Papers by Francisco Ramirez
Handbook of the Sociology of Education
Comparative Education Review, 1985
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, a... more JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact
This paper describes and interprets the worldwide transformation of universities with respect to ... more This paper describes and interprets the worldwide transformation of universities with respect to how they account for excellence. It first reflects on the rationalized university as an organizational ideal and the implications of rationalization on standardizing university practices. The paper then focuses on two interrelated phenomena: the assessment of faculty and the assessment of universities, as illustrations of accounting-for-excellence. Examining the annual faculty report and tenure protocol as examples of common organizational practices within American universities, it argues that these practices facilitate American university participation in national and international university rankings. Finally, it is argued that American universities underwent earlier organizational rationalization and differentiation than universities in other countries in part because they were less differentiated from other social institutions. In the absence of the buffering authority of the state a...
Tertiary Education and Management
The International Association of Universities (IAU) is the only inclusive global university assoc... more The International Association of Universities (IAU) is the only inclusive global university association, its membership barriers are low, yet few universities are members despite considerable benefits. What determines membership in this long-standing international university alliance? Reviewing recent trends toward a more networked, stratified and internationalized global higher education field, we argue that universities with a greater need for legitimation and those ‘born’ into a global era are more likely to become members of an inclusive international network like the IAU. Thus, we expect lower status and younger universities to be more likely to join. We apply regression models to test hypotheses implied by these arguments. Our findings are consistent with these hypotheses, even after controlling for other factors. We discuss these findings using neo-institutional arguments about legitimacy and imprinted logics and suggest potential analytical avenues for further research.
Revista Peruana de Investigación Educativa
Desde la Segunda Guerra Mundial, la globalización cultural, política y económica ha socavado un p... more Desde la Segunda Guerra Mundial, la globalización cultural, política y económica ha socavado un primer modelo educacional que solo enfatiza el estado de la nación y la ciudadanía nacional. Más aún, el estudiante debe ser preparado cada vez más para funcionar como titular de derechos y persona responsable en una sociedad global, que se relaciona con otras personas sin reparar en la ciudadanía nacional. Esta sociedad global es considerada cada vez más como legítimamente muy diversa y con un carácter multicultural. Y la diversidad en la sociedad nacional es reconocida hoy como legítima y central. A nivel individual, los estudiantes deben aprender a expresar y respetar todo tipo de valores y materiales culturales únicos. En este artículo planteamos preguntas en torno a dos cambios centrales. La primera atañe al grado en que los currículos nacionales en ciencias sociales avanzan en la dirección general de la globalización y el multiculturalismo, como corriente opuesta a la conservación d...
Higher Education Dynamics
Multicultural Education Review
International Journal of Comparative Sociology, 1997
Page 1. From Women's Suffrage to Reproduction Rights? Cross-national Considerations&... more Page 1. From Women's Suffrage to Reproduction Rights? Cross-national Considerations' FRANCISCO O. RAMIREZ* and ELIZABETH H. McENEANEY* ABSTRACT While women's suffrage has become completely institutionalized ...
Comparative Education Review, 2006
Annual Review of Sociology, 1980
This paper is a critical assessment of the theory and evidence on three general issues in compara... more This paper is a critical assessment of the theory and evidence on three general issues in comparative education. It assesses the factors affecting the origins and expansion of national educational systems: the factors influencing the organizational structure and ideologies of systems of mass schooling and higher education; and the effects of expanded educational systems for individuals, groups, and societies. It finds that the institutionalization of mass schooling is associated with ration-building processes in the eighteenth century, while universities originated in medieval Europe under papal sponsorship. In the post-World War II era, educational expansion is weakly influenced by national structural characteristics and seems to have its impetus in the rise of a transnational world culture. Participation in this wider civilizational network may explain the increasing convergence (especially at the lower levels) of educational organization and ideology. Education positively affects individuals, low status groups (women, for instance), and societal development. These effects may reflect the worldwide rise of educational credentialism, The paper concludes by advocating more explicitly comparative research that directly tests institutional-level explanations. A bibliography is included. (Author/MT)
American Journal of Sociology, 1997
Page 1. World Society and the Nation-State 1 John W. Meyer Stanford University John Boli Emory Un... more Page 1. World Society and the Nation-State 1 John W. Meyer Stanford University John Boli Emory University George M. Thomas Arizona State University ...
annual meeting of the American …, Aug 14, 2004
This project uses a quantitative approach to provide a comparative and longitudinal analysis of t... more This project uses a quantitative approach to provide a comparative and longitudinal analysis of the expansion of women's studies curricula, defined as the offering of the first women's studies course at a university from 1970-2000. Our sample consists of 22 ...
American Journal of Education, 2006
... Word Count (including notes, references, tables): 9,600 Direct all correspondence to Francisc... more ... Word Count (including notes, references, tables): 9,600 Direct all correspondence to FranciscoRamirez, School of Education, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305. This research was supported by a grant from the Stanford Institute for the Quantitative Study of Society. ...
Social Forces, 2009
Using an event history framework we analyze the adoption rate of national human rights institutio... more Using an event history framework we analyze the adoption rate of national human rights institutions. Neo-realist perspective predicts adoption rates to be positively influenced by favorable national profiles that lower the costs and make it more reasonable to establish these institutions. From a world polity perspective adoption rates will be positively influenced by a world saturated with human rights organizations and conferences, by increasing adoption densities, and by greater linkages to the world polity. We find support for both perspectives in the analysis of the human rights commission. Only the changing state of the world polity is consequential for the founding of the classical ombudsman office. We discuss the national incorporation of international human rights standards and its relevance to issues of state sovereignty and national citizenship. The rise and expansion of the international human rights regime is a recent focus of sociological theory and research. Much theorizing revolves around the question of what such a regime implies for state sovereignty and national citizenship, and has accordingly centered on issues of treaty ratification and membership in international rights organizations. For both theory and research the crucial question is to ascertain the degree of importance to attach to national factors and historical legacies on the one hand, and on the other, the extent to which the outcomes of interest are driven by transnational dynamics. The literature includes those who assert that there are some discernable national economic, political and cultural
Comparative Education Review, 2000
Handbooks of Sociology and Social Research, 2006
A positive relationship between education and economic, political, and cultural development is wi... more A positive relationship between education and economic, political, and cultural development is widely assumed throughout much of the modern and modernizing world, yet research sug-gests that this relationship is problematic. The problem has two aspects. First, although ...
Organizations and organizational sectors are often conceptualized as embedded in environments tha... more Organizations and organizational sectors are often conceptualized as embedded in environments that influence their development (Meyer and Scott 1992; Scott and Meyer 1994). These environments, in turn, have traditionally been imagined in local or national terms until the recent fascination with globalization and its transnational impacts (Drori 2003; Drori, Meyer et al. 2006). In this paper we reflect on the influence of the ideas “world class” and “best practices” on two different organizational sectors or fields: higher education and health. The paper sets forth and examines the assumptions underlying these ideas and their application to education and health organizations.
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Papers by Francisco Ramirez