We are told that the authors didn't concern themselves with the appropriateness of each sample, but left the recruitment and retention of the sample's students to each of the respective institutions. The reason we say the empiricism for this book is 'thin' is that the 'longitudinal data of 2,322 students,' while seemingly ample, involves students spread over 'a diverse range of campuses,' including 'liberal arts colleges and large research institutions, as well as a number of historically black colleges and universities and Hispanic-serving institutions,' all 'dispersed nationally across all four regions of the country.' This must necessarily mean that the 'sample' from any given institution or program was quite small. The function of the authors' own research is thus often to serve more or less as scientistic window-dressing. That the book is published by the University of Chicago Press attests to its presumptive merit.Īcademically Adrift furnishes an example of something that has long been common in social science writing: a rather thin empirical study serving as the work's own contribution, combined with considerable additional material coming out of the literature on whatever subject is being explored.

His co-author, Josipa Roksa, is an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Virginia. He is the author of several books on education and director of the Education Research Program sponsored by the Social Science Research Council.

Richard Arum is a sociology professor at New York University with a tie to the university's school of education. The authors are both faculty members at major American universities. That mindscape allows a recognition of many things, but not of others. It is a discussion that is truncated intellectually by the authors' close adherence to the selective awareness that so greatly typifies the mindscape of the contemporary American 'establishment' in academia and throughout the commanding heights of American society. At the same time, it will be as instructive to note the book's weaknesses, and especially what is omitted from the discussion. It will be valuable to review the authors' insights. This book has much to say that is perceptive about today's undergraduate higher education in the United States. Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses

Academically Adrift by Richard Arum