Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Feminist scholarship as a vocation

  • Published:
Higher Education Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This analysis examines the emergence of feminist scholarship in the United States, specifically how a cohort of academic women came to challenge and propose revisions for the content and organization of academic knowledge. It is based on in-depth interviews from a larger two-year, multi-site study. The intellectual biographies and career histories enable us to consider how the current organization of knowledge has constrained or facilitated feminist scholars who advocate interdisciplinarity and social change. The analysis uncovers some of the processes by which intentional intellectual communities are formed and sustained within the current systems of disciplinary peer review and academic rewards.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Astin, H. and Snyder, M. (1982). ‘Affirmative action 1972–1982 - a decade of response’, Change July/August: 26-59.

  • Bledstein, B. (1976). The Culture of Professionalism: The Middle Class and the Development of Higher Education in America. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bowen, H. and Schuster, J. (1986). American Professors: A National Resource Imperiled. New York and London: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gould, C. (1976). ‘The woman question: philosophy of liberation and the liberation of philosophy’, in C. Gould and M. Wartofsky (eds.), Women and Philosophy: Toward a Theory of Liberation. New York: G. P. Putnam and Sons.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gumport, P. (1987). The Social Construction of Knowledge: Individual and Institutional Commitments to Feminist Scholarship. Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation, Stanford University.

  • Gumport, P. (1988). ‘Surricula as signposts of cultural change’, The Review of Higher Education 12(1): 49–62.

    Google Scholar 

  • Howe, F. and Lauter, P. (1980). The Impact of Women's Studies on the Campus and the Disciplines. Washington, D. C.: National Institute of Education.

    Google Scholar 

  • Larson, M. S. (1977). The Rise of Professionalism: A Sociological Analysis. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Menges, R. and Exum, W., (1983). ‘Barriers to the progress of women and minority faculty’, Journal of Higher Education 54(2): 123–144.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nelson, G. (1987). ‘Harvard approves women's studies honors concentration’, Second Century Radcliffe News. Cambridge, MA: Radcliffe College.

    Google Scholar 

  • Silva, E. and Slaughter, S. (1984). Serving Power: The Making of the Academic Social Science Expert. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sternhell, C. (1984). ‘The tenure battle: the women who won't disappear’, Ms. Magazine. October: 94-98.

  • Weber, M. (1958). ‘Science as a vocation’, in H. Gerth and C. Mills, (eds.), From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 129–156.

    Google Scholar 

  • Westkott, M. (1979). ‘Feminist criticism of the social sciences’, Harvard Educational Review 49(4): 422–430.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Stanford Institute for Higher Education Research, Stanford University, 94305, Stanford, CA, USA

    Patricia J. Gumport (Deputy Director)

Authors
  1. Patricia J. Gumport
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Additional information

A draft of this manuscript benefitted from comments by Yvonna Lincoln, Gary Rhoades, Karen Sacks, Sheila Slaughter, Ann Swidler and William Tierney.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Gumport, P.J. Feminist scholarship as a vocation. High Educ 20, 231–243 (1990). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00136228

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00136228

Keywords

Search

Navigation