Lives in Science
How Institutions Affect Academic Careers
Lives in Science
How Institutions Affect Academic Careers
What can we learn when we follow people over the years and across the course of their professional lives? Joseph C. Hermanowicz asks this question specifically about scientists and answers it here by tracking fifty-five physicists through different stages of their careers at a variety of universities across the country. He explores these scientists’ shifting perceptions of their jobs to uncover the meanings they invest in their work, when and where they find satisfaction, how they succeed and fail, and how the rhythms of their work change as they age. His candid interviews with his subjects, meanwhile, shed light on the ways career goals are and are not met, on the frustrations of the academic profession, and on how one deals with the boredom and stagnation that can set in once one is established.
An in-depth study of American higher education professionals eloquently told through their own words, Hermanowicz’s keen analysis of how institutions shape careers will appeal to anyone interested in life in academia.
344 pages | 1 line drawing, 29 tables | 6 x 9 | © 2009
Education: Higher Education
Physical Sciences: History and Philosophy of Physical Sciences
Sociology: Occupations, Professions, Work
Reviews
Table of Contents
List of Tables
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Guiding Theoretic Perspectives
Physics and Physicists
Organization of the Book
1 Following the Scientists
Foundations of the Follow-up Study
Research Design and Sample
The Ten-Year Career Interval
The Fieldwork
Analysis of Data
Academic Worlds Then and Now
2 Early- to Mid-Career Passages
Professional Profile
Early Career Patterns
Elites
Pluralists
Communitarians
Summary
3 Mid- to Late-Career Passages
Professional Profile
Mid-Career Patterns
Elites
Pluralists
Communitarians
Summary
4 Late- to Post-Career Passages
Professional Profile
Late-Career Patterns
Elites
Pluralists
Communitarians
Summary
5 Lives of Learning
Expectations and the Rhythm of Careers
Anomie and Adaptation
Reference Groups and Social Control
Selection of Reference Groups
Rejection of Reference Groups
Social Control of the Life Course
Careers in Other Academic Fields
Future Cohorts of Scientists and Contexts of Science
Appendix A: Interview Protocol—Foundational Study, 1998
Appendix B: Contact Letter to Scientists
Appendix C: Thank-You Letter to Scientists
Appendix D: Interview Protocol
Appendix E: Post-Interview Questionnnaire
Appendix F: Departmental Questionnaire
Appendix G: Propositions Generated by the Study
Note
References
Index
Awards
American Sociological Association: ASA-Aging and Life Course Distinguished Publication Award
Won
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