Date: Mon, 1 Dec 1997 09:25:00 -0600 (CST)
From: jean frances czerlinski <jfczerli@midway.uchicago.edu>
Reply-To: jean frances czerlinski <jfczerli@midway.uchicago.edu>
To: Sociology Graduate Students -- International <socgrad@csf.colorado.edu>
Subject: Re: irony of job market discussion
In-Reply-To: <3.0.3.32.19971130212604.00695d5c@email.rci.rutgers.edu>
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.3.95.971201085503.16700C-100000@harper.uchicago.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII


Replying now to Wayne....

> Well, yes actually, _my_ choices as an n of 1 often don't make a huge
> difference on a macro-level. Individual agency as a sociological concept
is
> overrated. I don't eat chocolate ice cream and the cocoa plantation
workers
> are still oppressed.  I don't drive a car and New Jersey still has bad
> traffic and air pollution.

If you just do these things quietly and alone, you're right, they probably
won't have much impact.

But here we are, a group of future sociologists discussing how we think
future job application and hiring decisions should be made.  If we all
discuss it together, we can all change how we make our decisions.  And
each of us can tell a few other sociologist friends.  And maybe someone
will even try to organize something, like some sort of strike.  Thus,
by discussing these micro-level decisions in public, on a list like this,
we *can* make macro change.  And fortunately, the field of sociology
is a lot smaller, and easier to change, then the habits of all New 
Jersey motorists....


> Not really.  One process is being used to judge aggregates, the other is
> being used to judge individuals that make up part of an aggregate. One
is
> more likely to make an error in assuming that because a person is from
the
> top ranked graduate program they are necessarily better than someone
from
> the 60th ranked program, than they are in assuming that the top ranked
> program is better as a whole than the 60th ranked program.  When hiring
> committees decide to keep or throw out an application based on the
program
> the individual is from they are committing an ecological fallacy.

This is an interesting point.  You're right that when you choose to
work at a department for its prestige, that prestige is measuring
something like an average over all 30-50 faculty members, and this
average will have less variance than judging the quality via prestige
of any one faculty member from that department, who is a sample of n=1.

But I could bring in lots of other issues to counterbalance them,
for example the cost of an error.  If you choose where to apply
based on prestige and make an error, i.e. get a job you don't really
like, you're going to spend at least  2-3 miserable years of your
life there, and given the high prestige just might spend your *whole*
life there, because it's easier to stay and because everyone tells
you  what a great job you have, etc..  

On the other hand, when a department makes a mistake in hiring a
certain faculty member, because the high prestige hadn't been a
good indicator of quality, then they're stuck with one (of  30-50)
faculty member who's deadwood for 2-3 years, but unlikely to get
tenure anyway.  (It's tenured deadwood that's a problem, not new
hires!)

Another issue: departments hope that whoever they hire is high
quality, but don't so much mind if someone they don't hire is high
quality.  That is, they don't really mind missing a great applicant
which they pass over because the school they came from is low prestige.
So they'd rather just stick with people who have all the indicators
for possible high quality.

Another issue: hiring committees, unlike individuals, have to 
justify their decisions.  If they hire someone from a low prestige
school who turns out to be a dud, everyone will say: "Wasn't it
obvious?  Look where they came from?"  However, if they hire someone
from a high prestige school who's a dud, everyone will say: "They
did their best in hiring, what more could they do?"

Another person on the list also mentioned how some schools want
to put in their admission brochure that all their faculty are from
Yale, Harvard, Berkeley, etc..

In short, individuals have a lot more freedom to make decisions
on criteria other than prestige, and the cost of a mistake (of
missing a high quality opportunity *or* of taking a lame job) is
higher to them.  So individuals are probably the best people to
start pushing for change in academic decision-making!


> At the same time,
> though, I would be amazed if people are as lazy about deciding what jobs
> they want as you seem to imply.  I don't believe there is anyone out there
> who is just blindly following pedigree (but, perhaps, you're using this as
> an "ideal-type" to make a point).

Yes, it was an ideal type.  Reality is that people use prestige to make
first cuts.

> examined.  If they don't then the "meritocracy" of the process needs to be
> questioned.

I thought we all agreed that hiring is NOT a meritocracy.  Prestige is
one of the many factors that make it not.  "Who your advisor knows" is
another factor.

For that matter, is there anything in our society that is a perfect
meritocracy?


> I do assume that given my present
> structural condition as a graduate student in a relatively non-marketable
> specialty, competing in a job market where I will be up against 200+
> applicants per job that it's very important to do everything I can to have
> a vita that gets noticed. If that means that I'm going to pitch my work to
> what I feel the discipline as a whole regards as the better journals, yes.
> Sure this sounds cynical, selfish, and nakedly pragmatic but I think it
> would be somewhat irrational to ignore "journal prestige" given the
> realties of the academic job market. 

Well, that's a different story.  I was talking about people who
unthinkingly follow prestige.  At least you are conscious of your
predicament.  Someone could incite you to join some movement to
boycott prestige, if everyone else did it to.


> And I do think the study you're suggesting--to look at what predicts job
> satisfaction--would be great. If you're hiniting that "prestige of
> institution" might have low predictability of job satisfaction (or maybe
> its even negatively correlated with it!) I'd be inclined to agree [despite
> my own belief that I'd enjoy it]. In any rate, I'm sure if you (or someone
> else) did that study, it would make for a great soc-grad discussion topic.  

Yeah, I know, so I'm on deck to do this.  Maybe sometime, but not now.

I did, however, once look at GSS data to see what predicted happiness.

Being healthy was #1.  (More accurately, being unhealthy made people
especially unhappy; health tends to go unnoticed.)

Being married was #2.

Then there were a bunch of things pretty close together, which I called
tied for #3.  Things like being religious.  (What else?  I'd have to
check again.)

However, things like income and job prestige didn't matter.

That's some food for thought...

Jean