Learning academic labor

Abstract

Based on data from a two-year, multi-site study of knowledge production in universities, this paper examines how research training is accomplished within the elite sector of research universities in the United States. This analysis suggests substantial differences across institutional settings by contrasting how graduate students learn academic labor in a high prestige, private research university and in a public doctoral-granting institution with fewer resources. Prevailing conceptions of professional socialization are examined in light of not only disciplinary differences, such as physics and history, but also by local campus settings which are characterized by unequal financial and status resources. Such institutional differences in knowledge production raise further concerns about structurally caused accumulated advantage and disadvantage, particularly the effects of stratification on individuals as well as possible dysfunctions within the academic system.

Citation

Gumport, P.J. (2000), "Learning academic labor", Kalleberg, R., Engelstad, F., Brochmann, G., Leira, A. and Mjøset, L. (Ed.) Comparative Perspectives on Universities (Comparative Social Research, Vol. 19), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 1-23. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0195-6310(00)80018-6