Stanley Rothman’s research while affiliated with Smith College and other places

Direct comparisons of American and Canadian faculty and students’ views concerning issues of race, gender, and affirmative action in higher education are rare. The 1999 North American Academic Study Survey provides a unique opportunity to analyze the role of national and positional factors in faculty and student attitudes towards race, gender, and affirmative action in the US and Canada. The findings indicate that national factors are more important than positional factors on many racial and affirmative-action issues. Differences between students and faculty are more pronounced than are cross-national variations on many gender-related issues. Résumé Rares sont les comparaisons directes entre l’opinion des corps professoral et etudiant des États-Unis et du Canada sur les problématiques liées à la nationalité, au sexe et à la discrimination positive dans l’enseignement supérieur. Le document 1999 North American Academic Study Survey donne l’occasion unique d’analyser le rôle des facteurs nationaux et socioculturels sur l’attitude des corps professoral et étudiant envers la nationalité, le sexe et la discrimination positive aux États-Unis et au Canada. Les résultats suggèrent que, pour plusieurs problématiques liées à la nationalité et à la discrimination positive, les facteurs nationaux sont plus importants que les facteurs socioculturels. Pour plusieurs problématiques liées au sexe, on observe des différences d’attitudes plus marquées entre le corps professoral et le corps étudiant d’un même pays que d’un pays à l’autre.

This study analyzes attitudes towards faculty unions and collective bargaining among faculty and administrators in the United States and Canada. This is the first study which compares support for unionization and collective bargaining in American and Canadian universities among faculty members and administrators. The main research question is: Which factors are the determinants of attitudes towards faculty unions and collective bargaining in American and Canadian universities and colleges? Our hypotheses are that cultural, institutional, political, positional, socio-economic, and academic factors are significant predictors of support for faculty unionization. The academics in Canada are likely to be more supportive of faculty unionism compared to their American counterparts because of differences in national political cultures. Institutional and political factors are also likely to affect such views. This study uses comparative and regression analyses of data from the 1999 North American Academic Study Survey to examine attitudes towards unions and collective bargaining among faculty and administrators in the United States and Canada. The analysis shows that Canadian academics are more supportive of faculty unions and collective bargaining than their American counterparts. These results provide support to the political culture hypothesis. However, the study shows that institutional, political, positional, socio-economic and academic factors are also important in many cases. A faculty bargaining agent on campus is positively associated with favorable views of faculty unions and collective bargaining among American professors and with administrators’ support for collective bargaining in both countries. Administrators’ opposition is also important, in particular, for attitudes of Canadian faculty. Professors are more pro-union than administrators in both countries. Income, gender, race, age, religion, and academic field, are significant determinants of attitudes of faculty and administrators in the US and Canada in certain cases.

This article first examines the ideological composition of American university faculty and then tests whether ideological homogeneity has become self-reinforcing. A randomly based national survey of 1643 faculty members from 183 four-year colleges and universities finds that liberals and Democrats outnumber conservatives and Republicans by large margins, and the differences are not limited to elite universities or to the social sciences and humanities. A multivariate analysis finds that, even after taking into account the effects of professional accomplishment, along with many other individual characteristics, conservatives and Republicans teach at lower quality schools than do liberals and Democrats. This suggests that complaints of ideologically-based discrimination in academic advancement deserve serious consideration and further study. The analysis finds similar effects based on gender and religiosity, i.e., women and practicing Christians teach at lower quality schools than their professional accomplishments would predict.

Debate over the value of admissions policies designed to increase racial diversity at American colleges and universities has relied on surveys of students, and sometimes faculty and administrators, which are designed to measure educational environments and intergroup relations. This article evaluates the role of survey research in supporting the diversity model—the argument that increased racial diversity in college enrollment both enriches the educational experience for students of all racial and ethnic backgrounds and also improves relations between students of different races. We found that much of the supporting data suffers from methodological defects, which range from poor item formulation to interpretive problems linked to selective recall and social desirability response set. We utilized a more indirect approach that asked members of the university community non‐controversial questions about their perceptions and experiences, and then correlated their responses with an independent empirical measure of diversity. Data were obtained from a 1999–2000 survey of a structured random sample of over 4,000 US students, faculty, and administrators, and from the National Center for Education Statistics. When student, faculty, and administrators; evaluations of the educational and racial atmosphere were correlated with the percentage of minority students enrolled at a college or university, the predicted positive associations of educational benefits and inter‐racial understanding failed to appear. Thus, the findings failed to support the argument that enrollment diversity improves the education and racial milieu at American colleges and universities. Our study also raises questions about survey instruments and designs that affect inferences about respondents' beliefs and behavior.

Surveyed college faculty, administrators, and students about their feelings on campus diversity programs and various aspects of the general educational experience and environment. Among faculty and administrators, diversity brought perceptions of better race relations, decreased educational quality, and decreased academic preparation. As black enrollment increased, student satisfaction with the university, the quality of their education, and peer work ethic dropped, and the likelihood of experiencing discrimination rose. (SM)