
Mitchell L. Stevens
Professor of Education and. by courtesy, of Sociology
Graduate School of Education
Bio
I am an organizational sociologist with longstanding interests in educational sequences, lifelong learning, alternative educational forms, and the formal organization of knowledge. With John Mitchell, I co-direct the Stanford Pathways Lab (pathwayslab.stanford.edu).
Academic Appointments
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Professor, Graduate School of Education
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Professor (By courtesy), Sociology
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Faculty Affiliate, Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI)
Boards, Advisory Committees, Professional Organizations
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Associate Professor, New York University (2003 - 2009)
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Assistant to Associate Professor, Hamilton College (1995 - 2003)
Program Affiliations
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Science, Technology and Society
Professional Education
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PhD, Northwestern University (1996)
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BA, Macalester College (1988)
Research Interests
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Alternative Schooling
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Educational Policy
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Higher Education
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Leadership and Organization
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Lifelong Learning
Current Research and Scholarly Interests
My most recent book is Seeing the World: How US Universities Make Knowledge in a Global Era, coauthored with Cynthia Miller-Idriss and Seteney Shami.
With Ben Gebre-Medhin (UC Berkeley) I developed a synthetic account of change in US higher education.
With Mike Kirst I edited a volume on the organizational ecology of US colleges and universities.
With Arik Lifschitz and Michael Sauder I developed a theory of sports and status in US higher education.
Earlier work on college admissions, home education, and (with Wendy Espeland) quantification continues to inform my scholarly world view.
Projects
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Academic Pathways in Sweden and the United States, Stanford University and Uppsala University (June 1, 2017)
University curriculums are dynamic templates of the official knowledge of their host societies, and students' pathways through them represent a negotiation of personal, ideational, and class identities. This project compares the evolution of both curricula and pathways in Sweden and the United States in recent history. The goal is to provide a dynamic picture the culture and class structures of two of modernity's signal democratic societies. We intend it to lay the groundwork for multiple cross-national comparisons going forward.
Location
Uppsala University
Collaborators
- Mikael Borjesson, Professor of the Sociology of Education, Uppsala University
- Mitchell L Stevens, Associate Professor, Stanford University
- Ylva Bergstrom, Associate Professor of the Sociology of Education, Uppsala University
- Tum Chaturapruek, Doctoral Candidate, Stanford University
- Tobias Dalberg, Doctoral Candidate, Uppsala University
- Ida Lidegran, Senior Lecturer in the Sociology of Education, Uppsala University
- Andreas Melldahl, Senior Lecturer in the Sociology of Education, Uppsala University
- Andreas Paepcke, Senior Research Scientist, Stanford University
- Monique Harrison, Doctoral student, Stanford University
- Marissa Thompson, Doctoral student, Stanford University
For More Information:
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Carta Lab at Stanford, Stanford University (8/1/2016)
US university students make decisions that are fateful for their academic lives and personal identities as they negotiate elective curricula. Carta is a web-based course exploration and research tool at Stanford University whose purpose is to observe and understand the evolution of academic pathways at scale.
Location
Stanford University
Collaborators
- Ramesh Johari, Associate Professor, Stanford University
- Mitchell Stevens, Associate Professor, Stanford University
- John Mitchell, Betty and Gordon Crary Family Professor, Stanford University
- Tum Chaturapruek, Doctoral candidate, Stanford University
- Rene Kizilcec, Research Scientist, Arizona State University and Stanford University
- Arik Lifschitz, Lead Academic Advising Director, Stanford University
For More Information:
2023-24 Courses
- Policy Practicum: "What's Next? After Students for Fair Admissions"
LAW 809D (Aut) - Research Seminar in Higher Education
EDUC 346 (Spr) - Stanford and Its Worlds: 1885-present
EDUC 147, HISTORY 58E (Spr) -
Independent Studies (8)
- Curricular Practical Training
EDUC 437 (Spr) - Directed Reading
EDUC 480 (Aut, Win, Spr) - Directed Reading in Education
EDUC 180 (Aut, Win, Spr) - Directed Research
EDUC 490 (Aut, Win, Spr) - Directed Research in Education
EDUC 190 (Aut, Win, Spr) - Honors Research
EDUC 140 (Aut, Win, Spr) - Master's Thesis
EDUC 185 (Win) - Supervised Internship
EDUC 380 (Aut, Win, Spr)
- Curricular Practical Training
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Prior Year Courses
2022-23 Courses
- Organizational Analysis
EDUC 288 (Aut) - Stanford Archive Lab
EDUC 147L, HISTORY 58EL (Spr) - Stanford and Its Worlds: 1885-present
EDUC 147, HISTORY 58E (Spr) - Workshop in Social Science History
EDUC 446 (Aut, Win, Spr)
2021-22 Courses
- History of Higher Education in the U.S.
AMSTUD 165, EDUC 165, EDUC 265, HISTORY 158C (Win) - Policy, Organization, and Leadership Studies Seminar
EDUC 209A (Aut) - Policy, Organization, and Leadership Studies Seminar
EDUC 209B (Win) - Policy, Organization, and Leadership Studies Seminar
EDUC 209C (Spr) - Sociology of Education
EDUC 310, SOC 332 (Spr)
2020-21 Courses
- Policy, Organization, and Leadership Studies Seminar
EDUC 209A (Aut) - Policy, Organization, and Leadership Studies Seminar
EDUC 209B (Win) - Policy, Organization, and Leadership Studies Workshop
EDUC 210 (Win, Spr) - Proseminar: Education, Business, Politics
EDUC 393 (Win)
- Organizational Analysis
Stanford Advisees
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Doctoral Dissertation Reader (AC)
Krystal Laryea -
Orals Chair
Natalie Larah -
Master's Program Advisor
Kennedy Reed, Richard (Chenming) Tang -
Doctoral (Program)
Hansol Lee, Abigail Miller
All Publications
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From pipelines to pathways in the study of academic progress.
Science (New York, N.Y.)
2023; 380 (6643): 344-347
Abstract
Students and administrators can benefit from new analytics.
View details for DOI 10.1126/science.adg5406
View details for PubMedID 37104602
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Application essays and the ritual production of merit in US selective admissions
POETICS
2022; 94
View details for DOI 10.1016/j.poetic.2022.101706
View details for Web of Science ID 000891714500001
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Forecasting Undergraduate Majors: A Natural Language Approach
AERA OPEN
2022; 8
View details for DOI 10.1177/23328584221126516
View details for Web of Science ID 000879399100001
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Should I Start at MATH 101? Content Repetition as an Academic Strategy in Elective Curriculums
SOCIOLOGY OF EDUCATION
2022
View details for DOI 10.1177/00380407221076490
View details for Web of Science ID 000760919600001
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Essay content and style are strongly related to household income and SAT scores: Evidence from 60,000 undergraduate applications.
Science advances
2021; 7 (42): eabi9031
Abstract
[Figure: see text].
View details for DOI 10.1126/sciadv.abi9031
View details for PubMedID 34644119
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What is educational entrepreneurship? Strategic action, temporality, and the expansion of US higher education
THEORY AND SOCIETY
2021
View details for DOI 10.1007/s11186-021-09443-3
View details for Web of Science ID 000641641100001
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Studying Undergraduate Course Consideration at Scale
AERA OPEN
2021; 7
View details for DOI 10.1177/2332858421991148
View details for Web of Science ID 000620611500001
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Ambiguous Credentials: How Learners Use and Make Sense of Massively Open Online Courses
JOURNAL OF HIGHER EDUCATION
2021
View details for DOI 10.1080/00221546.2020.1851571
View details for Web of Science ID 000611593800001
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Universities as peculiar organizations
SOCIOLOGY COMPASS
2020
View details for DOI 10.1111/soc4.12768
View details for Web of Science ID 000506374600001
- The Paradox of the Global University World Class Universities: A Contested Concept Springer Nature. 2020; 1: 123–37
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Via: Illuminating Academic Pathways at Scale
ASSOC COMPUTING MACHINERY. 2019
View details for DOI 10.1145/3330430.3333623
View details for Web of Science ID 000507611000023
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Research Universities and the Future of Work
ISSUES IN SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
2018; 35 (1): 45–52
View details for Web of Science ID 000447682000011
- Seeing the World: How US Universities Make Knowledge in a Global Era Princeton University Press. 2018
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How a data-driven course planning tool affects college students' GPA: Evidence from two field experiments
ASSOC COMPUTING MACHINERY. 2018
View details for DOI 10.1145/3231644.3231668
View details for Web of Science ID 000546308900063
- Higher Education Politics after the Cold War Change 2018; 50: 13-17
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The Evaluation Machine
CONTEMPORARY SOCIOLOGY-A JOURNAL OF REVIEWS
2017; 46 (4): 403-405
View details for DOI 10.1177/0094306117714499c
View details for Web of Science ID 000403909800004
- From soldiers to students: The Tests of General Educational Development (GED) as diplomatic measurement Social Science History 2017; 41 (4): 731-755
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Association, Service, Market: Higher Education in American Political Development
ANNUAL REVIEW OF SOCIOLOGY, VOL 42
2016; 42: 121-142
View details for DOI 10.1146/annurev-soc-081715-074240
View details for Web of Science ID 000382009900006
- Remaking College: The Changing Ecology of Higher Education edited by Kirst, M. W., Stevens, M. L. Stanford University Press. 2015
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Football as a Status System in US Higher Education
SOCIOLOGY OF EDUCATION
2014; 87 (3): 204-219
View details for DOI 10.1177/0038040714533353
View details for Web of Science ID 000337979400004
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A Sociology of Quantification
ARCHIVES EUROPEENNES DE SOCIOLOGIE
2008; 49 (3): 397-432
View details for Web of Science ID 000265147000002
- Sieve, incubator, temple, hub: Empirical and theoretical advances in the sociology of higher education Annu. Rev. Sociol 2008; 34: 127-151
- Creating a Class: College Admissions and the Education of Elites Harvard University Press. 2007
- Kingdom of Children: Culture and Controversy in the Homeschooling Movement Princeton University Press. 2001