Earlier we unveiled the 2014 Rick Hess Straight Up (RHSU) Edu-Scholar Public Influence rankings. From years past, though, we’ve learned that a lot of readers are curious as to how scholars fared when it came to particular fields or disciplines. After all, education researchers work in a wide variety of fields. Here we will report out the top ten finishers for five disciplinary categories, as well as the top ten ranked junior faculty.
Now, there’s a touch of ambiguity in determining appropriate discipline. For the most part, my uber-RA Max Eden worked off of CV’s, relying primarily on a scholar’s earned degree. In the handful of cases where these were sufficiently ambiguous, I made the judgment call based upon scholarly appointments and bodies of work.
Curriculum, Instruction, and Administration
Economics
Government and Policy
Psychology
Sociology
Junior Faculty
The tables speak for themselves. The top finishers were all familiar names. The top finisher in Economics was Eric Hanushek. Tops in Curriculum, Instruction, and Administration was Linda Darling-Hammond; tops in Government and Policy was Paul E. Peterson; tops in Psychology was Howard Gardner; and tops in Sociology was Robert Slavin.
Beyond the disciplinary breakdowns, I wanted to be sure to recognize junior faculty who fared especially well. Given that the RHSU Edu-Scholar rankings, by design, favor scholars who’ve bodies of work and sustained influence, these junior faculty deserve particular note for effectively making the (rarely rewarded) effort to engage in the public square. Harvard’s Jal Mehta topped the junior faculty league table this year (taking the baton from his colleague Marty West), aided by the release of his book The Allure of Order and his guest blogs on RHSU. Other junior faculty rounding out the top five included Morgan Polikoff of USC, Judith Scott-Clayton of Columbia (TC), Marty West of Harvard, and Mary Helen Immordino-Yang of USC.
—Rick Hess
This post originally appeared on Rick Hess Straight Up.
