Yesterday, we unveiled the 2017 RHSU Edu-Scholar Public Influence Rankings on this site. From years past, 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. Today, we will report on the top ten finishers for five disciplinary categories, as well as the top ten junior faculty. (For a detailed discussion of how the scoring was done, see Tuesday’s post.)
Now, there’s a touch of ambiguity in determining each scholar’s discipline. For the most part, my uber-RAs Kelsey Hamilton, Grant Addison, and Paige Willey worked off of CVs, 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. Still, if you think I’ve made the wrong call on someone’s discipline, just let me know and we’ll do our best to make appropriate adjustments for next year.
You can click on each chart for a larger view.
Curriculum, Instruction, and Administration
Economics
Government and Policy
Psychology
Sociology
Junior Faculty
The tables pretty much speak for themselves. The charts are dominated by familiar names. The top finisher in Curriculum, Instruction, and Administration was Linda Darling-Hammond; in Economics, it was Rick Hanushek; in Government and Policy, Michael Kirst; in Psychology, Angela Duckworth; and, in Sociology, Pedro Noguera.
Beyond the disciplinary breakdowns, I want to give a nod to junior faculty who fared especially well. Given that the RHSU Public Influence rankings, by design, favor scholars who’ve assembled bodies of work and had sustained impact, the junior faculty who score well deserve particular notice. Harvard’s Roberto Gonzales topped the junior faculty chart this year. Rounding out the top five were Harvard’s Marty West, Jal Mehta, and Stephanie M. Jones, and then Pitt’s Lindsay Page. Props to Harvard, they’re obviously doing something right.
Well, that wraps up our coverage on the 2017 Edu-Scholar Rankings. Be sure to check out EdWeek‘s special commentary section on the rankings, either online or in the upcoming print issue. We’ll do this all again next year; same time, same place. Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming.
—Frederick Hess
Frederick Hess is director of education policy studies at AEI and an executive editor at Education Next.
This post originally appeared on Rick Hess Straight Up.
