Interdisciplinary Colonization: Scholar-Idea Migrations in Academe

• In Event: 3265 - Social Networks

Abstract

Human migration is of great concern to modern societies, and yet little work explores how human migration relates to the migration of culture and ideas. Few studies analyze how people and/or ideas flow in different directions across groups, establishing a larger system of social and cultural exchange. In this paper, we develop such a perspective by studying the academic migration of people and ideas across thousands of university departments for over a million doctoral recipients (people migration) and their intellectual output (idea migration) over three decades. In so doing, we (a) introduce a typology of migration patterns between group origins and destinations based on the migration of people and ideas, (b) identify those mechanisms (matching, status, desirability) which predict certain forms of exchange across groups, and (c) contribute to the science of science literature specifically. We find that people and ideas move within rather than between fields; within or down status levels; and across fields when some social groups are numerous (women) and others few in number (non-White scholars). Additionally, academic colonization occurs from STEM to non-STEM: they send people and culture outside of their niche, while adopting non-STEM ideas but not people.

Authors

• Bas Hofstra, Stanford University

• Sanne Smith, Stanford University

• David Jurgens, University of Michigan

• Daniel A. McFarland, Stanford University