Community remains a potent symbol and aspiration in political and intellectual life. However, it has largely passed out of sociological analysis. The paper shows why this has occurred, and it develops a new typology that can make the concept useful again in sociology. The new typology is based on identifying structurally distinct subtypes of community using a small number of partitioning variables. The first partition is defined by the ultimate context of interaction; the second by the primary motivation for interaction; the third by rates of interaction and location of members; and the fourth by the amount of face-to-face as opposed to computer-mediated interaction. This small number of partitioning variables yields eight major subtypes of community. The paper shows how and why these major subtypes are related to important variations in the behavioral and organizational outcomes of community. The paper also seeks to resolve some disagreements between classical liberalism and communitarians. It shows that only a few of the major subtypes of community are likely to be as illiberal and intolerant as the selective imagery of classical liberals asserts, while at the same time only a few are prone to generate as much fraternalism and equity as the selective imagery of communitarians suggests. The paper concludes by discussing the forms of community that are best suited to the modern world.
Using data on upper-division students in the University of California system, we show that two distinct cultures of engagement exist on campus. The culture of engagement in the arts, humanities and social sciences focuses on interaction, participation, and interest in ideas. The culture of engagement in the natural sciences and engineering focuses on improvement of quantitative skills through collaborative study with an eye to rewards in the labor market. The two cultures of engagement are strongly associated with post-graduate degree plans. The findings raise questions about normative conceptions of good educational practices in so far as they are considered to be equally relevant to students in all higher education institutions and all major fields of study.Considerable scholarly and policy attention has been directed toward the improvement of undergraduate education for more than two decades (see, e.g., AAC 1985;Chickering and Gamson 1987). Yet interest appears to have peaked in recent years, as indicated 1 The SERU Project is a collaborative study based at the Center for Studies in Higher Education at UC Berkeley and focused on developing new types of data and innovative policy relevant scholarly analyses on the academic and civic experience of students at major research universities, One of the main products of the SERU Project has been the development and administration of the University of California Undergraduate Experience Survey (UCUES). For further information on the project, see http://cshe.berkeley.edu/research/seru/ Brint, Cantwell, and Hannerman: TWO CULTURES OF ENGAGEMENT 2 CSHE Research & Occasional Paper Series by large-scale improvement efforts at many of the country's leading research universities (see, e.g., Rimer 2007).The most important cause of this heightened interest is the report of the Secretary of Education's Commission on the Future of Higher Education (also known as the Spellings Commission). The Spellings Commission proposed incentives for the adoption of standardized testing for purposes of making higher education accountable to consumers. In the words of the Commission, "We believe that improved accountability is vital to ensuring the success of all the…reforms we propose…" (Secretary of Education's Commission on the Future of Higher Education 2006: 4).The Commission's recommendations represent what may be the first major salvo in a federal government campaign to bring greater accountability to higher education as a condition of accreditation.The Spellings Commission recommendations build on significant public concerns about the undergraduate experience. Public opinion surveys have shown that concerns about educational quality are common among Americans; nearly half of Americans say that low educational standards are a serious problem in American colleges and universities and support efforts to hold colleges accountable for student learning (ETS 2003). Wellpublicized studies have provided evidence that the college experience is failing as a stimulus to the educational m...
This article argues that four distinct streams of thought flow into current conceptions of the knowledge economy. Drawing on these four streams of thought and on labor force data from the USA, the article develops a synthetic view of the knowledge economy. The analysis suggests that the knowledge economy, while of growing importance, remains smaller in the aggregate than other parts of the economy. The article also defines five sectors of the knowledge economy, according to the nature of the goods and services provided and the technology used in production. These sectors form an important basis for the segmentation and stratification of the professional labor force.
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