Sam Snideman’s scientific contributions

Union membership has been in decline in the United States for several decades. According to figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, roughly 11% of American workers belong to a union, down from 20% when the data were first collected in 1983 (2016). Among the public-sector workers are educators, and while educators broadly, in all categories, have some of the highest rates of unionization of any profession, unionization has been less-universal within the colleges and universities in the United States. This category of educators has a unique history of unionization and is worthy of renewed examination within the current context of higher education politics. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to conduct a scoping literature review (Mays, Roberts & Popay, 2001; Arksey and O'Malley, 2005), to identify areas of opportunity for future research on unionization within higher education leading to new knowledge and new directions. The results indicate that there exists a number of very intriguing research areas for scholars to examine in the years ahead, using qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods designs, that may result in direct implications for researchers, theorists, higher education futurists, policymakers, and others.