discussion above makes clear, rationalized analyses produce an enormous array of general standards and princi­ples and mea­sures in the knowledge society. ­Every sector of social life comes ­under analy­sis, and in ­every sector formalized mea­sures arise: economic, educational, work satisfaction, health and accident rates, voter participation, and so on and on. The machinery of the knowledge system—­its rationalizing analyses and its rationalizing professional experts—­enable the proliferation of mea­sures. So the university may produce both the knowledge and the knowledge holding professionals. But professionalization, as we discussed in chapter 3, goes far beyond the application of some rationalized (often economistic) mea­sures. As the knowledge society penetrates more domains such as law or accounting and more substantive areas such as health and education, its claims extend beyond the demonstrably functional into g­ reat arenas of invisibility or semi-­visibility: into a meta-­reality of meta-­life. ­Here, the educational system and the professions and professionals it creates go beyond the management of mea­sur­able rationalization—­they begin to substitute for it. In many such arenas the existence of the professional, or the existence of vari­ous professionalized pro­cesses, is the only proof that something legitimate and valuable happened. The physician should be paid and the procedures covered even if the patient dies. A CEO may be entitled to a multi-­million-­dollar parachute even if the com­pany goes bankrupt.

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Thus, the professions have become a major occupational category worldwide, and a dominant one in more developed countries (see chapter 3). In the United States, professionals made up about 4 ­percent of the ­labor force in 1900, about 9 ­percent in 1950, and about 23 ­percent in 2000. In addition, the category of man­ag­ers and officials, many of whom would be called professionals, went from 4 ­percent in 1950 to 11 ­percent in 2000. And “other ser­vices” occupations, many with professional properties, went from 8 ­percent to 13 ­percent. Similar changes characterize a broad range of countries in the world, and are by no means restricted to developed countries, as shown in data from 35 countries in 1990, 2000, and 2010 from the International ­Labour Organ­ization (2015) in ­table 7.2. In ­every country, the percentage of professionals rises between 1990 and 2010; in some countries, the percentage doubles, ­triples, and more. Beyond raw expansion, professionalization characterizes a dramatic and worldwide shift in social stratification. In all studied socie­ties around the world, the status order reflects education more than po­liti­cal or economic dimensions.55 In con­temporary socie­ties, the largest single f­ actor in an individual’s status is education, followed by occupation (whose status rests principally on education). So education comes to be the central and dominating component of stratification.56 Educational systems around the world are known to be relatively homogeneous in curricula and achievement criteria57—­much more than are economic or po­liti­cal dimensions of society. Thus, the stratification systems of the world’s knowledge socie­ties increasingly become a single stratification order, facilitating a ­great deal of global and transnational orga­nizational integration and mobilization (and sometimes conflict). This is clearly understood by the populist critics arising around the world. They or­ga­nize their re­sis­tance against the authority of the schooled elites operating at global levels, and only secondarily against dominant cap­i­tal­ist forces or supra-­national po­liti­cal structures. Professionalization, in considering occupational and stratification systems, has a number of meanings, all of which ultimately involve education. First, the professional’s activity is likely to be assigned substantial value in society at large: one may appreciate the help of a counseling friend, but the counsel of a proper professional therapist has a real price. This implies, second, that in the con­temporary Knowledge Society, this value is likely to be substantially defined in terms of money. And thus, third, the professional assistance comes to be seen as part of the local and national economy, and to enter the calculations of the gross national (and world) product in much the same way as a pork belly or a pair of shoes. In all ­these ways, the knowledge society differs from ­earlier modern socie­ ties, which had more restricted conceptions of the economy and value. In an older world, professionals (priests, doctors, officials, or teachers) often commanded relatively ­little money but ­great re­spect and deference. Professional

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Professionals as Percentage of the ­Labor Force in 35 Countries at Three Points in Time (ISCO-88) ­TABLE 7.2.

Bahamas Barbados Belgium Belize Bolivia Canada Czech Republic Denmark El Salvador Estonia France Germany Greece Hong Kong Hungary Iceland India Ireland Israel Italy ­Korea South Luxembourg Mexico Netherlands New Zealand Poland Portugal Romania Singapore Slovakia Slovenia Spain Switzerland Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom Average

1990

2000

2010

8.1 8.3 17.7 1.6 3.6 13.4 9.2 11.8 3 13.2 13.4 10.4 11.3 4.5 10.8 11.8 1.8 14.8 11.5 8.7 4.6 9.2 2.8 15.3 12.5 9.4 6.6 6.1 4.5 9.6 5.4 9.3 11.5 1.2 7.9 9.4 9

16.7 10.6 18.5 2.5 2.9 15.8 10.9 13 3.6 13.6 10.5 12.7 11.7 5.7 11.7 13.8 1.9 15.1 13.9 10.3 6.6 15.9 5.9 16.6 12.9 10.9 7.1 6.4 10.6 10.2 11.2 11.9 15.7 12.7 8.1 16.1 11.3

20.9 11.4 20.4 4.4 7.2 19 12.7 24.9 3.9 19.5 16.7 17.3 17.7 6.4 15.8 22.9 3.8 21.7 15.8 13.2 9.4 33 6.8 22.5 16.8 17.3 14.2 14 13.7 11.6 19.5 16 22.9 17.1 14.1 23.8 16.2

ser­vices ­were not seen to contribute to a gross national product, but clearly represented nonmonetized and noneconomic forms of virtue. But the valuation, including economic valuation, of professional ser­ vices is often difficult and unclear. We can understand that pork bellies and shoes are valued at market prices, or sometimes in terms of very real

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production costs (built on market prices for l­ abor, and market prices for the commodities needed in production). How is the value of the professional to be established? The prob­lem ­here is that the ser­vice of the professional is essentially by definition at least partly invisible. Pork bellies and shoes exist, and producing them involves vis­i­ble and clear activities. But it is often very unclear, at least in any demonstrable material way, that a professional is actually producing a ser­vice of value. Perhaps the con­sul­tant gives useless advice, the doctor a meaningless diagnosis or treatment, or the teacher an in­effec­tive instruction. And even if the patient or client is pleased with the ser­vice, how are we to identify this ser­vice as contributing a definite amount to the product of an organ­ization or the GDP of a society? The prob­lem is compounded by the fact that, as discussed above, ­whole sectors of the knowledge society and economy are principally composed of ser­vices that are hard to define in clear terms. And they are even more difficult to assess in terms of economic or monetary standards of value. But in real­ity, the same difficulties arise in the monetarized commodity economy. As ­great business firms are principally staffed by ­people who do no physical work (e.g., man­ag­ers), it is very unclear how value should be assigned. In the knowledge society, all ­these ­things are seen as contributing to the generalized index of productivity—­the GDP—­but how are ­these contributions to be assessed? The answer is that the contributions of professionals specifically, and most sectors of the knowledge society in general, are assessed in terms of financial costs rather than clear mea­sur­able benefits. In all cases, university education plays a very central role. It can help specify who provides the putative ser­vice, why the ser­vice is valuable, what the value of the ser­vice is, and how much this value amounts to in monetary terms. Thus, education becomes a core ele­ment of the knowledge society. It validates the collective institutional structure of this society and the stratification system of individuals within this society. The meanings involved are both global standards describing all the national socie­ties of the world. In the centers of the world, of course, terms like education and development are entirely common public currency: Organ­izations like the OECD, the World Bank, or the Eu­ro­ pean Union, promulgate them constantly. U.S. officials routinely emphasize them. The Eu­ro­pe­ans, at Bologna and Lisbon and elsewhere, made it an official goal to become the world’s leading knowledge economy. Asian commitments have a similarly public character. But in the Third World, too, competing in the world’s knowledge economy is a core goal.58 Most impressively, the con­ temporary integrated criteria of overall value—­centrally the national and world GDP/capita and closely related indices—­are everywhere employed as master mea­sures of social advancement and pro­gress.

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­Future Prospects We have emphasized that the postwar dominance of a liberal order as an ­imagined image of a global society rooted in shared knowledge and massive schooling has some properties of a binge—an expansion far beyond what might reasonably be seen as realistic or functional. The expansion seems to have been especially explosive in the hyper-­modern period of neoliberal triumphalism following the end of the Cold War. In the most recent years (partly spurred by the ­Great Recession of 2008), more and more criticisms arise. They attack the global f­ ree markets as generating gross inequalities and imbalances of power that block pro­gress. They attack institutions of democracy and the rule of law as broken, inept, and in­effec­tive in producing justice. We may suppose that in the ­future the standardized global educational system—­and in par­tic­u­lar the university—­will come u ­ nder increasing attacks and pressures for modification. A ­ fter all, the w ­ hole rise of the university since medieval times, the expansion over the period of modernity, and the explosive hyper-­modern expansion on which we focus in this book have all taken place against oppositions. ­These have been rooted variously in religious alternatives, in nationalist po­liti­cal claims to solidarity, and in a wide variety of local cultural (and po­liti­cal and economic) frames. Quite naturally, the university, with its exaggerated visions of the authority of universalized knowledge, has always been the focus of contention. It seems reasonable to envision, thus, a worldwide wave of oppositions to the authority of the university to define dominant knowledge and personnel. Some may be rooted in resurgent notions of the authority of the national state. ­Others w ­ ill prob­ably reflect rising religious solidarities. Still ­others may reassert ethnic or cultural frames.59 More interestingly, some forms of re­sis­tance may reflect forms of individualism disconnected from schooling and the standardizing knowledge system. Con­temporary individuals have world-­certified rights to their own religious and cultural understandings,60 and that includes the assertion of rather extreme forms of subjective knowledge. This can provide bases for p ­ eople and groups to evade the w ­ hole apparatus of scientific knowledge and formal education, with arrangements for validating shared subjective knowledge—­prob­ably producing a variety of schooling-­like arrangements divorced from the standardized world educational stratification system. In the same way, we might imagine the rise of frames of subjective knowledge linked to conceptions of nature and the earth relatively disconnected from scientific analy­sis and from the educational system. Thus, both extreme individualism, and extreme beliefs about the natu­ral (including ­human) world, can support oppositions to present-­day educational arrangements and stratification systems linked to ­those arrangements.

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Such oppositions, however, may only partly be in diametrical contrast to pre­sent education. They may well take the form of extensions and modifications of con­temporary education. It seems very clear that objections to features of education seen as too prison-­like are very common in the world, with common assertions of individual artistic and other forms of creativity. And it seems clear that entirely rationalized conceptions of the world and of nature are often qualified by normative and aesthetic judgments. A search for the true nature of the ­human mind and person—­often focused on the brain—is obviously part of con­temporary culture and can provide bases for alternative forms of ­human socialization and development. Conclusion In the post-­War world, leading socie­ties—­and dominant models of society—­ have moved past modernities focused on expanded and improved agricultural and industrial production. In all types of countries around the world, the most rapidly expanding components are t­ hose closely linked to schooling and the university: t­ hese are the occupations that expand most rapidly, and they dominate stratification systems everywhere. Seen in economistic terms—­though most of them are far removed from any notion of a commodity economy—­they make up the exploding “ser­v ice sectors” of the world. A core feature of the occupations and activities involved is that they are professionalized, with both content and personnel involved produced by the university. Thus we arrive at the Knowledge Society, in which schooled knowledge is centrally valued (and paid), and in which it is thought to be key to the production of all of social and economic pro­gress. ­Every aspect of valued societal structure, and growth in this structure, is seen as a product of education, and especially of the university. Key f­ actors in social growth are no longer ­labor, capital, or land: growth results from the “innovations” and “entrepreneurship” produced or facilitated by the university. The key to pro­gress is thought to be found in the creation of something called “world-­class universities”—­a concept very widespread in the con­ temporary world. A ­great many countries have policies to create or expand their populations of world-­class universities, and universities in general. ­Every dimension of social improvement, most incorporated in vari­ous mea­sures of nominally “economic” growth, w ­ ill be positively affected, it is understood, by such improvements.61 All ­these developments, as we have stressed, rest on a range of cultural assumptions that took force in the period following World War II, and especially in the more recent neoliberal period following the end of the Cold War. And all of them reflect a visionary movement transcending immediate po­liti­cal

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and economic functional arrangements. Involved is a picture of a global ­human society of empowered and equal persons—­a picture at g­ reat odds with actualities of extreme in­equality and asymmetry. Also involved is a progressive picture of social and economic development rooted in scientific analyses—­a picture at g­ reat odds with an ecosystem posing dramatic limitations on continued h ­ uman social expansion, and a world polity of arbitrary and maldistributed power. The cultural assumptions at root here are not irrevocable, obviously. And neither is the preeminence of the university.

NOTES

Chapter 1. The University as a World Institution 1. By liberal we mean models of national society as driven by the choices of participating actors—­commonly individuals. By neoliberal we mean the globalization or universalization of such models. See Ruggie (1982, 1998) for the distinction, and Jepperson (2002) for an elaboration. 2. Meyer et al. 2007. 3. Krücken and Drori 2009; Meyer 2010. 4. Berger 1967. 5. Meyer et al. 1997; Frank and Meyer 2002, 2007; Krücken and Drori 2009. 6. Shils 1958. 7. Shils 1958; Jaspers 1960. 8. Some recent work highlights the university’s extensive relationship to local communities (Douglass 2016; Musselin 2017). But, of course, the local communities in ­these studies are glocal (Robertson 1992, 2012), seeing themselves as distinct local instances of the universal. 9. The periods h ­ ere break with the end of the Enlightenment (around 1800), the end of World War II (1945), and the end of the Cold War (1990). In this book, we sometimes also refer to a post-2010 period, a­ fter the ­Great Recession, distinguished by anti-­liberalism, pop­ul­ ism, and nationalism. 10. LeVine et al. 2012. 11. Gibbons et al. 1994. 12. Meyer et al. 1997. 13. Wilensky 1964. 14. E.g., Bell 1973. 15. Classically, Clark 1983. 16. Mangset 2009; Sin 2012; see also Swidler and Arditi 1994. 17. Etzkowitz 2008. 18. Meyer and Rowan 1977. 19. Readings 1996; Kirp 2003. 20. As in Slaughter and Leslie 1997. 21. As in Lowen 1997. 22. As in Arum and Roksa 2011. 23. Gibbons et al. 1994. 24. Elliott 2007, 2011, 2014; Stacy 2009; Lauren 2011. 25. Stinchcombe 1965. 26. Frank and Meyer 2002. 27. Meyer and Jepperson 2000; Hwang and Colyvas 2014. 28. Meyer and Tarrow 1997; Drori, Meyer, and Hwang 2006; Bromley and Meyer 2015. 29. E.g., Treiman 1977; Buchmann and Hannum 2001.

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30. Abbott (1988: 8) loosely defines professions as “exclusive occupational groups applying somewhat abstract knowledge to par­tic­u­lar cases.” The definition highlights the relationship between university expansion and the professionalization of every­one (Wilensky 1964). 31. The World Toilet Organ­ization (WTO) seeks to improve toilet and sanitation conditions worldwide. Founded in 2001, the WTO now has 151 member organ­izations in 53 countries, working to eliminate the toilet taboo and deliver sustainable sanitation. Among other activities, the WTO organizes the World Toilet Summits and World Toilet Expo. The World Toilet College, affiliated with Singapore Polytechnic, was established in 2005 to develop best practices and standards in toilet design, cleanliness, and sanitation. It offers six programs to professionalize the rest­room industry: Rest­room Specialist, National Skills Recognition, Sustainable Sanitation, Rest­room Design, School Sanitation and Hygiene Education, and Disaster and Emergency Sanitation. 32. Foucault 1978; Miller and Rose 2008. 33. E.g., World Bank 2000. 34. Jakobi 2011. 35. Frank and Gabler 2006. 36. Gibbons et al. 1994; Böhme and Stehr 1986; Castells 1997; Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff 1997; Drucker 1998; Hoffman and Välimaa 2016. 37. Baker 2014. 38. Buchmann and Hannum 2001. 39. Cf. Schofer, Ramirez, and Meyer 2000. 40. Schofer, Lerch, and Meyer 2018. 41. See http://­www​.­protectingeducation​.­org​/­. Last accessed June 2019. 42. Meyer and Jepperson 2000. 43. Ortega y Gasset 1944. 44. Moberly 1949. 45. Kerr 1963. 46. Lenhardt and Stock 2000; Stock 2003; Baker, Koehler, and Stock 2004. 47. Becker 1962. 48. Boudon 1974; Bourdieu and Passeron 1977; Collins 1979. 49. Dore 1976. 50. Freeman 1976. 51. Collins 1979. 52. Ben-­David and Zlockzower 1962. 53. New York Times, Nov. 1, 1931: 56; our italics. Still more surprising in retrospect, one authoritative group advised dutiful parents to temper the educational aspirations of their ­children based on their employment prospects. Re­sis­tance to the higher education of ­women arose ­earlier on dif­ fer­ent grounds. One main argument hinged on the Spencerian notion that higher education would siphon off the best ­women from their reproductive calling. “To speak plainly, ­children have become, to many w ­ omen, a nuisance, or at least unwelcome beings of an alien domestic world which years of intellectual training have unfitted the college ­woman to like or understand” (Wells 1909: 737). 54. The Google Ngram Viewer is an online search engine that charts the frequencies of search terms by year found in English-­language sources printed between 1500 and 2008 in Google’s text corpora. 55. Shavit and Blossfeld 1993; World Bank 2000; Barro and Lee 2013. 56. Chabbott and Ramirez 2000; Schofer and Meyer 2005: Ramirez et al. 2006; Schofer, Ramirez, and Meyer 2016. 57. Berg 1970; but also see Baker 2014. 58. The common refrain that writing and logical reasoning are basic job skills makes sense only in the context of the knowledge society. In industrial or agricultural circumstances, writing and reasoning are not basic job skills.

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59. Musselin 2004. 60. Ben-­David and Zlockzower 1962. 61. In 1893, Gabriel Compayré, rector of l’Université de Lyon, submitted a study of higher education in the United States to an educational congress at the Columbian Exposition. He noted with dismay: “Any institution, however small its pretensions, where Latin and mathe­matics are taught, does not hesitate to give itself the pompous title of university. This g­ reat name has become vulgarized and almost dishonored by the g­ reat number and the mediocrity of some of the institutions which have assumed it. Th ­ ere are many pseudo-­universities which have nothing, or almost nothing, to do with higher education. . . . ​A glance over the list of ­these 125 or 130 so-­called universities [in the United States] is sufficient to show that the distinction between secondary and higher education is not clearly established” (Bureau of Education 1897: 1153–1154). 62. E.g., Finke and Stark 2005. 63. Chroust 1965. 64. Hundert 1994. 65. Clark 2006. 66. Anderson 1983; Meyer, Boli, and Thomas 1987. 67. Robertson 1992. 68. Hironaka 2005. 69. Elliott 2011. 70. Meyer, Ramirez, and Soysal 1992. 71. Drori et al. 2003. 72. Boli 2018. 73. Brint 2002. 74. See Frank and Gabler 2006. If the sciences and social sciences focus on knowledge and its accumulation and transmission, we need a term that focuses on the uses of knowledge in society—­perhaps “socio-­sciences” ­will do to depict the expanding schools of business, engineering, education, medicine, and other professions, which aim directly to build ­human infrastructure and institutions. 75. Meyer et al. 1997; Krücken and Drori 2009. 76. Chabbott 2003.

Chapter 2. The Worldwide Instantiation of the University 1. Meyer and Rowan 1977; Strang and Meyer 1993. 2. It is likewise characteristic to understate the cultural under­pinnings of the con­temporary knowledge society, as emphasized in chapter 7, and to dismiss culture as an archaic feature of premodern or primitive socie­ties, now replaced by “real­ity” (Meyer 1988a). 3. Olsen (2007) makes a related distinction between the university as instrument and the university as institution. 4. Meyer and Rowan 1977. 5. Shin, Toutkoushian, and Teichler 2011; Brankovic, Ringel, and Werron 2018. 6. Musselin 2009. 7. Boer, Enders, and Schimank 2007. The Bologna Pro­cess refers to a series of meetings and agreements, begun in 1999, to harmonize and standardize institutions of higher education across Eu­rope. As of 2014, ­there ­were 47 participating countries (e.g., Huisman et al. 2012). In real­ity, however, the pro­cess influences policy developments almost everywhere in the world. A worldwide version of the Bologna Pro­cess is now emerging at UNESCO. The Convention on the Recognition of Higher Education Qualifications would smooth academic mobility worldwide. The broadly neoliberal New Public Management reforms promote markets, competition, empowered management, and outcomes assessment.

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8. Krücken and Meier 2006; Bromley and Meyer 2015. 9. Riddle 1993; Schofer and Meyer 2005; International Association of Universities 2016. 10. Riddle (1993), with data derived from other sources, shows very slow growth from 1200 to 1500. 11. De Ridder-­Symoens 2003. 12. Haveman 1993. 13. See https://­www​.­neche​.­org​/r­ esources​/s­ tandards​-­for​-a­ ccreditation​/­. Last accessed June 2019. 14. Meyer and Rowan 1977. 15. Zajac and Kraatz 1993. 16. Riddle 1993. 17. E.g., de Ridder-­Symoens 2003. 18. Podolny, Stuart, and Hannan 1996. 19. During periods of more intense centralization, the faculties scattered throughout France ­were conceived as ele­ments of a single national (imperial) university (Musselin 2004). 20. The third proto-­university in our sample did not completely follow the path of convergence. It is Bryn Mawr College of Pennsylvania. Bryn Mawr was an elite private liberal arts college for w ­ omen at the initial drawing of our sample in 1895, and that remains its dominant identity. But in addition to its 1300 undergraduate ­women, present-­day Bryn Mawr enrolls some 400 male and female gradu­ate students across a range of gradu­ate and post-­baccalaureate programs: it looks like a small university. 21. The founding dates come from https://­germanystudy​.­net​/­56/ and https://­mitstory​.­mit​ .­edu​/­mit​-­highlights​-­timeline. Last accessed June 2019. 22. See http://­www​.­webometrics​.­info​/­en​/­About​_­Us. Last accessed June 2019. 23. E.g., Schofer and Meyer 2005. 24. Brankovic 2018. 25. Zapp and Ramirez 2019. 26. Souto-­Otero et al. 2013. 27. Kosmützky and Krücken 2014; Kosmützky and Putty 2016; Kosmützky 2018. 28. Marginson 2007; Ramirez 2010; Wedlin 2011. 29. Altbach and Salmi 2011; Shin and Kehm 2013. 30. Wilson 1998. 31. Napoleon demonstrated his enthusiasm for utilitarianism “when he closed the universities. He then chose to increase the number of vocational schools and institutions of specialised studies for practical professions (grandes écoles). The purpose of t­ hese grandes écoles was to generate and utilise scientific knowledge for practical purposes” (Holm 2011: 26). 32. See http://­en​.­w ikipedia​.­org​/­w iki​/­List​_­of​_­universities​_­in​_­Ukraine. Last accessed July 2019. 33. E.g., Schweber 2006; Fourcade 2009; Mangset 2009. 34. Stinchcombe 1965. 35. Frank and Gabler 2006. 36. ­These data come from the World Higher Education Database Online, found at whed​.­net. 37. For a general discussion of the difficulties such colleges have in maintaining distinctiveness, see A. Meyer 2009. 38. Most famously, Clark 1983. 39. Enders 2004; Musselin 2005; Bleiklie and Kogan 2007; Shin and Harmon 2009. 40. A. Meyer 2009. 41. Washburn 2005. 42. E.g., Cole 2006; Cole 2012. 43. E.g., Mangset 2009; Sin 2012; Bowen and Tobin 2015.

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44. Teichler 2007; Hermanowicz 2018. 45. Furuta 2019. 46. E.g., Hairston 2015. 47. Broucker and De Wit 2015. 48. Krücken and Meier 2006; Enders, Kehm, and Schimank 2015. 49. Recently even law school curricula—­which necessarily involve much attention to domestic ­matters—­are homogenizing and globalizing (Szto 2003). 50. Meyer et al. 1997. 51. Ramirez, Bromley, and Russell 2009; Frank, Robinson, and Olesen 2011.

Chapter 3. The University Population in World Society and University Organ­izations 1. Meyer et al. 1997. 2. Clark 2006; Wellmon 2015. 3. E.g., Massey et al. 2003; Arum and Roksa 2011; McDaniel et al. 2011. 4. Scott and Davis 2007; Baker 2014. 5. Meyer and Jepperson 2000; Meyer et al. 2007; Baker 2014; Hwang and Colyvas 2014. 6. Many professions require members to participate in continuing education in order to maintain licensure. 7. Jacob 1957; Arum and Roksa 2011. 8. Feldman and Newcomb 1969; Pascarella and Terenzini 1991. 9. Blau and Ducan 1967, chap. 5; Hyman, Wright, and Reed 1975; Kamens 2012; Baker 2014. 10. Wyatt and Hecker 2006; see also Brint 1993; P. Meyer 2009; Johnston 2012. 11. Han 1995. 12. Oesch and Menes 2010. 13. See also Aoyama and Castells 2002. 14. Holland 1904. 15. Jarausch 2004. 16. Collins 1979; Drucker 2001. 17. Schofer and Meyer 2005. 18. The data ­here come from the Unesco Institute of Statistics at http://­data​.­uis​.­unesco​.­org​/­. Last accessed June 2019. 19. Davis and Mackintosh 2011. 20. Altbach, Reisberg, and Rumbley 2009: vii–­viii. 21. Schofer and Meyer 2005; World Bank 2017. 22. Longer-­term historical data are even more impressive, but they are not systematically available for many countries. In the United States, for instance, only 2 ­percent of 18-­to 24-­year-­olds ­were enrolled in higher education in the year 1900, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. By 2014, the percentage had risen to 40. 23. See http://­postdocs​.­stanford​.­edu and http://­research​.­ukzn​.­ac​.­za​/­postdoc​-­at​-­a​-­glance​ /­postdocataglancepdrf​.­aspx. Last accessed June 2019. 24. Trow 2007. 25. Meyer 1988b; Buchmann 1989. 26. For example, a nonaccredited high school could request an official accreditation review. “The High-­School Visitor of the University, on request, inspects high schools not previously accredited, if the request is accompanied by a report of the school which shows that it merits such inspection. The University accredits all work which is thus found to be sufficiently well done” (University of Illinois Annual Register 1921–1922, page 71).

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27. Boli, Ramirez, and Meyer 1985; Meyer, Ramirez, and Soysal 1992. The ­people mover works not only by amassing students onto the ladder but also by keeping them on the ladder, in part by replacing high-­stakes exams with flexible course credits (Shedd 2003; Furata 2019). 28. Schofer and Meyer 2005. 29. Rosenthal 1969; Stone 1974. 30. Howitt 1847: 311. 31. De Witt 1961; Marucci and Johnstone 2007. 32. Marcucci and Johnstone 2007. 33. Brint and Karabel 1989: 9. Almost half the world’s recent constitutions enshrine a right to higher education for all, and this often means f­ ree education (Heymann, Raub, and Cassola 2014). 34. For example, “The bottleneck to tertiary education in Germany is the Abitur. This is the qualifying exam taken a­ fter four years of primary education and eight to nine years of general secondary education—­the latter usually completed at the Gymnasium. . . . ​­W hether the significance of social class or other characteristics of social origin for tertiary education attainment w ­ ill change over time depends largely on two pro­cesses: social selectivity along the way to the Abitur, and social selectivity in the type of further study pursued and successfully completed a­ fter the Abitur” (Mayer, Müller, and Pollak 2007: 246–247). 35. E.g., Wells, Sandefur, and Hogan 2003; Powell 2006. 36. Torre and Fine 2005; Knott 2011. 37. Gröning 2014. 38. See https://­www​.­insidehighered​.­com​/­quicktakes​/­2015​/­07​/­20​/­u​-­o slo​-­admits​-­mass​ -­murderer. Last accessed June 2019. 39. Teichler 2004. 40. Altbach, Reisberg, and Rumbley 2009. The U.S. in 2016 hosted more than 1,000,000 international students and sent more than 300,000 students abroad. See https://­www​.­iie​.­org​/­en​ /­Research​-­and​-­Insights​/­Open​-­Doors. Last accessed June 2019. 41. Kosmützky and Putty 2016; Erkkilä and Piironen 2017. 42. Frank and Meyer 2002. According to Lenhardt (2002: 274), “The normative concept of academic universalism is an offspring of the Christian universalistic ethics. As St. Paul put it in his letter to the Galatians (3: 28), where the Christian spirit prevails, ‘­there is no Jew nor Greek, ­there is neither bond nor f­ ree, t­ here is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.’ ” 43. Aspeland 1843: 496. 44. Before the En­glish Reformation, the chancellors of Oxford and Cambridge ­were typically officials in the Roman Catholic Church: e.g., Cambridge’s William Percy, Bishop of Carlisle (1451–56). From the En­glish Reformation all the way to 1871, none but members of the Church of ­England could serve on the governing boards. 45. Karabel 2005. 46. See http://­www​.­insidehighered​.­com​/­news​/­2006​/­01​/­1 2​/­tests​-­faith. Last accessed June 2019. 47. Maschietto 2007. 48. Morley 1941. 49. Berkovitch 1999. 50. Quoted in Mazón 2003: 125. 51. See University of the Cape of Good Hope. The Calendar, 1906–1907. 52. E.g., Ramirez and Wotipka 2001; Wotipka, Nakagawa, and Svec 2018. 53. For the German case, see Hüther and Krücken 2018. 54. E.g., DiPrete and Buchmann 2013. The Toulouse comparison involves the University of Toulouse in the early period and the University of Toulouse II in the ­later period. The original

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university split into three in 1970. The extent of past segregation is extreme and surprising to a con­temporary observer. For example, the University of Illinois Annual Register 1921–1922 listed a total of 270 professors: 262 men and 8 ­women (p. 536). 55. Bradley 2000; Charles and Bradley 2009; but see Ramirez and Kwak 2015. 56. See http://­www​.­uned​.a­ c​.­cr​/­acontecer​/­index​.­php​/­a-​ d ­ iario​/­sociedad​/­2291​-­uned​-­se​-­une​-­a​ -­la​-­celebracion​-­del​-d ­ ia​-­nacional​-­contra​-­la​-­homofobia​-­la​-­lesbofobia​-­y-​ ­la​-­transfobia. Last accessed June 2019. With sexual and gender minorities, one sees both sides of a two-­sided pro­cess: the classification or social construction of more kinds of ­people in society and the incorporation of more kinds of ­people into the university. 57. In some contexts, the university has also disqualified p ­ eople on the basis of race and ethnicity. This is true in the U.S. and elsewhere, where universities once deemed ­people of color ineligible for entry. The post–­Civil War rise of black colleges in the U.S. and the more recent rise of indigenous colleges globally signal long-­term steps t­ oward barrier-­leveling universalization (Allen and Jewell 2002; Cole 2011). 58. Frank and Meyer 2002; Ramirez, Bromley, and Russell 2009. 59. Though they proliferated more recently, nondiscrimination clauses are not altogether new. Already in 1889, the University of Wisconsin declared: “The University recognizes no distinctions of race, color or sex” (p. 41, Cata­logue of the University of Wisconsin 1889–90). 60. See https://­w ww​.­w its​ .­a c​.­z a​/­m edia​/­w its​ -­u niversity​/­s tudents​/­g ender​-­e quity​-­a nd​ -­tolerance​/­documents​/A ­ nti​-D ­ iscrimination%20Policy%20and%20Procedures​.­pdf, http://­www​ .­ceu​.­hu​/­non​-­discrimination, http://­cam​.­illinois​.­edu​/­ix​/­ix​-­b​/­ix​-­b​-­1​.­htm, http://­www​.u ­ v​.m ­ x​/­uvi​ /­files​/­2013​/­03​/­guia​_­NO​_­discriminacion​.­pdf. Last accessed June 2019. 61. In the U.S., the 1974 F ­ amily Education Rights and Privacy Act prohibits the posting of grades by student names, student IDs, or social security numbers. 62. Thanks to Grégoire Croidieu and Grégoire Mallard for help in interpreting French medals of merit. The rise of personhood also means that more and more ­people may contribute ­toward common research enterprises. A 2000 article in The Astronomical Journal lists 144 authors. While the example is extreme, it represents a general trend. 63. Meyer and Jepperson 2000; Hwang and Colyvas 2014. 64. Geiger 2017. While a growing research orientation characterizes virtually all universities around the world over time, what counts as research may vary from context to context (Sin 2012). 65. Etzkowitz 2003. 66. Kamens and McNeely 2009. 67. E.g., the University of Illinois lists more than 1,800 student organ­izations. See http://­union​ .­illinois​.­edu​/­get​-­involved​/­office​-­of​-­registered​-­organizations. Last accessed July 2019. 68. See http://­www​.­sciencespo​.­fr​/­students​/­en​/­get​-­involved​/­associations​/­directory​/­paris. Last accessed June 2019. 69. Gambetta and Hertog 2016. 70. Baker 2014.

Chapter 4. The Societal Culture of University Knowledge 1. Robertson 2012. 2. Clark 1983. 3. It is impor­tant to note that generic need not mean general. Courses on the History of the Germans up to the Carolinians (offered at Heidelberg in the early 20th ­century) or the History of Sociability and Gender (offered at Toulouse II in the early 21st c­ entury) offer quite par­tic­u­lar portals on quite universal truths.

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4. E.g., Schott 1993; Drori et al. 2003; P. Meyer 2013. 5. Robertson 2012. 6. Commissioner of ­Labor. 1911. Industrial Education. Twenty-­Fifth Annual Report of the Commissioner of ­Labor 1910. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office. 7. Eichhorst, Rodríguez-­Planas, Schmidl, and Zimmerman (2012: 8) pre­sent data showing “some decline in vocational educational enrollment in many countries over time.” 8. A Honeycrisp is an apple developed at the University of Minnesota’s Horticultural Research Center. Patented in 1988 and released in 1991, the Honeycrisp is prized for its sweetness, firmness, and tartness. “The Honeycrisp apple’s name says it all! Pleasantly crisp, sweet and juicy, this popu­lar apple features a beautiful bright red skin mottled with pale green. Its complex flavor is subtly tart. . . . ​Honeycrisp apples burst with juice with ­every bite.” As the description makes clear, the Honeycrisp is far from the land of compost and bees. See https://­bestapples​.­com​/­varieties​ -­information​/­varieties​/­. Last accessed July 2019. 9. The full article, by Emmarie Huetteman, may be found at https://­www​.­nytimes​.­com​/­2015​ /­08​/­29​/­world​/­europe​/­death​-­of​-­knut​-­the​-­polar​-­bear​-­is​-­explained​-­at​-­last​.­html. Last accessed August 2019. From The New York Times. © 2015 The New York Times Com­pany. All rights reserved. Used ­under license. 10. The remaining professorships w ­ ere distributed between liberal arts (six) and grammar (two), which also inclined t­ oward theological m ­ atters. Medieval Eu­ro­pean scholars assumed that ancient philosophy contained keys to God’s original dispensation of knowledge. It was this idea that legitimated the study of ancient texts. 11. The historical details come from Université de Toulouse Guide de l’Étudiant Année Scolaire 1951–52, pp. 5–6. 12. For more than a de­cade during the revolutionary period, from 1793 to 1808, the French Revolution suppressed the French universities. They w ­ ere regarded as strongholds of aristocratic privilege. Toulouse and its peers nevertheless expanded dramatically over the long term. 13. Introducing the new Institute for Molecular Engineering at the University of Chicago, President Robert Zimmer articulated the university’s former re­sis­tance to engineering: “The long-­standing position of the University against having engineering was based on the difference between science as a study of natu­ral phenomena and engineering as the design and creation of man-­made artifacts.” See http://­mag​.­uchicago​.­edu​/­university​-­news​/­complexity​-­change​-­and​ -­educational​-­challenges. Last accessed July 2019. 14. ­These faculty data come from the 1926 edition of The Student’s Handbook to the University and Colleges of Cambridge, the 1867 and 1922 editions of The Dublin University Calendar, and the 1915 Quinquennial Cata­logue of the Officers and Gradu­ates of Harvard University 1636–1915. 15. Editor Scott Jaschik compiles the column, available at http://­www​.­insidehighered​.­com. 16. Elsewhere, we have referred to the pro­cesses h ­ ere as rationalization and ontological elaboration (Frank and Meyer 2007). 17. Falvey and Beardsley 1997; Harwood 2005. 18. Clark 2006. 19. Even U.S. universities adopt a version of the academic hierarchy. The “higher” faculties—­ theology, law, and medicine—­are typically studied at the gradu­ate level, while philosophy, the “lower” faculty, is typically covered by the undergraduate liberal arts. 20. See https://­www​.­unibas​.­ch​/­en​/­Faculties​-­Departments~type​=3­ af72669–449c-​ ­4795–95df​ -­c4c414f32b7d~​.­html. Last accessed July 2019. 21. Brint et al. 2009; Jacobs and Frickel 2009. 22. See https://­www​.­s fgate​.­c om​/­b ayarea​/­a rticle​/­Stanford​-­s​ -­o dd​-­c ouples​ -­m odel​-­f or​ -­innovation​-­2469595​.­php. Last accessed July 2019.

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Chapter 5. The ­Human Actor and the Expansion of Academic Knowledge 1. E.g., ­Binder 2004; Rojas 2010. 2. E.g., Frank et al. 2000; Frank and Gabler 2006; Bromley, Meyer, and Ramirez 2011; Robinson 2011; Suárez and Bromely 2012. 3. Meyer 2010. 4. Stevens, Miller-­Idriss, and Shami 2018. 5. Anderson 1983. 6. Meyer and Jepperson 2000. 7. Meyer 2010. 8. Elliott 2007, 2011; Stacy 2009; Lauren 2011. Only a few limits remain that constrain the universal formal distribution of individual actorhood. For example, the very young, the very old, and the greatly disabled still may be denied the full trappings of actorhood on grounds of ­legal incompetence (Spaak 2005). 9. E.g., Meyer et al. 1997. 10. Drori and Moon 2006; Frank and Gabler 2006. 11. Readings 1996. 12. Frank et al. 2000. 13. Blau 1970. 14. Clark 2006. 15. Cf. Drori et al. 2003. 16. Brint et al. 2005. 17. Cf. Brint 2002 on the U.S. case. 18. Frank and Meyer 2002; Frickel and Gross 2005. 19. “More than 900 four-­year colleges and universities [in the U.S.] allow students to develop their own programs of study with an adviser’s help.” See https://­www​.­wsj​.­com​/­articles​/­SB10001 424052748703628204575618622095004264. Last accessed July 2019. 20. Robinson 2011. 21. See http://­www​.­cu​.­ucr​.­ac​.­cr​/­normativ​/­estudio​_­independiente​.­pdf. Last accessed July 2019. Translation: at the University of Costa Rica, in­de­pen­dent study is a system of study that gives students the primary responsibility for learning according to their own potential, characteristics, experiences, and needs. It is about encouraging students to make the most of their own resources. 22. Also, students face fewer standardizing exams, including matriculation and degree exams (Furata 2019), and rigid exam-­based degree programs generally give way to unit/credit degree programs. 23. The Eu­ro­pean So­cio­log­i­cal Association as of 2019 has 37 Research Networks, which are roughly analogous to the sections of the American So­cio­log­i­cal Association. See https://­www​ .­europeansociology​.­org​/­research​-­networks and https://­www​.­asanet​.­org​/­asa​-­communities​/­asa​ -­sections. Last accessed July 2019. 24. Brint et al. 2009; Jacobs and Frickel 2009. 25. See https://­www​.­udlap​.­mx​/­ofertaacademica​/­files​/­Catalogo​_­de​_­cursos​.­pdf. Last accessed July 2019. 26. Engwall 1998; Sahlin-­Andersson and Engwall 2002. 27. Haber, Kennedy, and Krasner 1997; see also Frank et al. 2000. 28. See http://­www​.­universityofcalicut​.­info​/­cuonline​/­exnotif​/­ex5488​.­pdf. Last accessed July 2019. 29. Meyer and Jepperson 2000.

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30. Bromley and Meyer 2015; Meyer, Pope, and Isaac­son 2015. 31. Miller and Rose 2008. 32. Meyer and Jepperson 2000.

Chapter 6. The Expanded University and the Knowledge Society: Linkages and Bound­aries 1. Delanty 2001; Drucker 2001. 2. E.g., Held and Koenig-­Archibugi 2005. 3. Baker 1994; Coleman 2010. 4. Meyer, Boli, and Thomas 1987. 5. Ben-­David and Zloczower 1962; Boudon 1974; Freeman 1975; Dore 1976; Collins 1979. In some circumstances, po­liti­cal controls on the university ­were explicated in detail. The 1889 Nouveau Guide de l’Étudiant en Droit for l’Université de Paris (pp. 57–58) lays out the following punishments for acts of disrespect or insubordination, disciplinary violations, acts contrary to the scholarly order, criminal acts, and acts causing social disorder: (1) Public reprimand. (2) Temporary closure of a faculty or school. (3) Temporary deprivation of the right to register or take exams. (4) Permanent closure of a faculty or school. (5) Temporary closure of all faculties and schools in France. (6) Permanent closure of all faculties and schools in France. Notice only the first punishment inflicts individual-­level penalties. The ­others targeted ­whole faculties and schools. The hyperbole of the ultimate punishment—­permanent closure of all faculties and schools in France—­amuses only from ­great historical remove. 6. E.g., Harbison and Myers 1964; Thornton 2005. 7. Goldin and Katz 2007. 8. Becker 1962. 9. Bourdieu 1984; Coleman 1988. 10. Buckner 2017. 11. Eurydice 2007. 12. Jakobi 2007. 13. See https://­www​.­timeshighereducation​.­com​/­news​/­india​-­plans​-­to​-­create​-­twenty​-­world​ -­class​-­universities. Last accessed July 2019. 14. E.g., Altbach and Salmi 2011; Shin and Kehm 2013. 15. See www​.­ieche​.­com​.­sa​/­english​/­home. Last accessed July 2019. 16. Mittelman 2018. 17. Morphew and Hartley 2006. 18. Schofer, Lerch, and Meyer 2018. 19. For U.S. data, see Burning Glass 2014. 20. Burning Glass 2014. 21. Buchmann and Hannum 2001. 22. Massey et al. 2003. 23. See www.​ ­naceweb.​ ­org/​ r­ ecruiting/​ 1­ 5_​ b ­ est_​ p ­ ractices/​ ?­​ p ­ rint​=y­ es. Last accessed July 2019. 24. Lounsbury and Pollack 2001. 25. See https://­studiesabroad​.­com​/­experience​/­service​-­learning​/­program​-­locations. Last accessed July 2019. 26. See www​.­dlsu​.­edu​.­ph​/­offices​/­osa​/­occs​/­default​.­asp. Last accessed July 2019. 27. E.g., the College and University Public Relations and Associated Professionals. See https://­cuprap​.­org. Last accessed July 2019. 28. Frank and Gabler 2006. 29. Brint 2002.

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30. Frank et al. 2000. 31. The U.S. Modern Language Association finds huge increases in the study of American Sign Language, even amidst flagging aggregate language enrollments, which may reflect the rise of En­glish as a global lingua franca ( Jenkins and Leung 2013). See https://­www​.­mla​.­org​/­content​ /­download​/­83540​/­2197676​/­2016​-­Enrollments​-­Short​-­Report​.­pdf. Last accessed July 2019. 32. Loss, in pro­gress. 33. Stevens, Miller-­Idriss, and Shami 2018. 34. Jacobs 2014. 35. See http://­www​.­uchicago​.­edu​/­research​/­center​/­maclean​_­center​_­for​_­clinical​_­medical​ _­ethics​/­. Last accessed July 2019. 36. At the university level, see Delmestri, Oberg, and Drori 2015. 37. “Making a difference” is a now-­common university trope. The University of Manchester, ­England, gives Making a Difference Awards. So does New York University, U.S. At Flinders University, Australia, “What got 90% of our research rated world class or above was an unshakeable, unbreakable commitment to . . . ​Making a Difference.” See https://­www​.­flinders​.­edu​.­au​/­about​ /­making​-­a​-­difference. Last accessed July 2019. 38. According to Lourenço (2008: 321), university museums throughout Eu­rope “are increasing the accessibility to their collections, developing integrative and interdisciplinary proj­ects, renovating exhibitions, collaborating with local communities. This global movement provides an opportunity for change.” 39. Bloom 1987; Washburn 2005; Neave 2012; Mac Donald 2018. 40. Gruenewald and Smith 2008. 41. Bok 2009. 42. See https://­mcgill​.­ca​/­apb​/­files​/­apb​/­coi​_­guidelines​_­20180504v2​.­pdf. Last accessed July 2019. 43. Heimer and Petty 2010. 44. Stevens, Armstrong, and Arum 2008. 45. Krücken and Meier 2006; Ramirez 2010; Ramirez and Christensen 2013; Brankovic 2018. 46. DiMaggio and Anheier 1990; Bromley and Meyer 2017. 47. Bess 1998. 48. The fabled tweed jacket was already a step t­ oward normalcy. Academic robes grew scarce much ­earlier. E.g., in the U.S., Columbia University ­stopped requiring students to wear academicals when it reopened in 1784, a­ fter the Revolutionary War (Wolgast 2009). “Daily gown wear at Prince­ton died out some time in the nineteenth ­century, and never returned except at the Gradu­ate College where the founding dean . . . ​self-­consciously modelled both the edifice and its daily habits on Oxford and Cambridge. At the Gradu­ate College, the standard American bachelor’s gown . . . ​ was mandatory at dinner . . . ​­until about 1970” (Drakeman 2009: 60). This may overstate the survival of the required gown, but it conveys the overall picture. 49. Readings 1996; Washburn 2005; and many ­others. 50. Schervish 2005. 51. Drori, Meyer, and Hwang 2006, Tsutsui and Lim 2015; Pope and Lim 2017. 52. For example, a nutritionist or dietician—or a cook in a university dormitory—­must know that vegans eat only plant foods, that lacto-­vegetarians eat plant foods plus dairy, the lacto-­ovo vegetarians eat plant foods plus dairy and eggs, ­etc. The diets themselves embody schooled knowledge; the industries that arise to ser­vice them represent schooled knowledge; and schooled personnel are required to manage ­every aspect of the domain. See, e.g., http://­www​ .­universityevents​.­harvard​.­edu​/­sites​/­universityevents​.­harvard​.­edu​/­files​/­FOOD%20RESTRIC​ TIONS%20AND%20ALLERGIES​.­pdf. Last accessed July 2019. 53. Kim, Jang, and Hwang 2002.

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54. Witness the cele­bration of relevance in so-­called translational research. Translational research is broader than the traditional term “applied research.” Applied research is any research that may possibly be useful for enhancing health or well-­being. It does not necessarily have to have any effort connected with it to take the research to a practical level. For example, an applied research study might analyze longitudinal data that tracks participants’ health and social relationships. The researchers would report their findings in an academic journal. But in translational research, the same study would include some “action steps.” The researchers would partner with a community and ask for ideas about how their findings might apply ­there. Together, they would come up with an intervention plan. See http://­e videncebasedliving​.­human​.­cornell​.­edu​/­2010​/­08​/­18​/­what​-­i s​-­translational​ -­research​/­. Last accessed July 2019. 55. Brint 2002; Frank and Gabler 2006. 56. Frank, Robinson, and Olesen 2011. 57. In reviewing exams from the University of Dublin, 1914, we ­were struck, and slightly embarrassed, by our inability to answer questions even from our own field. Old batches of deep knowledge, once de riguer, are nearly gone from working knowledge. ­Here are the B.A. exam prompts for education: 1. Describe the ­factors which led to the disciplinary conception of education. 2. Describe a day at Westminster School in the seventeenth ­century. 3. Trace the resemblances between Locke and Montaigne. 4. Describe as fully as you can the nature and circumstances of the illumination or enlightenment in the first half of the eigh­teenth ­century. 5. What was involved in Rousseau’s doctrine of negative education? 6. “All the pregnant reforms of Pestalozzi, of Herbart, and of Froebel thus find their origin in the teachings of Rousseau.” Justify this. 7. Sketch the ­career and educational work of Basedow. 8. Monroe gives seven remarkable reforms with Basedow based on the princi­ple that education should follow nature? 9. “What Rousseau had demanded for Emile, Pestalozzi demanded for e­ very child.” In what re­spects did Pestalozzi seek to alter the old education? 58. ­There are multiple empirical indicators of the reaction, including waning university enrollments and growing po­liti­cal controls over universities in countries characterized by pop­u­lism and nationalism, as in Viktor Orbán’s Hungary (Schofer, Lerch, and Meyer 2018).

Chapter 7. Reflections on the Global Knowledge Society 1. Anderson 1983. 2. Baker 2014. 3. Bell 1973; Castells 1996; Drucker 2001; and many ­others. 4. Kerr et al. 1960; Kuznets 1971; Bell 1973. 5. Maslow 1943; Inglehart 1990. 6. Inglehart and Baker 2000. 7. Beck 1992; Robertson 1992; Meyer et al. 1997; and many ­others. 8. For the Eu­ro­pean case, see Djelic 1998. 9. See, e.g., http://­www​.­zerohedge​.­com​/­news​/­2014​-­01​-­16​/­death​-­cross​-­us​-­manufacturing. Last accessed July 2019. 10. E.g., Sahlin-­Andersson and Engwall 2002.

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11. World Bank 2017. 12. Hwang 2006. 13. Kim, Jang, and Hwang 2002. 14. E.g., Guthrie, Olson, and Humphrey 1999; Schimank 2005; Münch 2014; Hüther and Krücken 2018. 15. Richman, Miller, and LeVine 1992. 16. Baker and Stevenson 1986; Lareau 2000. 17. More countries belong to the Fédération Internationale de Football Association than to the United Nations. See https://­img​.­fifa​.­com​/­image​/­upload​/­khhloe2xoigyna8juxw3​.­pdf. Last accessed July 2019. 18. See https://­www​.­acacamps​.­org​/­resource​-­library​/­articles​/­careers​-­camp​-­community. Last accessed July 2019. 19. Monahan 1999; Chaves 2004. 20. DiMaggio and Anheier 1990; Hwang and Powell 2009; Bromley and Meyer 2015, 2017. 21. Meyer and Scott 1983; O’Connor 1988; Luo 2007. 22. Kehm and Lischka 2001; Jakobi 2009. 23. Meyer, Ramirez, and Soysal 1992; Schofer and Meyer 2005. 24. Meyer and Jepperson 2000; Hwang and Colyvas 2014. 25. Florida 2002. 26. Arum and Roksa 2011. 27. Wilensky 1964. 28. Cf. Bourdieu 1988. 29. We multiply the frequencies of egghead by 10 in order to show both terms on the same scale. 30. As in Luhmann’s system theories (1995). 31. Espeland and Stevens 1998; Wilson 1998; Espeland and Sauder 2007. 32. Baker 2014. 33. E.g., Illich 1971; Dore 1976; Collins 1979; Brown 2001; Bills 2003. 34. Shils 1958. 35. Strang and Meyer 1993. 36. Meyer et al. 1997. 37. Wimmer and Glick Schiller 2002. 38. Lipset 1959. 39. Frank, Meyer, and Miyahara 1995; Stacy 2009; Lauren 2011. 40. Toynbee 1962. 41. Frank 1997; Drori et al. 2003. 42. Gabler and Frank 2005; Frank, Robinson, and Olesen 2011. 43. Brunsson and Jacobsson 2000. 44. Wong 1991; Drori and Moon 2006; Frank and Gabler 2006. 45. Beck 1992; Eisenstadt 2000. 46. E.g., Huntington 1997, or vari­ous religious fundamentalists. 47. Meyer et al. 1997. 48. Robertson 1992. 49. Tuveson 1968. 50. E.g., Schnaiberg and Gould 1994; Foster, Clark, and York 2010. 51. Merton 1973. 52. E.g., the emphasis in Sen 1992 on broadened conceptions and mea­sures of development. 53. Ellul 1964. 54. Sen 1992. 55. Shavit and Müller 1998.

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56. Shavit and Müller 1998; Kerckhoff 2001. 57. Meyer, Kamens, and Benavot 1992; Frank and Gabler 2006. 58. Rosenmund 2007. 59. The Global Co­ali­tion to Protect Education from Attack found attacks in at least 70 countries during the period 2009 to 2013. The mea­sure ­here is not par­tic­ul­ ar to universities but obviously reflects the tensions and instabilities in the realm. See http://­www​.­protectingeducation​.­org​ /­country​-­profile. Last accessed July 2019. 60. Elliott 2011, 2014. 61. E.g., Shin and Kehm 2013.

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INDEX

academic achievement, 58, 63, 135, 152n27 academic divisions, 29–30, 29t, 77, 78–79t, 79–80, 86, 93–96, 94t, 96t academic knowledge: alternatives to, 65–66, 89; authority of, 65–66, 73, 77, 107; creation of, 8, 77, 83, 102–3, 123; everyday life pervaded by, 8, 73–77, 87–88, 91, 100–104, 107, 113–18, 120, 122–25; expansion of, in the university, 77–86, 91, 97–100; facts distinguished from, 72; globalization and, 88–89; hierarchy of, 84–86; integration of, through interdisciplinarity, 86–87; metalevel studies of, 87–88; monetization of, 135; rationalism of, 2, 3, 66–73; reconstruction of, 83; skill distinguished from, 4, 14–15, 70, 71–72; specialization of, 3; transmissibility of, 2, 3; unity and coherence of, 2, 3, 6; universality of, 2–3, 4, 35, 66–73, 133–36; value of, 134. See also education; knowledge society academic majors, 97 academic rank, 59–60 Academic Ranking of World Universities (Shanghai Jiao Tong University), 32 access to education, 52–58, 64, 111 actors: defined, 60; educational production of, 7, 11, 61–64; goals and practices of, 7; in liberal/global culture, 7, 91–93, 100, 104; limits on, 155n8; as researchers, 61; social conditions for, 60–61, 91–92; as subject of curriculum, 102, 103; as ­whole persons, 61–63; within the university, 97–100 agriculture, 84 alphabetization, 59–60, 86 American So­cio­log­i­cal Association, 98 Annuaire de l’Université de Toulouse, 40 anti-­liberalism, 5, 10, 71, 147n9 applied academic divisions, 96 apprenticeships, 70, 71 art, 102

Asia, expansion of higher education in, 31, 50 assessment, of students, 58, 134–35, 152n27, 155n22 Basel University, 86 bears, cultural responses to, 74–76 Berea College, 38, 72 Bologna Pro­cess, 22, 39, 109, 139, 149n7 Breivik, Anders Behring, 54 Britain: access to education in, 55; professions in, 47, 48t Bryn Mawr College, 150n20 business (discipline), 94–95 ­career ser­vices, 112 Catholics, access to education for, 55 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 138 certificate programs, 112 Communism, 12, 33–35 Compayré, Gabriel, 149n61 complexity. See differentiation conflicts of interest, 119 Convention on the Recognition of Higher Education Qualifications, 149n7 course contents, 18, 38, 68–69, 68t, 99, 101 credentialism, 135 culture. See society; university as world institution: cultural basis/canopy of curriculum: actors’ role in expansion of, 97–100; expansion of, 77–83, 97–100, 113; globalization’s and liberalization’s effects on, 91–96; ­human society as focus of, 93–96, 110–11, 113, 124; professors and, 98–99; self-­referential focus of, 87–88, 102–3; society’s interface with, 18, 113–18; students and, 97–99; supra-­, 114–15; universalism of, 37–38, 68–69. See also academic divisions; course contents; degree programs degree programs, 37–38, 37t, 66–69, 67t, 83 Dewey, John, 103

177

178  I n d ex

differentiation: integration as counterbalance to, in the university, 5, 9, 15, 18–19, 27–29, 31, 33, 35, 43–44; societal, 3–5, 9, 15, 18, 31 disciplines, 59–60, 69, 69t discrimination, 55–58 economy: in knowledge society, 128–29, 135; rationalization of, 4, 7, 104, 122 education: access to, 52–58, 64; certification/ credentials provided by, 1–2, 3, 7, 9, 123, 135, 149n7; conflict resolution through, 138; critiques of, 141; in knowledge society, 132; nonvocational purpose of, 4, 6–7, 14–15, 18–19, 30, 70, 148n58; outcomes of, 45; over-­, 13; policies oriented to, 109; pro­gress in relation to, 12–13, 18, 108–9; relation of the specific to the universal as purpose of, 4, 19, 45, 67–70; rights to, 19, 56–57, 152n33; social status conferred by, 7, 9–10, 19, 44–49, 59, 63–64, 111, 132–33, 135, 140, 141; under-­, 14; universal character of, 2, 32, 40. See also academic knowledge; university as world institution education (discipline), 94–95 Education for All, 19 Egyptian (now Cairo) University, 72, 73t employment. See occupations engineering, 94–95 Enlightenment, 15, 16, 18, 24, 55, 106 entrepreneurship, 88, 132, 145 Eu­rope: access to education in, 53–54; universities in, 15, 39–40, 149n7 expansion of the university: academic knowledge in everyday life, 8, 73–77, 87–88, 91, 100–104, 107, 113–18, 120, 122–25; critiques of, 12–13; cultural faith in, 14, 135; ­factors contributing to facilitation of, 24, 50, 52–58, 64; ­future of, 24; geo­graph­i­ cal, 30–32, 31t; identities transformed by, 7, 9; knowledge society linked to, 4, 6, 9, 122–25; liberalization linked to, 43, 90; in membership, 44–52, 64; professionalization linked to, 148n30; rapidity of, 8–9, 16, 23–27, 23f, 26t, 41; rationalization as ­factor contributing to, 52–54; roles and activities transformed by, 8, 9, 122; socie­ ties transformed by, 6, 9–10; sources of, 16–17; study of, 12–15; universalization as ­factor contributing to, 25, 55–58; variations in, 20 facts, distinguished from knowledge, 72 ­family, in knowledge society, 131

Fédération Internationale de Football Association, 132 Foucault, Michel, 104 France: educational organ­ization and content in, 40; educational reforms in, 28; educational regulations in, 156n5; suppression of universities in, 15, 33, 150n31, 154n12 ­Free University of Amsterdam, 78t, 79 French Revolution, 15, 33, 154n12 Freud, Sigmund, 138 GDP. See gross domestic product Germany (Prus­sia): access to education in, 55; expansion of the university in, 13; Golden Age of the university in, 121 Global Co­ali­tion to Protect Education from Attack, 10, 160n59 globalization: academic knowledge’s role in, 88–89; actorhood linked to, 7, 91–93, 100; critiques of, 10, 42, 144; curricular changes associated with, 91–96; defined, 91; rationalism of, 100, 103; universalism of, 100, 103, 136; university’s role in, 4, 15–17, 22, 32, 43, 73, 90–93 glocalization, 70 Goldsmith, Oliver, 53 Google X Lab, 138 governmentality, 8, 65, 93 grades. See assessment, of students gradu­ates: professional paths available to, 47–49; universal and lifelong status of, 1–2, 44, 45, 47 gross domestic product (GDP), 5, 129, 136, 139–40 Hampton Institute, 71 Harvard University, 81, 82t, 83, 115, 117, 118t higher education. See education; universities; university as world institution Higher Education Act (U.S.), 54 high modern period. See modern/high-­ modern period history (discipline), 47–48, 56, 61, 91, 95, 99, 101–2 homogeneity, as feature of university as world institution, 9, 18, 21–22 humanities, 20, 58, 113, 124 ­human rights, 7, 16, 19, 61, 137 Humboldt, Wilhelm von, 16 Hungary, 158n58 hyper-­curriculum, 87–88 hyper-­modernity: academic knowledge’s expansion in, 73; critiques of the university in, 66; cultural transformations in,

I n d ex  179

16–17, 127; liberalization and globalization in, 90–93; nature of the university in, 17; notion of pro­gress as hallmark of, 139; professional expansion in, 48–49; religion-­like quality of the university in, 18; universalist foundations of, 4, 106–7; university expansion in, 23–24; university–­society/culture relations in, 5, 31, 43, 65, 120; vocational education declining in, 71 Ig Nobel Prizes, 14 Illich, Ivan, 126 in­de­pen­dent study, 98 industrial schools, 71 innovation, 88, 109, 132, 145 institutional review boards, 119 interdisciplinarity, 86–87, 99, 115 International Exhibition & Conference on Higher Education, 109–10 International ­Labour Organ­ization (ILO), 46 international students, 54 internships, 112 isomorphism, academic, 17, 22, 35–38, 36t, 37t, 40, 41, 68–69 Jews, access to education for, 55 joint-­degree programs, 32 Kharkov, Ukraine, 33–35, 34t knowledge. See academic knowledge knowledge society: cosmological basis of, 6, 139; creative character of, 123; features of, 138–40; ­human activities transformed in, 8; integration and unity as feature of, 138–39; nature of knowledge in, 133–36; overview of, 128–33, 145–46; professionalization in, 140–43; pro­gress as basic assumption of, 139; theories of, 128; universal and rational basis of, 4, 7–8, 11, 122–25, 133–36, 138, 140–43; university expansion linked to, 4, 6, 9, 122–25; university’s interface with, 2, 106, 109, 121–28, 132–33, 145. See also society land-­grant universities, 53, 106 language instruction, 113–14, 114t liberalism/liberalization: actorhood linked to, 91–93, 100, 104; curricular changes associated with, 91–96; defined, 91–92, 147n1; expansion of academic knowledge associated with, 91–93; globalization associated with, 1, 93; opposition to, 5, 10, 147n9; rationalism associated with,

100, 103; societal transformations effected by, 90; universalism associated with, 100, 103; university/academic knowledge expansion linked to, 24, 43, 73, 91 life skills, 103 local concerns: resurgence of, in recent years, 10, 42; universal truths in relation to, 3, 4, 17, 19; university’s transcendence of, 4–5, 7–8, 19, 21–22, 25, 31–32, 35–38, 40, 66–69 Lyceum Hosianum, Braunsberg, Germany, 25, 28 MacLean, Dorothy J., 115 MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics, 115 majors, academic, 97 Mandev­ille, Bernard, 16 Mas­sa­chu­setts Institute of Technology, 29–30, 29t mechanical engineering, 91, 97, 99–100 Minerva Jahrbuch der Universitäten der Welt, 25–31, 26t, 33, 35, 36t, 50–51, 59–60, 86 modern/high-­modern period: academic knowledge’s expansion in, 73; critiques of the university in, 66; cultural transformations in, 16–17, 127; nature of the university in, 17; notion of pro­gress as hallmark of, 139; professional expansion in, 48–49; religion-­like quality of the university in, 38; universalist foundations of, 4, 106–7; university expansion in, 23–24; university–­society/culture relations in, 31, 43, 65, 120; vocational education declining in, 71. See also hyper-­modernity moneymaking, 101 Morell, Julianna, 56 museums and collections, 117, 118t Napoleon, 55, 59, 150n31 nationalism, 17, 61, 65, 92–93, 136, 137, 144, 147n9, 158n58 National University of Singapore, 115, 116t, 117 nation-­states: actors freed from constraints of, 60; charismatic, 16–17, 61, 92, 95, 136; educational policy in, 109; globalization’s and liberalization’s effects on, 43; post-­colonial, 16; societal model associated with, 136; universities in relation to, 9, 17, 38, 49, 88; weakening of, 16, 91–92, 136 neo-­institutionalism, 2, 21, 35, 44

180  I n d ex

neoliberalism: actorhood advanced in period of, 60–61; defined, 147n1; and expansion of the university, 24; globalization associated with, 1; opposition to, 5, 10 New ­England Commission of Higher Education, 24 New Public Management, 22, 39, 129, 131, 149n7 New York Times (newspaper), 74–76 Nuremberg Code, 119 occupations, 7, 9, 14, 19, 46–49, 46f, 48t, 111, 122. See also professions and professionalization; vocational education OECD. See Organisation for Economic Co-­operation and Development Orbán, Viktor, 158n58 Organisation for Economic Co-­operation and Development (OECD), 109 over-­education, 13, 13f Oxford and Cambridge Yearbook, 47, 48t persons: as actors, 7, 11, 60–63; educational rights of, 19, 56–57, 152n33; holistic consideration of, 61–63; liberal conception of, 61; status of, conferred by education, 1–2, 7, 9–10, 19, 44–49, 59, 63–64, 111, 132–33, 135, 140, 141; subjectivist assertions by, 89, 144; universality conferred upon, by education, 3, 6–7, 19; universality of, in global/liberal perspective, 137; university’s role in defining, 6–7, 19, 58–60, 132. See also actors Piscopia, Elena, 55 policies, oriented to higher education, 109 politics, academicization of, 123, 129 polytechnics, 26–27, 29 pop­u­lism, 15, 108, 126, 141, 147n9, 158n58 postdoctoral scholars, 51 prisons, higher education in, 54 professions and professionalization: authority of, 140; charisma associated with, 7; defined, 148n30; growth of, 46–48, 46f, 47t, 141, 142t; in knowledge society, 140–43; in nineteenth-­century United States, 15; in ser­vice sector, 18; skills in, 72; social status associated with, 141; societal authority wielded by, 5, 10, 18; university’s expansion and extension of, 5, 7–8, 45–49, 148n30; university’s historical link to, 6, 47; value of, 141–43. See also occupations professors: as actors, 98–99; and the curriculum, 98–99; growing numbers of, 50–51, 52f, 64; local vs. universal

affiliations of, 1, 9, 44–45; orga­nizational variation in ­careers of, 39; portability of, 32; priest-­like function of, 18; se­lection of, 111; society’s interface with, 112–13; standardization of, 120, 157n48; university-­created roles for, 8, 12 professorships, 35–36, 36t, 81, 82t, 83 pro­gress: education in relation to, 12–13, 18, 108–9; knowledge society based on assumption of, 139; mea­sures of, 139–40 proto-­universities, 27–29, 28t, 29t, 71, 150n20 Prus­sia. See Germany (Prus­sia) pure academic divisions, 96 rank. See academic rank rationality/rationalism: critiques of, 138; educational access affected by, 52–54; globalization associated with, 100, 103; of knowledge, 2, 3, 66–73; knowledge society grounded in, 4, 122–25, 140–43; liberalism associated with, 100, 103; in modern and hyper-­modern periods, 106–7; of socioeconomic domain, 19, 122–24, 136–38; university as world institution grounded in, 2, 4–5, 6, 17; university organ­ization pervaded by, 120; of world, 3. See also standardization Reagan, Ronald, 107 recreation, in knowledge society, 131–32 reforms, in higher education, 5, 16, 28, 39–40, 55 relevance, of education to societal needs, 124, 158n54 religion: alternative knowledge/understanding provided by, 65–66, 89; alternatives to, 132; as basis of earliest universities, 80, 84–86; educational access linked to, 55; in knowledge society, 132; university distinguished from, 66; university likened to, 2–4, 8, 18, 23, 41, 88, 121, 132, 135 research, university-­conducted: actors involved in advancing, 98; applied/ translational, 158n54; expansion of, 61, 98; society’s interface with, 114–17, 124, 158n54; as subject of curriculum, 102–3; universalism of, 69–70, 70t research centers/institutes, 114–17 research on universities. See scholarly research on universities Restoring Education and Learning Act (U.S.), 54 Rheinisch-­Westfälische Technische Hochschule, Aachen, Germany, 29–30, 29t

I n d ex  181

Saïd, Wafic, 115 Schofer, Evan, 8 scholarly research on universities, traditional approach to, 1, 5–6, 12, 21–22, 38–39, 41, 90–91, 108, 121 scholarships, 53 school leaving/dropout, 13, 13f Sciences Po, Paris, France, 63 se­niority, 59–60 ser­vice learning, 112 ser­vice sector, 9, 18, 129, 130–31t, 145 sex, educational access linked to, 55–56 sizers, 53 skill: agency contrasted with mastery of, 11, 44; distinguished from knowledge, 4, 14–15, 70, 71–72; education traditionally understood as providing, 5–6, 14–15, 71; in professions, 72; university-­provided training in, 71–72 social sciences, 17, 18, 20, 93–96, 113, 137 social status: education as key ­factor in, 1–2, 7, 9–10, 59, 63–64, 111, 132–33, 135, 140, 141; indicators of, in university policies and practices, 58–60; of professions, 141 society: academic knowledge pervasive in, 8, 73–77, 87–88, 91, 100–104, 107, 113–18, 120, 122–25; autonomy/purity of, fears of university’s encroachment on, 126; bound­aries between university and, 106–7, 119–22; conceptions of, 136; cultural princi­ples shared with the university, 5, 16–17, 121, 125, 145; functionalist conception of, 35, 108; historical development of, 16; modern/ hyper-­modern university relations with, 5, 31, 43, 65; professionalization of, 5, 10, 18, 45–48; rationalization of, 19, 122–24, 136–38; sacralization of, 6, 7–8, 16, 18, 88, 121; scientization of, 8, 11, 17; universality as basis of, 136; universities’ (understood individually) role in, 5–6, 12–16; university distinguished from, 106–7, 124; university’s (understood universally) interface with, 5, 8, 11–12, 17, 18, 19, 47, 65, 73–77, 90, 105–27. See also knowledge society socio-­sciences, 17, 18, 91, 93–96, 107, 113, 124, 149n74 Soviet Union: differentiation and integration of universities in, 33–35; ­free education in, 53; suppression of universities in, 15 standardization: of access to university, 52; of curriculum, 35, 68; of higher education, 149n7; of knowledge, 11, 66, 134–37; of

organ­ization of university, 22, 39–41, 109, 139; of persons, 7; of professors and students, 120, 157n48; of real­ity, as object of inquiry, 66, 137, 139; of societal features, 137; of socioeconomic realm, 4–5; of the university, 4–5, 50, 64, 120, 144. See also rationality/rationalism; universalism/ universality Stanford University, 47–48, 56, 61, 85, 99–100, 102, 109, 113 students: as actors, 97–99; assessment of, 58, 152n27, 155n22; and the curriculum, 97–99; educational access of, 52–58, 111–12; growing numbers of, 49–50, 50f, 51f, 52f, 64; international, 54; local vs. universal affiliations of, 44–45; orga­ nizational variation in ­careers of, 39; portability of, 32; programs and organ­ izations serving, 61, 62t, 63; society’s interface with, 111–12; standardization of, 120, 157n48 subjectivism, as threat to university and societal authority, 89, 144 supra-­curriculum, 114–15 theology, 80, 84 toileting standards, 8, 148n31 translational research, 158n54 Treaty of Paris, 80 under-­education, 14 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organ­ization (UNESCO), 49, 109, 149n7 United States: Golden Age of the university in, 121; nineteenth-­century universities in, 15, 33, 53, 149n61 unity/unification: cosmological, 139; critiques of concept of, 138; as feature of knowledge society, 138; as feature of university as world institution, 5, 19, 22, 27–29, 33–38, 41–42 universalism/universality: alphabetization as policy based on, 59–60, 86; Christian princi­ple of, 152n42; critiques of, 10; educational access affected by, 55–58; expansion of the university aided by, 55–58; as feature of education, 2, 32, 40; as feature of knowledge, 2–3, 4, 35, 66–73; globalization associated with, 100, 103, 136; knowledge society based on, 4, 7–8, 11, 122–25, 133–36, 138; liberalism associated with, 100, 103; in modern and hyper-­modern periods, 4, 106–7; of research, 69–70, 70t; societal

182  I n d ex

universalism/universality (continued ) grounding in, 136; university as world institution characterized by, 2–5, 6, 17, 19, 22, 23–32, 36, 42. See also standardization Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, 115, 116t, 117 Universidad de las Américas Puebla, Mexico, 99–100 Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 67–68, 67t universities: access to, 52–58, 64; charisma associated with, 7; common structure of, 4; conversion of institutions to, 27–29, 28t, 29t; critiques of/opposition to, 12–13; death of, 24–25, 28; in Eu­rope, 15, 39–40, 149n7; expansion of academic knowledge in, 77–86; historical development of, 80; idealized conceptions of, 5–6, 18, 121; medieval and early modern, 6; membership in, 49–52; nation-­states in relation to, 9, 17, 38, 49, 88; number of, 23–25, 23f, 26t; orga­nizational variation among, 5, 22, 38–42; permanent identities of, 7; research undertaken at, 61; societal role of, 5–6, 12–16; traditional approach to understanding, 1, 5–6, 12, 21–22, 38–39, 41; in the United States, 15, 33, 53, 121, 149n61; university as world institution in relation to specific, 1–2, 21–22, 24–25, 40–41; “world class” aspirations of, 32, 109–10, 110f, 145. See also scholarly research on universities; university as world institution university as world institution: academic hierarchy in, 58–60, 84–86; alternatives to, 10, 42, 144 (see also institutional kin of, in this entry); autonomy/purity of, fears of society’s encroachment on, 6, 107, 119–21, 124–25; bound­aries between society and, 106–7, 119–22; certification powers of, 1–2, 9; cosmological foundations of, 2–3; critiques of/opposition to, 10, 14, 33, 58, 66, 105, 111, 124, 126, 139–40, 141, 144–45, 158n58, 160n59; cultural basis/canopy of, 5, 15, 30–31, 37, 39, 65; cultural princi­ples shared with society, 5, 16–17, 121, 125, 145; degree programs of, 37–38, 37t, 66–69, 67t; ­future of, 10, 42, 66, 104, 144–46; homogeneity as feature of, 9, 18, 21–22; institutional kin of, 25, 27, 29–30 (see also alternatives to, in this entry); institutional perspective on, 18–19; knowledge society’s interface with, 2, 106, 109, 121–28, 132–33, 145; longevity of, 3–4, 24–25; meaning-­giving function of, 2–4, 16, 18, 65–66, 73, 135, 143; membership in,

44–49; mission of, 3; model or ideal of, 21–22; overview of, 1–3, 8–11; rationality underpinning, 2, 4–5, 6, 17; religion distinguished from, 66; religion-­like quality of, 2–4, 8, 18, 23, 41, 88, 121, 132, 135; roles and activities transformed by, 8, 9, 122; society distinguished from, 106–7, 124; society’s interface with, 5, 8, 11–12, 17, 18, 19, 47, 65, 73–77, 87–88, 90, 105–27; spontaneous creation of, 10; systemic basis of, 4; transnationalism as feature of, 31–32, 54; unity/unification as feature of, 5, 19, 22, 27–29, 33–38, 41–42; universalism underpinning, 2–5, 6, 17, 19, 22, 23–32, 36, 42; universities in relation to, 1–2, 21–22, 24–25, 40–41; vocational education not the mission of, 4, 6–7, 14–15, 18–19, 30, 45, 70, 148n58; world/ reality transformed by, 11. See also academic knowledge; education; expansion of the university; scholarly research on universities; universities University of Belgrade, 78–79t, 79–80 University of Birmingham, United Kingdom, 87, 97, 101, 109, 114, 114t University of Calicut, India, 68–69, 68t University of Cambridge, 31–32, 47, 48t, 55, 81, 82t, 83, 85 University of Dublin, 81, 82t, 83 University of Freiburg, 35–38, 36t, 37t University of Ibadan, Nigeria, 67–68, 67t University of Illinois Annual Register 1921–1922, 53 University of Michigan, 35–38, 36t, 37t University of Notre Dame, 72 University of Oxford, 55, 115 University of Texas at Austin, 78t, 79 University of Tokyo, 35–38, 36t, 37t, 59, 109 University of Toronto, 61, 62t University of Toulouse, 47–48, 56, 59, 61, 80–81, 85, 102, 114, 114t, 152n54 University Reform Act (Britain), 55 U.S. Congress, 53 Vanderbilt, Cornelius, 115 vocational education, 4, 6–7, 14–15, 18–19, 30, 45, 70–71, 148n58 ­women: educational access of, 55–56, 148n53; as subject of curriculum, 113; university expansion associated with, 41 World Bank, 109 World Toilet Organ­ization, 148n31 World University Rankings (Quacquarelli Symonds), 32

A NOTE ON THE T YPE

This book has been composed in Adobe Text and Gotham. Adobe Text, designed by Robert Slimbach for Adobe, bridges the gap between fifteenth-­and sixteenth-­century calligraphic and eighteenth-­century Modern styles. Gotham, inspired by New York street signs, was designed by Tobias Frere-­Jones for Hoefler & Co.