Intellectual inbreeding
Intellectual inbreeding or academic inbreeding refers to the practice in academia of a university's hiring its own graduates to be professors. It is generally viewed as insular and unhealthy for academia;[1] it is thought to reduce the possibility of new ideas coming in from outside sources, just as genetic inbreeding reduces the possibility of new genes entering into a population.[2]
Economists David Colander and Arjo Klamer, Ph.D. wrote a book titled The Making of an Economist, which researched the growing concern behind the methodology of academic teaching and the lowering numbers of PhDs in economics granted annually in the United States. Colander and Klamer state that the trend of a shrinking number of economic professors teaching at the university level would result in intellectual inbreeding.
According to the Commission on Graduate Education in Economics (COGEE), they recognize it as "a trend for emulation rather than diversification." Academic inbreeding has also been cited as a major problem in the major universities of the People's Republic of China—such as Peking University and Tsinghua University, which have adopted measures in recent years specifically to combat the practice[1][3]—and South Korea.[4]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Shih Choon Fong (27 October 2003). "State of the University Address". National University of Singapore. Retrieved 25 December 2008.
- ↑ Kornguth, ML; Miller MH (1985). "Academic inbreeding in nursing: intentional or inevitable?". Journal of Nursing Education 24 (1): 21–24. PMID 2981989.
- ↑ "Beijing University: an Ivory Tower in Change". 11 July 2003. Retrieved 25 December 2008. (Archived version)
- ↑ "Academic Inbreeding Attacked". Science 282 (5397): 2165. 18 December 1998. doi:10.1126/science.282.5397.2165c. Retrieved 25 December 2008.