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Title
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Higher Education: A Field in Ferment
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Author
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Scott, W. Richard
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Research Area
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Social Institutions
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Topic
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Educational Institutions
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Abstract
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Higher education in the United States is in the throes of change as existing institutions are being challenged and new forms and modes of educational delivery are appearing. To understand and examine these changes, three versions of the “organization field” perspectives are employed. The first emphasizes the forces that have created and perpetuated the existing configuration of colleges and universities. The second stresses the ways in which colleges compete for scarce resources and engage in strategic behavior to survive and gain advantage in a highly competitive and contested arena. And the third focuses attention on consumers (students) rather than providers (colleges), noting alternatives that are emerging to offer training and education outside of the conventional providers. In combination, these perspectives identify varying players and processes that collectively are shaping the future of higher education.
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Identifier
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extracted text
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Higher Education: A Field in Ferment
W. RICHARD SCOTT
Abstract
Higher education in the United States is in the throes of change as existing institutions are being challenged and new forms and modes of educational delivery are
appearing. To understand and examine these changes, three versions of the “organization field” perspectives are employed. The first emphasizes the forces that
have created and perpetuated the existing configuration of colleges and universities. The second stresses the ways in which colleges compete for scarce resources and
engage in strategic behavior to survive and gain advantage in a highly competitive
and contested arena. And the third focuses attention on consumers (students) rather
than providers (colleges), noting alternatives that are emerging to offer training and
education outside of the conventional providers. In combination, these perspectives
identify varying players and processes that collectively are shaping the future of
higher education.
INTRODUCTION
Over the past two centuries, higher education in the United States has
exhibited much success and substantial stability. Its success is indicated by a
recent survey of the top universities in the world conducted by the Institute
of Higher Education at Shanghai’s Jiao Tong University that reported the
United States accounted for 53 of the top 100 universities as well as 17 of
the top 20 (Institute of Higher Education, 2011). Its stability is signaled by
the steady increase in the numbers and types of colleges and universities,
punctuated by growth spurts in the late nineteenth century occasioned by
the creation of the Land Grant universities following the Civil War as well
as a rapid expansion following the end of World War II in the mid-twentieth
century. Both of these episodes were underwritten by substantial increases
in public funding (Fischer & Hout, 2006). Other important markers of
stability include the reproduction of a class of somewhat distinctive forms:
colleges have long been structured as “professional bureaucracies”—that
is, as systems governed by rule-based managers who support the work of
professional teachers who self-organize and enjoy considerable autonomy
Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Edited by Robert Scott and Stephen Kosslyn.
© 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ISBN 978-1-118-90077-2.
1
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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
(Brint, 2000). Also of note, compared to most other types of institutions,
colleges continue to enjoy high prestige and the confidence of the public
(Immerwahr, 2004).
But the ground may be shifting beneath our feet! As we move into the
second decade of the twenty-first century, there is much evidence of destabilizing, perhaps revolutionary, change in the offing. Conventional colleges
are staggering under the dual challenges of reduced public funding and
increased costs of operation. New types of “nonconventional” students
increasingly inhabit our colleges—ethnically diverse, older, many married
with dependents, many attending part-time, often with poorer academic
preparation. Partly as a consequence, completion rates in US colleges now
rank 12th among 36 developed countries (Lewin, 2010). US colleges today
are also far more diverse than a few decades ago. Two-year community
colleges offering both transfer and vocationally oriented practical training
have grown rapidly, and new kinds of educational entities—for-profit
education corporations—that challenge conventional modes of organizing
have arisen. And disruptive technology—digital media—is rapidly being
adopted, challenging conventional modes of instruction and ways of organizing educational services. We are entering a time that will test the mettle of
faculty and administrators, as well as stretch the imagination and creativity
of social scientists who attempt to understand the nature and magnitude of
the changes under way.
To capture and comprehend this rapidly changing scene, I urge the value
of employing an “organization field” approach, a focus calling attention to
the collection of diverse types of organizations densely connected by network ties that together view themselves as “players in the same game.” However, to fully capture the varying processes at work, there are advantages
to employing more than one field model. The original model that stressed
the unity and stability of organization fields served well as a valuable guide
for scholars during a number of decades, but as the field has become more
unsettled and conflicted it has proved less serviceable. Two more recent models that provide helpful lenses for conceptualizing recent developments have
emerged.
HIGHER EDUCATION: THREE FIELD APPROACHES
The concept of “field” is based on earlier work in electromagnetism in the
physical sciences and gestalt theory in psychology during the nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries. Its first introduction into sociology was through
the work of urban ecologists, such as McKenzie (1926/1983), and it has subsequently been adopted and adapted by organizations scholars. As Martin
(2011) emphasizes, what is common to all these approaches is the view that
Higher Education: A Field in Ferment
3
the behavior of the objects under study is explained not by their internal
attributes but by their location in some physically or socially defined space.
In organization studies, the use of a field perspective directs attention away
from the attributes of a specific organization, its structure and activities, to
consider the effects of environmental forces on a collection of diverse organizations. For our own discussion, three models of organization fields are
sketched: higher education as an institutional field; higher education as an
arena of strategic action; and higher education as a demand-generated outcome (Scott, 2014).
HIGHER EDUCATION AS AN INSTITUTIONAL FIELD
Following the insights of DiMaggio and Powell (1983), Meyer and Rowan
(1977), and Meyer and Scott (1983) this approach focuses attention on the
collection of specialized organizations, including educational providers, supporting organizations, and oversight bodies that populate the sector of higher
education. In particular, stress is placed on processes—coercive, normative,
and memetic—that shape the structures and procedures of educational organizations so as to be broadly similar—creating a small number of recognizable forms, predictable and stable systems of relations, and shared meaning
systems. A number of types of colleges have developed over time, populations of organizations that share a common archetype: for example, liberal
arts colleges, research universities and comprehensive colleges, special focus
colleges, community colleges, specialized institutions, and for-profit entities.
Each of these types developed at different times in response to varying conditions.
Thus, liberal arts colleges were modeled on European counterparts dating
from the 1600s and emphasizing residential education, high ratios of faculty
to students, and broad grounding in the humanities, social and natural sciences. Research universities and comprehensive colleges were patterned on the
late nineteenth century German universities, although they were democratized in the American context to include in addition to the more esoteric arts
of philosophy, theology, and science, the more practical arts, such as engineering, agriculture, and business administration. This project was rapidly
advanced by the passage of the Morrill Act in 1862 that established a federalized system of land grant universities to foster the development of agricultural and the mechanical arts. And, over time, most professional occupations
in the United States have connected their training programs to universities,
recognizing that ongoing practice should be informed by and, over time,
improved by advances in theoretical developments and empirical findings
(Bledstein, 1976). Special focus colleges primarily serve the needs of specialized, professional, or craft occupations in a wide variety of areas. Commonly
4
EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
served arenas include medical and other health programs, engineering and
technology, business and management, art, music, design, and law. Currently
in the United States the bulk of such training is concentrated in the areas of
health, business, and art/music/design.
The first community colleges appeared very early in the twentieth century,
but this form did not diffuse rapidly until the 1960s in response to a general
movement to increase access to higher education for larger numbers of
students. These 2-year programs serve some combination of providing
remedial education to less advantaged students, general education to transfer students, and vocational training to those seeking terminal degrees or
certificates (Brint & Karabel, 1989). Without question, it is for-profit entities,
offering both 2- and 4-year programs that have adopted an organizing
archetype that differs most from traditional college models. Rather than
the professional organization model embraced, in theory if not always in
practice, by traditional colleges, they have adopted a corporate model. Their
focus on profit causes them to centralize decision making and concentrate
on strategies for growth and cost reduction rather than compete for top
faculty or embrace broader liberal arts programs. They typically serve
nontraditional student markets, offering more highly focused programs
with few electives (Tierney & Hentschke, 2007).
These distinctive college populations did not develop in response to some
general plan, but emerged at different points in time in response to changing
societal conditions. What is remarkable is that, to a surprising extent, these
differences among populations of colleges have persisted and been perpetuated. The creation of more formal typologies, such as those developed by
the Carnegie Foundation, were meant to capture these differences, but over
time have served to reinforce them. If you find yourself in the organization
considered to be a member of a class of similar organizations, you necessarily
begin to make comparisons and emulate successful role models (Espeland &
Sauder, 2007). More broadly, with the exception of the for-profit forms, educational organizations share a common institutional vision in which lesser
schools are trying to copy more prestigious ones. As Riesman (1956, p. 14)
observed more than a half century ago, “It may be illuminating to see the
avant-garde, both educational and more generally cultural, as the head of a
snake-like procession … [in which] the middle part seeks to catch up with
where the head once was.”
These isomorphic processes through which colleges imitate one another,
particularly those of the same type, are hugely abetted by a wide range of
supporting organizations, professional associations for faculty and administrators, unions, accreditation agencies, public and private oversight bodies,
foundations, the courts, and state and federal agencies. Especially influential
are the academic disciplines. As Clark (1983, p. 29) reminds us, in addition
Higher Education: A Field in Ferment
5
to being a network of varying enterprises (colleges), “a national system of
higher education is also a set of disciplines and professions.” Disciplinary
associations are particularly salient for the upper tiers of the field: the liberal
arts colleges, the comprehensive colleges and research universities, and the
special focus institutions. For faculty members in these settings, discipline
typically trumps enterprise. Abbott (2002) argues that their resilience rests
on their “dual institutionalization”:
On the one hand, the disciplines constitute the macrostructure of the labor
markets for faculty. Careers remain within discipline much more than within
university. On the other hand, the system constitutes the microstructure of each
individual university. All arts and sciences faculties contain more or less the
same list of departments
(Abbott, 2002, pp. 208–209)
In the field of higher education, regulatory controls exercised by governmental authorities, are supplemented by normative controls lodged in professional associations and accreditation bodies; and both are supported by
cognitive-cultural elements—widely shared conceptions of what is meant by
“college,” “faculty,” “credit hour” and “major” (Meyer, 1977). In sum, those
who view higher education as an institutional field stress the unexpected
similarity of its forms and the stability exhibited by its operation over past
centuries. It is viewed, in the language of economists, as a “mature industry.”
HIGHER EDUCATION AS AN ARENA OF STRATEGIC ACTION
A second perspective challenges the view of organization field as one of
stability and consensus. These scholars argue that most organizations operate in relatively conflicted contexts, disagreeing on fundamental assumptions, pursuing varying missions, and competing for scarce resources. They
insist that actors (including organizations) do not readily conform to external
pressures, but seize opportunities to exercise agency and engage in strategic
action (Oliver, 1991). Rather than zones of harmony and conformity, fields
are more accurately characterized as “games” within which organizational
actors struggle to improve their position at the expense of their competitors:
there are winners and losers. Whatever rules exist are “the product of the
competition between players” (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992, pp. 97–98), perhaps with some intervention by the state (Fligstein & McAdam, 2012).
While fields include many established and successful actors who have a
vested interest in maintaining the status quo, they also host other types of
players whose interests have been suppressed and who, given the opportunity, mobilize to promote change and reform. And, in the field of higher
6
EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
education, there is much over which to compete: prestige, faculty, athletes
and coaches, qualified students, financial resources. Such competition has
become much more intense over time as state funding for schools has
dropped from over 50% of public college revenues in the 1970s to under
30% in 2012 (National Center for Educational Statistics, 2012). Colleges
increasingly attempt to make up these differences by increasing tuition
and fees, competing for students able to meet these higher costs (often by
enticing students from out of state). These contests have been fueled by the
emergence and growth of rating agencies, who doggedly score and rank
every facet of a college’s makeup and programs. Because of these ratings,
colleges have become more aware of their direct competitors and many if not
most consciously work to improve their ratings (Bastedo & Bowman, 2009).
Another important reason why organization fields are contested in modern
societies is because they do not operate in isolation, but are surrounded and
affected by many other fields, each organized around differing “institutional
logics”—definitions of goals and views of appropriate means (Friedland &
Alford, 1991; Thornton, Ocasio, & Lounsbury, 2012). While some in higher
education would like to believe that it is dominated by a single logic—the
importance of knowledge for its own sake and adherence to appropriate
modes of scholarly work—this comfortable assumption is challenged by
actors involved with other fields who have different ideas about what
education is, what it is good for, and how it should be pursued. As Stevens,
Armstrong, and Aram (2008) point out, higher education has come to
function as an important “hub” in modern society, connecting to, affecting,
and being affected by other fields such as politics, economics, religion, the
status system, and the family.
Even at its origin, education was intertwined with another field, serving for
many years as the handmaiden of religion. It required many years for higher
education to develop its own raison d’etre: the cultivation and transmission
of knowledge. This logic still holds sway in some parts of higher education,
but has increasingly had to compete with alternative logics arriving from
varying directions. From the earliest period of our democracy, schools were
enlisted in the political project to provide literacy and problem-solving skills
to create an informed electorate and engaged citizens (Loss, 2012). Later,
the federal government enlisted universities in its cold-war struggle to
dominate other countries in basic science (Lowen, 1997). Also, it has largely
been a political agenda to expand the capacity of colleges—as occurred in
the aftermath of World War II—to insure that it was not simply the “elites”
who receive a higher education but the “masses,” that is, the majority of
citizens.
Also, from fairly early in its development, the value placed on a liberal education was joined and, sometimes, challenged by the growing recognition of
Higher Education: A Field in Ferment
7
the economic utility of a higher education. Over time, this connection has
become stronger and stronger, to the point where a society’s investment in
higher education is primarily justified today by its contribution to economic
development at the macro level, and “human capital” at the micro level. In
this manner, education also intersects with the status system and the family,
providing the path to upward mobility and insuring economic security.
The increasing marketization of universities and colleges is part of a larger
pattern of increasing dominance of economic values in more and more sectors of modern societies (Scott, 2013, pp. 251–255). As noted, public funding for higher education has greatly declined in recent decades, suggesting
the de facto privatization of public colleges. Students and their families are
increasingly expected to pay most of the costs of their own higher education.
Many liberal arts colleges that formerly considered academic achievement
and promise independently from financial assets, have now combined these
admission criteria in “enrollment management departments” that simultaneously consider both, assuring that financial criteria enter into every admission decision (Kraatz, Ventresce, & Deng, 2010). Enrollments in liberal arts
majors, even within “liberal arts colleges” have declined over time, so that
by 2010, the most commonly selected majors were in the fields of business,
management, marketing, culinary, and the health services (Brint, 2002). As
for research universities, with the passage of the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980, universities obtained property rights over the knowledge produced by faculty,
including that funded by government research grants. Knowledge that had
been publicly accessible to all became proprietary, weakening the justification
for public funding of research (Powell & Owen-Smith, 2002). Universities
are increasingly partnering with private corporations, patterns that affect not
only the topics on which research is conducted but also the ways in which
research training is carried out and the types of careers available to faculty
and students. There is no doubt but that the revenue considerations loom
ever larger in academic decisions and that money does indeed impact mission (Weisbrod, Ballou, & Asch, 2008).
Meanwhile, while public and nonprofit colleges and universities are
bending to the winds of market pressures, a new wave of for-profit entities
has appeared that fully embrace market logics (Tierney & Hentschke, 2007).
For-profit colleges are in business to produce profits for their shareholders
by cutting costs, increasing capacity, and aggressively recruiting students.
They invest heavily in marketing and recruiting while attempting to reduce
costs on instruction to a minimum. This has resulted in their employment
of part-time and short-term faculty, primarily instructors, and in pioneering
the use of digital media and distance learning systems to standardize
educational content and promote its efficient delivery to large numbers.
8
EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
In part because of current cost pressures, a growing number of both public and nonprofit schools are beginning to experiment with online courses. A
myriad of new questions have emerged around these changes. Do students
learn as well from digital courses as from in-class experiences? Can digital
presentations be combined (blended) with face-to-face meetings? How can
student performance be assessed accurately and fairly when the student is
distant from the evaluator? How can faculty and universities be compensated
for these courses. How should these earnings be shared? Will the growth of
these courses threaten faculty in existing colleges who may be made redundant or reduced to teaching assistants? Will the education experience become
standard and uniform, losing its variety and creativity? (Stevens & Kirst,
2014).
Competition, struggle, diverse goals, both within and between colleges,
escalating costs and diminished revenues—an emphasis on these features
provides an alternative and more sobering perspective from which to examine the higher education field.
HIGHER EDUCATION AS A DEMAND GENERATED OUTCOME
Different as they are, the first two perspectives share the common underlying assumption that analysts should focus primary attention on existing
providers of higher education as the focal actors of interest. An alternative,
emerging perspective points out that it is useful to view higher education as a
market in which consumers (students) are the central actor of interest. Such a
perspective shifts attention from providers to consumers, from supply-side
to demand-side concerns and forces. It reminds us of the truth voiced several decades ago by an outspoken critic of educational organization. Ivan
Ellich (1971) argued eloquently if somewhat caustically that we should never
equate education with schools: indeed, that it would be a service to all if society could be “deschooled”!
A half century ago, Illich’s views seemed, at best, a utopian mirage, but
in the early decades of the twenty-first century, they begin to emerge as a
real possibility. In addition to such important, previously available activities
as “experience,” reading, and travel, the explosion of learning opportunities opened up to all by the internet has vastly expanded the repertoire of
available options. A variety of search engines is available to guide those in
search of data, information, even knowledge on a vast variety of topics. Even
more significantly, a wide range of college-level courses are freely available
to any and all with access to a computer, some offered (and presumably
approved) by leading universities. Hence, do-it-yourself education, or “design your own university” is more than ever a realistic possibility for some
(Kamenetz, 2010).
Higher Education: A Field in Ferment
9
We can perhaps get a glimpse of the future by considering some trends
observable in the “new economy”—newer industries in which work is organized in novel ways. Studies of how work skills are acquired in regions such
as Silicon Valley report that individuals increasingly want to take charge of
their own careers. Rather than committing themselves to stay and attempt
to advance up the ladder of a single company, they move from company
to company, changing jobs frequently. Because technologies change rapidly,
knowledge and skills are quickly outmoded. However, the new knowledge
and skills needed are often not available from traditional colleges. Instead,
courses are frequently offered by companies providing certificates or badges
to those enrolled. Such credentials may have higher value than college credit
or degrees (Saxenian, 1996). Observers describe how technical employees
often teach themselves new skills using on-line programs, attend technical
conferences and workshops, organize themselves into user groups to assist
each other, or rely on hiring firms or immigrant associations who offer technical training (Barley & Kunda, 2004; Saxenian, 1999). In short, many new
paths have arisen leading to improved understanding and enhanced skills
that do not lead through traditional educational institutions.
Still, it is important that we not overlook the existence, the resilience,
the adaptability, or the power of higher education as it exists today. Novel
educational approaches and providers are not entering an empty arena, but
one crowded with entrenched and resourceful players. Colleges and universities are banding together in associations, such as the American Council
on Education and the Council for Higher Education Accreditation, to clarify
the meaning of the “credit hour,” to defend and shore up accreditation, and
to reassert control over educational standards. Many are also exploring new
ways to adapt to changing students and educational requirements. Numerous universities, including many of the most prestigious are experimenting
with online courses and exploring ways to combine or blend them with
more traditional face-to-face classroom interchange (Johnston, 2012). Many
colleges, particularly public state comprehensive and community colleges,
have been exploring ways to partner with companies and associations to
be more responsive to industry needs. For example, many colleges utilize
industry and business affiliate programs, department advisory committees,
pursue firm-college partnerships in developing courses or teaching them
onsite in company space, or collaborate to create internship opportunities
for students. They more commonly utilize adjunct faculty with company
or business experience, some making adjustments in appointment and/or
tenure criteria. Many devise more flexible enrollment programs, allowing
students to attend part-time, off-site, or intermittently, more easily transitioning from school to work and back. Almost all have developed a wider
range of credentials, not simply degrees and diplomas, but certificates and
10
EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
badges. Some of these adaptation procedures are likely to set in motion
more long-lasting changes in college programs, structures, and mission.
For their part, entities attempting to cater to the emerging student-centered
marketplace have been compelled to embrace some of the trappings and
practices of more conventional educational programs. Students want to be
sure that the courses they are taking or the skills they are acquiring have some
kind of currency—that they will be accepted as having value by employers
as well as by other training institutions. New forms of certification are being
developed, and older modes are being borrowed and adapted to fit new circumstances. Evaluation procedures are being developed to assess the new
forms of learning and means devised or appropriated to insure that they have
validity. Students usually require assistance in locating appropriate learning experiences and in connecting them to related more advanced work. In
response, some organizations have emerged to create curricular programs
and provide guidance to students. Existing chunks of the educational structure are being replicated or repurposed.
Most important, as the institutional model of higher education emphases,
existing college institutions continue to enjoy high legitimacy and strong support from the public, And most American individuals continue to aspire to a
traditional college education and a college degree, an aspiration that is likely
to persist for many years to come.
A CONCLUDING COMMENT
As we enter the twenty-first century, higher education in the United States
is undergoing significant change. Older forms and traditions are challenged
and new forms and modes of education are emerging and being tested. We
have emphasized that, in the midst of change, old models, structures, and
beliefs continue to persist and to exert force. Institutions bend but do not
usually break. They undergo change, but the metric appropriate is typically
measured in years and decades, not days and months (Pierson, 2004). Multiple countervailing forces are at work, which, in combination, create complex
vectors and unanticipated outcomes. Because of its continuing centrality and
its complex and vital connections to other societal sectors, higher education
merits the attention of social science, perhaps now more than ever.
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Powell, W. W., & Owen-Smith, J. (2002). The new world of knowledge production
in the life sciences. In S. Brint (Ed.), The future of the city of intellect (pp. 107–130).
Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Riesman, D. (1956). Constraint and variety in American education. Lincoln: University
of Nebraska Press.
Saxenian, A. (1996). Regional advantage: Culture and competition in Silicon Valley and
route 128. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Saxenian, A. (1999). Silicon Valley’s new immigrant entrepreneurs. San Francisco, CA:
Public Policy Institute of California.
Scott, W. R. (2013). Institutions and organizations: Ideas, interests, and identities (4th ed.).
Los Angeles, CA: Sage.
Scott, W. R. (2014). Higher education in American: Multiple field perspectives. In M.
L. Stevens & M. W. Kirst (Eds.), Remaking college: Broad-access higher education for a
new era. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Stevens, M. L., Armstrong, E. A., & Aram, R. (2008). Sieve, incubator, temple, hub:
Empirical and theoretical advances in the sociology of higher education. Annual
Review of Sociology, 34, 127–151.
Stevens, M. L., & Kirst, M. (2014). Remaking college: Broad-access higher education for a
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Thornton, P. H., Ocasio, W., & Lounsbury, M. (2012). The institutional logics perspective:
A new approach to culture, structure, and process. Oxford, England: Oxford University
Press.
Tierney, W. G., & Hentschke, G. C. (2007). New players, different game: Understanding
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Weisbrod, B. A., Ballou, J. P., & Asch, E. D. (2008). Mission and money: Understanding
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Higher Education: A Field in Ferment
13
W. RICHARD SCOTT SHORT BIOGRAPHY
W. Richard Scott received his PhD in sociology from the University of
Chicago. He came to Stanford University in 1960, where he is currently
Professor Emeritus of Sociology, with courtesy appointments in the Schools
of Business, Education, and Medicine. He is an organizational sociologist
who has concentrated his work on the study of professional organizations,
including educational, engineering, medical, research, social welfare, and
medical systems. During the past two decades, he has concentrated his
writings and research on the relation between organizations and their
institutional environments. He is the author or editor of some 20 books and
the author of more than 200 journal articles and book chapters.
Scott is a former editor of the Annual Review of Sociology (1988–1991) and
former president of the Sociological Research Association (2006–2007).
Awards include Phi Beta Kappa, member of the Institute of Medicine,
Distinguished Scholar (1988) and Distinguished Educator (2013) award
from the Management and Organization Theory Division of the Academy
of Management, and the Richard Irwin award for Distinguished Scholarly
Contributions, Academy of Management. He was a Fellow of the Center
for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, 1989–1990. In 2000, The
Organizations and Occupations Section of the American Sociological Association designated its annual award honoring an outstanding article-length
contribution as the “W. Richard Scott” award. He has received honorary
doctorates from the Copenhagen Business School (2000), Helsinki School of
Economics and Business (2001), and Aarhus University (Denmark, 2010).
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14
EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
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-
Higher Education: A Field in Ferment
W. RICHARD SCOTT
Abstract
Higher education in the United States is in the throes of change as existing institutions are being challenged and new forms and modes of educational delivery are
appearing. To understand and examine these changes, three versions of the “organization field” perspectives are employed. The first emphasizes the forces that
have created and perpetuated the existing configuration of colleges and universities. The second stresses the ways in which colleges compete for scarce resources and
engage in strategic behavior to survive and gain advantage in a highly competitive
and contested arena. And the third focuses attention on consumers (students) rather
than providers (colleges), noting alternatives that are emerging to offer training and
education outside of the conventional providers. In combination, these perspectives
identify varying players and processes that collectively are shaping the future of
higher education.
INTRODUCTION
Over the past two centuries, higher education in the United States has
exhibited much success and substantial stability. Its success is indicated by a
recent survey of the top universities in the world conducted by the Institute
of Higher Education at Shanghai’s Jiao Tong University that reported the
United States accounted for 53 of the top 100 universities as well as 17 of
the top 20 (Institute of Higher Education, 2011). Its stability is signaled by
the steady increase in the numbers and types of colleges and universities,
punctuated by growth spurts in the late nineteenth century occasioned by
the creation of the Land Grant universities following the Civil War as well
as a rapid expansion following the end of World War II in the mid-twentieth
century. Both of these episodes were underwritten by substantial increases
in public funding (Fischer & Hout, 2006). Other important markers of
stability include the reproduction of a class of somewhat distinctive forms:
colleges have long been structured as “professional bureaucracies”—that
is, as systems governed by rule-based managers who support the work of
professional teachers who self-organize and enjoy considerable autonomy
Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Edited by Robert Scott and Stephen Kosslyn.
© 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ISBN 978-1-118-90077-2.
1
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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
(Brint, 2000). Also of note, compared to most other types of institutions,
colleges continue to enjoy high prestige and the confidence of the public
(Immerwahr, 2004).
But the ground may be shifting beneath our feet! As we move into the
second decade of the twenty-first century, there is much evidence of destabilizing, perhaps revolutionary, change in the offing. Conventional colleges
are staggering under the dual challenges of reduced public funding and
increased costs of operation. New types of “nonconventional” students
increasingly inhabit our colleges—ethnically diverse, older, many married
with dependents, many attending part-time, often with poorer academic
preparation. Partly as a consequence, completion rates in US colleges now
rank 12th among 36 developed countries (Lewin, 2010). US colleges today
are also far more diverse than a few decades ago. Two-year community
colleges offering both transfer and vocationally oriented practical training
have grown rapidly, and new kinds of educational entities—for-profit
education corporations—that challenge conventional modes of organizing
have arisen. And disruptive technology—digital media—is rapidly being
adopted, challenging conventional modes of instruction and ways of organizing educational services. We are entering a time that will test the mettle of
faculty and administrators, as well as stretch the imagination and creativity
of social scientists who attempt to understand the nature and magnitude of
the changes under way.
To capture and comprehend this rapidly changing scene, I urge the value
of employing an “organization field” approach, a focus calling attention to
the collection of diverse types of organizations densely connected by network ties that together view themselves as “players in the same game.” However, to fully capture the varying processes at work, there are advantages
to employing more than one field model. The original model that stressed
the unity and stability of organization fields served well as a valuable guide
for scholars during a number of decades, but as the field has become more
unsettled and conflicted it has proved less serviceable. Two more recent models that provide helpful lenses for conceptualizing recent developments have
emerged.
HIGHER EDUCATION: THREE FIELD APPROACHES
The concept of “field” is based on earlier work in electromagnetism in the
physical sciences and gestalt theory in psychology during the nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries. Its first introduction into sociology was through
the work of urban ecologists, such as McKenzie (1926/1983), and it has subsequently been adopted and adapted by organizations scholars. As Martin
(2011) emphasizes, what is common to all these approaches is the view that
Higher Education: A Field in Ferment
3
the behavior of the objects under study is explained not by their internal
attributes but by their location in some physically or socially defined space.
In organization studies, the use of a field perspective directs attention away
from the attributes of a specific organization, its structure and activities, to
consider the effects of environmental forces on a collection of diverse organizations. For our own discussion, three models of organization fields are
sketched: higher education as an institutional field; higher education as an
arena of strategic action; and higher education as a demand-generated outcome (Scott, 2014).
HIGHER EDUCATION AS AN INSTITUTIONAL FIELD
Following the insights of DiMaggio and Powell (1983), Meyer and Rowan
(1977), and Meyer and Scott (1983) this approach focuses attention on the
collection of specialized organizations, including educational providers, supporting organizations, and oversight bodies that populate the sector of higher
education. In particular, stress is placed on processes—coercive, normative,
and memetic—that shape the structures and procedures of educational organizations so as to be broadly similar—creating a small number of recognizable forms, predictable and stable systems of relations, and shared meaning
systems. A number of types of colleges have developed over time, populations of organizations that share a common archetype: for example, liberal
arts colleges, research universities and comprehensive colleges, special focus
colleges, community colleges, specialized institutions, and for-profit entities.
Each of these types developed at different times in response to varying conditions.
Thus, liberal arts colleges were modeled on European counterparts dating
from the 1600s and emphasizing residential education, high ratios of faculty
to students, and broad grounding in the humanities, social and natural sciences. Research universities and comprehensive colleges were patterned on the
late nineteenth century German universities, although they were democratized in the American context to include in addition to the more esoteric arts
of philosophy, theology, and science, the more practical arts, such as engineering, agriculture, and business administration. This project was rapidly
advanced by the passage of the Morrill Act in 1862 that established a federalized system of land grant universities to foster the development of agricultural and the mechanical arts. And, over time, most professional occupations
in the United States have connected their training programs to universities,
recognizing that ongoing practice should be informed by and, over time,
improved by advances in theoretical developments and empirical findings
(Bledstein, 1976). Special focus colleges primarily serve the needs of specialized, professional, or craft occupations in a wide variety of areas. Commonly
4
EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
served arenas include medical and other health programs, engineering and
technology, business and management, art, music, design, and law. Currently
in the United States the bulk of such training is concentrated in the areas of
health, business, and art/music/design.
The first community colleges appeared very early in the twentieth century,
but this form did not diffuse rapidly until the 1960s in response to a general
movement to increase access to higher education for larger numbers of
students. These 2-year programs serve some combination of providing
remedial education to less advantaged students, general education to transfer students, and vocational training to those seeking terminal degrees or
certificates (Brint & Karabel, 1989). Without question, it is for-profit entities,
offering both 2- and 4-year programs that have adopted an organizing
archetype that differs most from traditional college models. Rather than
the professional organization model embraced, in theory if not always in
practice, by traditional colleges, they have adopted a corporate model. Their
focus on profit causes them to centralize decision making and concentrate
on strategies for growth and cost reduction rather than compete for top
faculty or embrace broader liberal arts programs. They typically serve
nontraditional student markets, offering more highly focused programs
with few electives (Tierney & Hentschke, 2007).
These distinctive college populations did not develop in response to some
general plan, but emerged at different points in time in response to changing
societal conditions. What is remarkable is that, to a surprising extent, these
differences among populations of colleges have persisted and been perpetuated. The creation of more formal typologies, such as those developed by
the Carnegie Foundation, were meant to capture these differences, but over
time have served to reinforce them. If you find yourself in the organization
considered to be a member of a class of similar organizations, you necessarily
begin to make comparisons and emulate successful role models (Espeland &
Sauder, 2007). More broadly, with the exception of the for-profit forms, educational organizations share a common institutional vision in which lesser
schools are trying to copy more prestigious ones. As Riesman (1956, p. 14)
observed more than a half century ago, “It may be illuminating to see the
avant-garde, both educational and more generally cultural, as the head of a
snake-like procession … [in which] the middle part seeks to catch up with
where the head once was.”
These isomorphic processes through which colleges imitate one another,
particularly those of the same type, are hugely abetted by a wide range of
supporting organizations, professional associations for faculty and administrators, unions, accreditation agencies, public and private oversight bodies,
foundations, the courts, and state and federal agencies. Especially influential
are the academic disciplines. As Clark (1983, p. 29) reminds us, in addition
Higher Education: A Field in Ferment
5
to being a network of varying enterprises (colleges), “a national system of
higher education is also a set of disciplines and professions.” Disciplinary
associations are particularly salient for the upper tiers of the field: the liberal
arts colleges, the comprehensive colleges and research universities, and the
special focus institutions. For faculty members in these settings, discipline
typically trumps enterprise. Abbott (2002) argues that their resilience rests
on their “dual institutionalization”:
On the one hand, the disciplines constitute the macrostructure of the labor
markets for faculty. Careers remain within discipline much more than within
university. On the other hand, the system constitutes the microstructure of each
individual university. All arts and sciences faculties contain more or less the
same list of departments
(Abbott, 2002, pp. 208–209)
In the field of higher education, regulatory controls exercised by governmental authorities, are supplemented by normative controls lodged in professional associations and accreditation bodies; and both are supported by
cognitive-cultural elements—widely shared conceptions of what is meant by
“college,” “faculty,” “credit hour” and “major” (Meyer, 1977). In sum, those
who view higher education as an institutional field stress the unexpected
similarity of its forms and the stability exhibited by its operation over past
centuries. It is viewed, in the language of economists, as a “mature industry.”
HIGHER EDUCATION AS AN ARENA OF STRATEGIC ACTION
A second perspective challenges the view of organization field as one of
stability and consensus. These scholars argue that most organizations operate in relatively conflicted contexts, disagreeing on fundamental assumptions, pursuing varying missions, and competing for scarce resources. They
insist that actors (including organizations) do not readily conform to external
pressures, but seize opportunities to exercise agency and engage in strategic
action (Oliver, 1991). Rather than zones of harmony and conformity, fields
are more accurately characterized as “games” within which organizational
actors struggle to improve their position at the expense of their competitors:
there are winners and losers. Whatever rules exist are “the product of the
competition between players” (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992, pp. 97–98), perhaps with some intervention by the state (Fligstein & McAdam, 2012).
While fields include many established and successful actors who have a
vested interest in maintaining the status quo, they also host other types of
players whose interests have been suppressed and who, given the opportunity, mobilize to promote change and reform. And, in the field of higher
6
EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
education, there is much over which to compete: prestige, faculty, athletes
and coaches, qualified students, financial resources. Such competition has
become much more intense over time as state funding for schools has
dropped from over 50% of public college revenues in the 1970s to under
30% in 2012 (National Center for Educational Statistics, 2012). Colleges
increasingly attempt to make up these differences by increasing tuition
and fees, competing for students able to meet these higher costs (often by
enticing students from out of state). These contests have been fueled by the
emergence and growth of rating agencies, who doggedly score and rank
every facet of a college’s makeup and programs. Because of these ratings,
colleges have become more aware of their direct competitors and many if not
most consciously work to improve their ratings (Bastedo & Bowman, 2009).
Another important reason why organization fields are contested in modern
societies is because they do not operate in isolation, but are surrounded and
affected by many other fields, each organized around differing “institutional
logics”—definitions of goals and views of appropriate means (Friedland &
Alford, 1991; Thornton, Ocasio, & Lounsbury, 2012). While some in higher
education would like to believe that it is dominated by a single logic—the
importance of knowledge for its own sake and adherence to appropriate
modes of scholarly work—this comfortable assumption is challenged by
actors involved with other fields who have different ideas about what
education is, what it is good for, and how it should be pursued. As Stevens,
Armstrong, and Aram (2008) point out, higher education has come to
function as an important “hub” in modern society, connecting to, affecting,
and being affected by other fields such as politics, economics, religion, the
status system, and the family.
Even at its origin, education was intertwined with another field, serving for
many years as the handmaiden of religion. It required many years for higher
education to develop its own raison d’etre: the cultivation and transmission
of knowledge. This logic still holds sway in some parts of higher education,
but has increasingly had to compete with alternative logics arriving from
varying directions. From the earliest period of our democracy, schools were
enlisted in the political project to provide literacy and problem-solving skills
to create an informed electorate and engaged citizens (Loss, 2012). Later,
the federal government enlisted universities in its cold-war struggle to
dominate other countries in basic science (Lowen, 1997). Also, it has largely
been a political agenda to expand the capacity of colleges—as occurred in
the aftermath of World War II—to insure that it was not simply the “elites”
who receive a higher education but the “masses,” that is, the majority of
citizens.
Also, from fairly early in its development, the value placed on a liberal education was joined and, sometimes, challenged by the growing recognition of
Higher Education: A Field in Ferment
7
the economic utility of a higher education. Over time, this connection has
become stronger and stronger, to the point where a society’s investment in
higher education is primarily justified today by its contribution to economic
development at the macro level, and “human capital” at the micro level. In
this manner, education also intersects with the status system and the family,
providing the path to upward mobility and insuring economic security.
The increasing marketization of universities and colleges is part of a larger
pattern of increasing dominance of economic values in more and more sectors of modern societies (Scott, 2013, pp. 251–255). As noted, public funding for higher education has greatly declined in recent decades, suggesting
the de facto privatization of public colleges. Students and their families are
increasingly expected to pay most of the costs of their own higher education.
Many liberal arts colleges that formerly considered academic achievement
and promise independently from financial assets, have now combined these
admission criteria in “enrollment management departments” that simultaneously consider both, assuring that financial criteria enter into every admission decision (Kraatz, Ventresce, & Deng, 2010). Enrollments in liberal arts
majors, even within “liberal arts colleges” have declined over time, so that
by 2010, the most commonly selected majors were in the fields of business,
management, marketing, culinary, and the health services (Brint, 2002). As
for research universities, with the passage of the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980, universities obtained property rights over the knowledge produced by faculty,
including that funded by government research grants. Knowledge that had
been publicly accessible to all became proprietary, weakening the justification
for public funding of research (Powell & Owen-Smith, 2002). Universities
are increasingly partnering with private corporations, patterns that affect not
only the topics on which research is conducted but also the ways in which
research training is carried out and the types of careers available to faculty
and students. There is no doubt but that the revenue considerations loom
ever larger in academic decisions and that money does indeed impact mission (Weisbrod, Ballou, & Asch, 2008).
Meanwhile, while public and nonprofit colleges and universities are
bending to the winds of market pressures, a new wave of for-profit entities
has appeared that fully embrace market logics (Tierney & Hentschke, 2007).
For-profit colleges are in business to produce profits for their shareholders
by cutting costs, increasing capacity, and aggressively recruiting students.
They invest heavily in marketing and recruiting while attempting to reduce
costs on instruction to a minimum. This has resulted in their employment
of part-time and short-term faculty, primarily instructors, and in pioneering
the use of digital media and distance learning systems to standardize
educational content and promote its efficient delivery to large numbers.
8
EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
In part because of current cost pressures, a growing number of both public and nonprofit schools are beginning to experiment with online courses. A
myriad of new questions have emerged around these changes. Do students
learn as well from digital courses as from in-class experiences? Can digital
presentations be combined (blended) with face-to-face meetings? How can
student performance be assessed accurately and fairly when the student is
distant from the evaluator? How can faculty and universities be compensated
for these courses. How should these earnings be shared? Will the growth of
these courses threaten faculty in existing colleges who may be made redundant or reduced to teaching assistants? Will the education experience become
standard and uniform, losing its variety and creativity? (Stevens & Kirst,
2014).
Competition, struggle, diverse goals, both within and between colleges,
escalating costs and diminished revenues—an emphasis on these features
provides an alternative and more sobering perspective from which to examine the higher education field.
HIGHER EDUCATION AS A DEMAND GENERATED OUTCOME
Different as they are, the first two perspectives share the common underlying assumption that analysts should focus primary attention on existing
providers of higher education as the focal actors of interest. An alternative,
emerging perspective points out that it is useful to view higher education as a
market in which consumers (students) are the central actor of interest. Such a
perspective shifts attention from providers to consumers, from supply-side
to demand-side concerns and forces. It reminds us of the truth voiced several decades ago by an outspoken critic of educational organization. Ivan
Ellich (1971) argued eloquently if somewhat caustically that we should never
equate education with schools: indeed, that it would be a service to all if society could be “deschooled”!
A half century ago, Illich’s views seemed, at best, a utopian mirage, but
in the early decades of the twenty-first century, they begin to emerge as a
real possibility. In addition to such important, previously available activities
as “experience,” reading, and travel, the explosion of learning opportunities opened up to all by the internet has vastly expanded the repertoire of
available options. A variety of search engines is available to guide those in
search of data, information, even knowledge on a vast variety of topics. Even
more significantly, a wide range of college-level courses are freely available
to any and all with access to a computer, some offered (and presumably
approved) by leading universities. Hence, do-it-yourself education, or “design your own university” is more than ever a realistic possibility for some
(Kamenetz, 2010).
Higher Education: A Field in Ferment
9
We can perhaps get a glimpse of the future by considering some trends
observable in the “new economy”—newer industries in which work is organized in novel ways. Studies of how work skills are acquired in regions such
as Silicon Valley report that individuals increasingly want to take charge of
their own careers. Rather than committing themselves to stay and attempt
to advance up the ladder of a single company, they move from company
to company, changing jobs frequently. Because technologies change rapidly,
knowledge and skills are quickly outmoded. However, the new knowledge
and skills needed are often not available from traditional colleges. Instead,
courses are frequently offered by companies providing certificates or badges
to those enrolled. Such credentials may have higher value than college credit
or degrees (Saxenian, 1996). Observers describe how technical employees
often teach themselves new skills using on-line programs, attend technical
conferences and workshops, organize themselves into user groups to assist
each other, or rely on hiring firms or immigrant associations who offer technical training (Barley & Kunda, 2004; Saxenian, 1999). In short, many new
paths have arisen leading to improved understanding and enhanced skills
that do not lead through traditional educational institutions.
Still, it is important that we not overlook the existence, the resilience,
the adaptability, or the power of higher education as it exists today. Novel
educational approaches and providers are not entering an empty arena, but
one crowded with entrenched and resourceful players. Colleges and universities are banding together in associations, such as the American Council
on Education and the Council for Higher Education Accreditation, to clarify
the meaning of the “credit hour,” to defend and shore up accreditation, and
to reassert control over educational standards. Many are also exploring new
ways to adapt to changing students and educational requirements. Numerous universities, including many of the most prestigious are experimenting
with online courses and exploring ways to combine or blend them with
more traditional face-to-face classroom interchange (Johnston, 2012). Many
colleges, particularly public state comprehensive and community colleges,
have been exploring ways to partner with companies and associations to
be more responsive to industry needs. For example, many colleges utilize
industry and business affiliate programs, department advisory committees,
pursue firm-college partnerships in developing courses or teaching them
onsite in company space, or collaborate to create internship opportunities
for students. They more commonly utilize adjunct faculty with company
or business experience, some making adjustments in appointment and/or
tenure criteria. Many devise more flexible enrollment programs, allowing
students to attend part-time, off-site, or intermittently, more easily transitioning from school to work and back. Almost all have developed a wider
range of credentials, not simply degrees and diplomas, but certificates and
10
EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
badges. Some of these adaptation procedures are likely to set in motion
more long-lasting changes in college programs, structures, and mission.
For their part, entities attempting to cater to the emerging student-centered
marketplace have been compelled to embrace some of the trappings and
practices of more conventional educational programs. Students want to be
sure that the courses they are taking or the skills they are acquiring have some
kind of currency—that they will be accepted as having value by employers
as well as by other training institutions. New forms of certification are being
developed, and older modes are being borrowed and adapted to fit new circumstances. Evaluation procedures are being developed to assess the new
forms of learning and means devised or appropriated to insure that they have
validity. Students usually require assistance in locating appropriate learning experiences and in connecting them to related more advanced work. In
response, some organizations have emerged to create curricular programs
and provide guidance to students. Existing chunks of the educational structure are being replicated or repurposed.
Most important, as the institutional model of higher education emphases,
existing college institutions continue to enjoy high legitimacy and strong support from the public, And most American individuals continue to aspire to a
traditional college education and a college degree, an aspiration that is likely
to persist for many years to come.
A CONCLUDING COMMENT
As we enter the twenty-first century, higher education in the United States
is undergoing significant change. Older forms and traditions are challenged
and new forms and modes of education are emerging and being tested. We
have emphasized that, in the midst of change, old models, structures, and
beliefs continue to persist and to exert force. Institutions bend but do not
usually break. They undergo change, but the metric appropriate is typically
measured in years and decades, not days and months (Pierson, 2004). Multiple countervailing forces are at work, which, in combination, create complex
vectors and unanticipated outcomes. Because of its continuing centrality and
its complex and vital connections to other societal sectors, higher education
merits the attention of social science, perhaps now more than ever.
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Higher Education: A Field in Ferment
13
W. RICHARD SCOTT SHORT BIOGRAPHY
W. Richard Scott received his PhD in sociology from the University of
Chicago. He came to Stanford University in 1960, where he is currently
Professor Emeritus of Sociology, with courtesy appointments in the Schools
of Business, Education, and Medicine. He is an organizational sociologist
who has concentrated his work on the study of professional organizations,
including educational, engineering, medical, research, social welfare, and
medical systems. During the past two decades, he has concentrated his
writings and research on the relation between organizations and their
institutional environments. He is the author or editor of some 20 books and
the author of more than 200 journal articles and book chapters.
Scott is a former editor of the Annual Review of Sociology (1988–1991) and
former president of the Sociological Research Association (2006–2007).
Awards include Phi Beta Kappa, member of the Institute of Medicine,
Distinguished Scholar (1988) and Distinguished Educator (2013) award
from the Management and Organization Theory Division of the Academy
of Management, and the Richard Irwin award for Distinguished Scholarly
Contributions, Academy of Management. He was a Fellow of the Center
for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, 1989–1990. In 2000, The
Organizations and Occupations Section of the American Sociological Association designated its annual award honoring an outstanding article-length
contribution as the “W. Richard Scott” award. He has received honorary
doctorates from the Copenhagen Business School (2000), Helsinki School of
Economics and Business (2001), and Aarhus University (Denmark, 2010).
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