Inside Higher Ed has an article on yet another study of why there aren't more conservatives in academia:
Colleges have been increasingly competing to offer "family friendly" policies -- in the hopes of attracting the best academic talent from a pool of Ph.D.'s that includes both more women than ever before as well as many men who take parenting responsibilities seriously. A new study suggests that such policies may be important for another group that believes its needs aren't fully addressed in academe: conservatives.
The study -- "Left Pipeline: Why Conservatives Don't Get Doctorates" -- argues that the much debated minority status for conservatives in higher education may be the result of differing priorities of graduating college seniors of different political persuasions. The study presents evidence that conservatives are significantly more likely than liberals -- at the point when college students decide whether to apply to graduate school -- to value raising a family and having money. In contrast, liberals at that point in their lives are significantly more likely to value writing original works.
There are many reasons to hate David Horowitz, but the fact that I have to keep reading about these studies has got to be near the top of the list.
Anyway, I wouldn't've commented on this at all, save for three things: First, the suggestion that the way to attract more conservatives is to enact more of the "family friendly" policies that are suggested as ways to attract more women. That ought lead to some heads exploding in blogland...
Second, this quote:
It's not that conservatives don't care about philosophy or that liberals don't like kids, the paper suggests, but different underlying values that may frame decisions.
"Conservatives appear to be very practically oriented," said Woessner.
I initially read that as "politically oriented," which is even funnier, but even the correct reading is a nice bit of deadpan humor.
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Hmmm...if family-friendly policies attract more women to academia, can that really be family-friendly from the conservative viewpoint? In my experience, the conservative version of "family-friendly" means women stay at home and raise children, men go out into the big bad world and slay mammoths, I mean, bring home the pay. How do policies that support career women fit into the conservative worldview?
David Horowitz on the side of on-campus daycare? That would be a mind-bender indeed.
I'm sceptical about any initiative to make academic jobs more family-friendly that doesn't try to do something about the death-march to tenure.
or maybe campus is full of liberals because being a professor involves ability of critical thinking and questioning things.