"A narrow focus on ratios of only Democrats to Republicans (or liberals to conservatives) obscures the true distribution of political viewpoints in academia by overlooking faculty who are moderate or apolitical and may exacerbate perceptions of polarization within the academy."
"Studies since 2012 range widely when it comes to the ratio of liberal to conservative faculty members, from two to one to 82 to one. Research shows variation across academic disciplines, as well; the humanities and social sciences tended to have larger shares of liberal professors compared to fields like business, economics, political science and STEM."
"The analysis also found that existing research has limits, including low response rates, 'imperfect measures' of political views and unmeasured nonresponse bias. But it concluded that the 'most rigorous and comprehensive studies' find the lowest estimates of political imbalance."
A Heterodox Academy review of faculty political diversity studies published since 2012 reveals substantial liberal-to-conservative faculty ratios, ranging from 2:1 to 82:1. Political imbalance varies significantly across academic disciplines, with humanities and social sciences showing higher concentrations of liberal professors compared to business, economics, political science, and STEM fields. The report emphasizes that focusing solely on Democrat-to-Republican ratios obscures the actual political landscape by overlooking moderate and apolitical faculty members, potentially inflating perceptions of academic polarization. However, existing research has limitations including low response rates, imperfect political measurement tools, and unmeasured nonresponse bias. The most rigorous and comprehensive studies tend to report lower estimates of political imbalance.
#faculty-political-diversity #academic-ideological-imbalance #disciplinary-variation #research-methodology-limitations
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