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The Journal of Higher Education 74.6 (2003) 719-721



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Leaving the Ivory Tower, by Barbara E. Lovitts. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2001. 336 pp.Paper $29.95.ISBN 0-7425-0942-7.

Socialization of Graduate and Professional Students in Higher Education, A Perilous Passage?, by John C. Weidman, Darla J. Twale, and Elizabeth Leahy Stein. Volume 28, Number 3, ASHEERIC Higher Education Report.San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2001.118 pp.ISBN 0-7879-5836-0.

The Graduate Grind, by Patricia Hinchey and Isabel Kimmel. New York, NY: Routledge Falmer, A member of Taylor & Francis Publishing, Inc., 2000. 173 pp.Paper $21.95.PB ISBN 081533978.


It can probably no longer be said that doctoral education is an unstudied area of higher education research. Beginning with the publication of Bowen and Rudenstine's In Pursuit of the PhD in 1992, there has been steady scholarly attention and a corresponding stream of publications. The three books reviewed here, as well as several books published in 2003, demonstrate that a literature in the field is emerging. The common scholarly task undertaken by these three volumes is providing conceptual frameworks for understanding the nature of and developmental paths taken by doctoral students.

Weidman, Twale, and Stein provide a very useful synthesis of literature on graduate education using the framework of socialization. This book takes the broadest sweep, considering graduate education at the master's and doctoral levels, as well as the professions, including medicine, law, and theology. They describe three process elements of socialization—knowledge acquisition, investment, and involvement—that lead to identification with and commitment to a professional role. The nature of identity and commitment change over time (by socialization stage). Elaborating the theoretical constructs of socialization occupies the first half of the book. It culminates with the middle chapter of the book, in which the authors review several frameworks of socialization. The important one to focus on is their own, a model that captures the complex interactions [End Page 719] between a student (and the communities in which she is located, as well as her prior experiences and predispositions) and a graduate program. The later chapters of the book provide an overview of some of the common issues facing graduate and professional education that are pressuring programs to change. The final chapter returns to considering the core process elements and describes some of the ways in which those differ among the different broad types of graduate and professional education.

The book is a commendable contribution on several counts. The Weidman, Twale, and Stein model of graduate student socialization is likely to have some power. They review a large amount of literature and draw broadly, allowing those who think about medical education, for example, access to work on the doctorate, and vice versa. However, the authors employ and explore an almost overwhelming number of terms and categories, which are not carried consistently across chapters. For example, in the first chapter, they describe six dimensions of socialization, and translate those to graduate education. Unfortunately, they never return to these ideas, leaving the reader to wonder if the authors believe that they have power, and if so, how they map onto the ideas presented later.

Lovitts' book is a more extensive work, but it focuses more narrowly on one issue facing graduate education. Locating her work in sociological theory she produces the first extensive treatment of the problem of doctoral student attrition. She explains the invisibility of attrition (attrition rates are 40-50%) by arguing that both those inside the system, deans and faculty, and those former students who have left doctoral study, tend to place the responsibility for student exit on the departing students themselves, not on the system. More importantly, she argues that student persistence is a function of the extent to which students become integrated into the life of the department. The heart of the book is four chapters that outline the four primary reasons that students fail to become integrated and...

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