See the
Note on the Data Used to Calculate Degree Awards in English Language & Literature and in Foreign Languages & Literatures.
Each of the indicators in this section profiles a particular humanities discipline.
Information is currently presented for the three disciplines that together award
the bulk of humanities degrees: English, history, and languages and literatures
other than English. Future editions of the Humanities Indicators will encompass
additional disciplines. For each of the three disciplines above, three data charts,
one for each level of degree, are presented depicting the historical trends of both
the number of degrees awarded and the percentage of all degrees this represents.
Data describing the gender and ethnic distribution of such degrees are also presented.
|
Indicator II-18
|
English Language and Literature Degree Completions
|
|
|
|
Updated (4/8/2010) with data from 2007.
|
|
See the
Note on the Data Used to Construct Degree-Related Indicators,
the
Note on the Calculation of Shares of Degrees Awarded to Members of Traditionally Underrepresented Ethnic Groups,
the
Note on Racial/Ethnic Composition of Total U.S. Population,
the
Note on the Data Used to Calculate Degree Awards in English Language and Literature and in Languages and Literatures Other than English,
and the
NSF and CIP Discipline Code Catalog (for an inventory of the specific degree
programs included by the Humanities Indicators under the heading of “English Language
& Literature”).
The early 1970s were a golden period for undergraduate and graduate programs in
English. Degree programs at all levels were graduating more students than at any
other time in the last four decades (Figures II-18a, II-18b, and II-18c).
By the early 1980s, however, the absolute number of degrees in English, as well
as the field’s share of all degrees, had declined by over 50%. After that, the number
of English degrees rose substantially, but so did the number of all degrees. Consequently,
through 2007 this discipline’s share of all degrees remained within one percentage
point of its 1980s low.
At the turn of the century, the pattern of doctoral degree completions in English
began to differ from that of the other degree levels. In contrast to fairly steady
increases in the number of bachelor’s and master’s degrees between 2000 and 2007,
the number of new English Ph.D.’s declined in all but two years during this period.
Having held at approximately 7% of all degrees for close to 15 years, the proportion
of English bachelor’s recipients who were members of traditionally underrepresented
racial/ethnic groups began a gradual rise in 1992 that continued through the late
1990s, bringing their share up to 13% by 2000 (Figure II-18d). Subsequently,
however, growth in the percentage of bachelor’s degrees awarded to such students
slowed, with the share increasing approximately one percentage point between 2000
and 2007. (For an explanation of how these percentages were calculated, see the
Note on the Calculation of Shares of Degrees Awarded to Members of Traditionally Underrepresented Ethnic Groups.. For information
regarding the racial/ethnic composition of the total U.S. population, see
Note on Racial/Ethnic
Composition of Total U.S. Population.)
At the master’s level, although the share of degrees in English awarded to members
of underrepresented ethnic groups declined between the late 1970s and 1987 (Figure
II-18e), by 1993, these students’ share had regained its 1977 level. In subsequent
years, the proportion grew slowly but steadily, reaching 9% in 2007, a three percentage-point
increase from 1977. The increasing share of master’s recipients translated into
increases in the percentage of doctoral degrees received by students from underrepresented
racial/ethnic groups during the late 1990s and early 2000s (Figure II-18f).
Between 1977 and 2007, the percentage of English Ph.D.’s received by these students
rose from 4.5% to 9.8%.
The bachelor’s and advanced levels differed in the share of degrees awarded to “temporary
residents,” students who came from other nations to the United States to study and
who were likely to return to their home countries upon graduation. At the undergraduate
level, these students were a small percentage (approximately 1%) of all students
throughout the 1977–2007 period. At the master’s level, however, their share of
degrees was close to 10% in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Although the percentage
of master’s degrees going to these students then declined substantially, in 2007
temporary residents still received approximately 5% of all master’s degrees conferred
in English. At the doctoral level, graduate degree awards to temporary residents
were even more common. These students consistently earned a greater share of English
Ph.D.’s than any minority group. Their share peaked in 1991 when temporary residents
represented approximately 15% of doctoral degree recipients (up from about 6% in
1977). Steady declines over the next decade, followed by an uptick in the early
2000s, meant that by 2007 temporary residents were earning approximately 10% of
all English doctorates—a percentage similar to that awarded to students from
all traditionally underrepresented racial/ethnic backgrounds.
At least since 1966, women have been the majority of bachelor’s and master’s degree
recipients in English (Figure II-18g), and by 2007 approximately 70% of such
degrees were awarded to them. During this period, a more marked change occurred
for women at the doctoral level. In 1966, they were in the distinct minority, being
awarded slightly more than 20% of Ph.D.’s in English. Over time, however, this percentage
grew steadily, and by the early 1980s English departments were awarding doctorates
to men and women in equal numbers. Thereafter, the share of doctorates awarded to
women continued to increase, if less dramatically, and in 2007 59% of all doctoral
recipients in English were women.
|
Indicator II-19
|
History Degree Completions
|
|
|
|
Updated (4/8/2010) with data from 2007.
|
|
See the
Note on the Data Used to Construct Degree-Related Indicators,
the
Note on the Calculation of Shares of Degrees Awarded to Members of Traditionally Underrepresented Ethnic Groups,
the
Note on Racial/Ethnic Composition of Total U.S. Population,
and the
NSF and CIP Discipline Code Catalog (for an inventory of the specific degree
programs included by the Humanities Indicators under the heading of “History”).
With approximately 45,000 bachelor’s degrees awarded, 1971 was the banner year for
the nation’s undergraduate history programs (Figure II-19a); it was also
the high point of a strong trend of increased enrollments during the latter half
of the 1960s. But in 1972, the number of history degrees began to drop, and the
ensuing decline, which lasted well into the 1980s, was as precipitous as the earlier
rise had been. In 1985, the nadir for history as measured by degree completions,
the nation’s history departments awarded only 16,142 bachelor’s degrees. This number
subsequently increased, markedly so in the early 1990s and then again beginning
in 2002, bringing the number of bachelor’s degrees awarded in 2007 to 77% of the
early-1970s high.
History’s share of all degrees experienced a similarly sharp decline through the
mid-1980s and remained well below the record levels reached in the late 1960s. Although
history awarded 5.7% of all bachelor’s degrees in 1967, this share had decreased
to 1.6% by 1985. Thereafter, the absolute number of bachelor’s completions in history
started to increase. Nonetheless, growth in the total number of bachelor’s degrees
awarded kept history’s share in the vicinity of 2% of all degrees from 1985 to 2007.
At the upper degree levels (Figures II-19b and II-19c), trends in
history degree completions from 1966 to 2007 were generally similar to the trend
in bachelor’s degree completions. The exception has been doctoral degree completions
in the period from 2000 to 2007, when the number of awards declined steadily.
Data describing the distribution of history degrees by ethnicity are available only
as far back as 1995. (For earlier years, such data can be disaggregated only by
broad disciplinary grouping; history is included among the social sciences.) At
the bachelor’s level, although the share of history degrees awarded to members of
traditionally underrepresented racial/ethnic groups increased slightly over the
latter half of the 1990s, it subsequently leveled off and then declined, for a net
increase of only two percentage points between 1995 and 2007 (Figure II-19d).
Growth in the share of history degrees awarded to such students at the master’s
and doctoral degree levels was somewhat greater, with the percentage increasing
by three and six points (Figures II-19e and II-19f). In 2007, approximately
10% of all advanced degrees were awarded to students from underrepresented racial/ethnic
groups. (For an explanation of how these percentages were calculated, see the
Note on the Calculation of Shares of Degrees Awarded to Members of Traditionally Underrepresented Ethnic Groups.. For information
regarding the racial/ethnic composition of the total U.S. population, see
Note on Racial/Ethnic Composition of Total U.S. Population.)
Between 1966 and 2007, the percentage of women obtaining degrees in history increased
at all levels, although most dramatically so in the case of Ph.D.’s. At that level,
women’s share grew from 12% to 40%, bringing their representation to a level on
par with that of bachelor’s recipients (Figure II-19g). At the master’s level,
the gender distribution of degrees came closest to being equal. In 2007, 48% of
history master’s degrees were awarded to women.
|
Indicator II-20
|
Degree Completions in Languages and Literatures Other than English
|
|
|
|
Updated (4/8/2010) with data from 2007.
|
|
See the
Note on the Data Used to Construct Degree-Related Indicators,
the
Note on the Calculation of Shares of Degrees Awarded to Members of Traditionally Underrepresented Ethnic Groups,
the
Note on Racial/Ethnic Composition of Total U.S. Population,
the
Note on the Data Used to Calculate Degree Awards in English Language and Literature and in Languages and Literatures Other than English,
and the
NSF and CIP Discipline Code Catalog (for an inventory of the specific degree
programs included by the Humanities Indicators under the heading of “Languages and
Literatures Other than English”).
Trends in degree completions in languages and literatures other than English (LOTE)
over the last four decades are similar to those observed in English (Indicator II-18,
English
Language and Literature Degree Completions) and history (Indicator II-19,
History
Degree Completions). Thus, while the number of LOTE degrees grew fairly steadily
from 1966 into the early 1970s, the next decade saw a sharp reversal of this trend
(Figures II-20a, II-20b, and II-20c). During that period, the
number of students awarded LOTE bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees declined
steadily for a total decrease of approximately 50%.
At all three degree levels degree completions have rebounded but to differing extents.
Other than during a brief period in the mid-1990s, the number of bachelor’s degrees
increased. By 2007 the number was 18,206, 84% of the 1969 zenith. The mid-1990s
saw the number of master’s degrees reach approximately 55% of the early 1970s high
point. The remainder of the 1990s brought another, far less steep, decline in master’s
awards. But then the numbers began to rise again, and by 2007 the number of master’s
degrees was back to its mid-1990s peak recovery level. For Ph.D. awards, the highest
level of recovery from the deep slump of the 1980s came in 1998, when degree completions
returned to 73% of their 1973 high, a level near which they remained through 2007.
Even at the height of their popularity in the late 1960s and early 1970s, LOTE degrees
represented only a small share of all degrees: approximately 3% of bachelor’s and
doctoral degrees and 2% of master’s. Subsequently, this small proportion decreased
markedly at all three degree levels, reaching a low point in the mid-1980s. At that
time, the share of all bachelor’s degrees awarded by LOTE programs was two-thirds
of what it had been at its height, the share of master’s degrees had declined by
76%, and the share of doctoral degrees had decreased by 55%. From this point up
through 2007, the LOTE share of degrees was fairly constant at these reduced levels.
Data on the racial/ethnic distribution of LOTE degrees over the 1987–2007 period
reveal that after a decline in the 1980s the percentage of bachelor’s and master’s
degrees awarded to members of traditionally underrepresented ethnic groups began
to rise (Figures II-20d and II-20e). At the bachelor’s level, this
growth continued until 2001, when the underrepresented minority share reached approximately
22% (up from 14% in 1977). The share remained at this level through 2007. At the
master’s level, growth was almost constant through 2007, bringing the share of master’s
degrees awarded to these students up to 18%, an increase of 7 percentage points
from 1977. The increase at each level was driven almost entirely by a surge in the
proportion of LOTE degrees awarded to Hispanic students. The percentage of bachelor’s
and master’s degrees going to members of other ethnic groups, on the other hand,
remained at a low level (less than 5% for each group) throughout the period. (For
an explanation of how these percentages were calculated, see the
Note on the Calculation of Shares of Degrees Awarded to Members of Traditionally Underrepresented Ethnic Groups.
For information regarding the racial/ethnic composition of the total U.S. population,
see
Note on Racial/Ethnic Composition of Total U.S. Population.)
For Ph.D.’s, the share of LOTE degrees awarded to traditionally underrepresented
minorities rose steeply in the early 1980s but then declined. By the mid-1990s the
percentage was back down to the level observed in the late 1970s (Figure II-20f).
But beginning in 1995, the percentage grew quite steadily, so that by 2002, the
proportion of doctorates awarded to these students was 15%, an increase of 7 percentage
points over the 1977 level. Since the early 2000s the share has declined somewhat,
with a share for 2007 of 12%. As at the lower degree levels, movement in the minority
share of Ph.D.’s was due almost entirely to changing levels of doctorates awarded
to Hispanic students.
A striking development in LOTE degrees between 1977 and 2007—although the trend
has been far from linear, with strong surges followed by steady declines—was the
increase in the share of advanced degrees awarded to temporary residents. At the
master’s level, the 2007 share of 19% represents a 13-point increase from 1977.
In the case of doctoral degrees, the share was 31%, up 22 points from the late 1970s.
In contrast, at the bachelor’s level temporary residents earned a consistently small
share (approximately 2–3%) of LOTE degrees throughout this period.
In 1966, women were already the majority of those receiving bachelor’s and master’s
degrees in LOTE (Figure II-20g). From then on, while the percentage of female
bachelor’s recipients remained steady at 70%, the number of female master’s recipients
increased, with the percentage rising from 58% in 1966 to approximately 70% in 1977,
a level near which it remained for most of the subsequent 30 years. The share of
LOTE doctorates awarded to women saw steeper increases. Hovering at about 30% in
the late 1960s, women’s share grew steadily thereafter, and in 1977 gender parity
was achieved. By 2007, women represented 57% of all recipients of LOTE doctorates
(the largest proportion of LOTE Ph.D.’s earned by women, 62%, was recorded in 2001).
Note on the Data Used to Calculate Degree Awards in English Language and Literature
(ELL) and in Languages and Literatures Other than English (LOTE)
For the years 1966–1986, degree completion data are available only by the National
Science Foundation’s (NSF) standardized disciplinary categories. For those years,
the Humanities Indicators uses NSF’s “English and Literature” category as the basis
of its ELL degree counts. This category includes degrees earned in comparative literature,
classics, and classical languages and literatures (but omits degrees in ancient
and medieval Greek and Latin—these are included by NSF in its “Foreign Languages”
category).
For years 1987–2007, when degree completion data are available by the more detailed
Classification of Instructional Programs (CIP), the Humanities Indicators treats
degrees in classics, classical languages and literatures, Greek, and Latin as LOTE
degrees. Comparative literature degrees are excluded from the ELL degree counts
for this latter period. A subsequent iteration of the Humanities Indicators will
include a separate indicator for comparative literature, which is considered by
the Humanities Indicators to be its own discipline.
For an explanation of the difference between the NSF and CIP classification systems
as well as an inventory of the various degree programs that are included by the
Humanities Indicators under the headings of “English Language and Literature” and
“Languages and Literatures Other than English”, see the
Note on the Data Used to Construct Degree-Related Indicators).
Back to Content
|
Note on the Data Used to Construct Degree-Related Indicators
The data that form the basis of these indicators are drawn from the U.S. Department
of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics’ (NCES) Higher Education
General Information System (HEGIS) and its successor, the Integrated Postsecondary
Educational Data System (IPEDS), through which institutions of higher learning report
on the numbers and characteristics of students completing degree programs (as well
as various other areas of information; for more on this major data collection program,
see
http://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/). The HEGIS/IPEDS degree-completion
data going back to 1966 have been made easily accessible to researchers and the
general public by the National Science Foundation (NSF) via its online data analysis
tool
WebCASPAR. The NSF has traditionally
used the NCES data to tabulate science and engineering degree awards as part of
its
Science and Engineering Indicators Program, which since 1973 has issued a biennial report
designed to provide public and private policymakers a broad base of quantitative
information about the U.S. science, engineering, and technology enterprise.
In the process, the NSF has developed a set of standardized disciplinary classifications
that can be used across the various data sources it relies upon to construct its
indicators. Because the NSF focuses on trends in science and engineering education,
the disciplinary classifications are most detailed in these areas. By contrast,
the NSF’s disciplinary categories for the humanities are neither as inclusive nor
as specific, and this limits the usefulness of the NSF classification system for
the purposes of the Humanities Indicators. Thus, for example, the NSF scheme does
not distinguish between the academic study of the arts, considered by the Humanities
Indicators to be part of the humanities, and art performance. This makes it impossible
for the Humanities Indicators to include in its tally those degrees conferred in
the areas of musicology, art history, film studies, and drama history/criticism.
Moreover, while the NSF system does provide degree counts for disciplines such as
archeology, women’s studies, gay and lesbian studies, and Holocaust studies, it
treats these disciplines as social sciences, not humanities as they are considered
to be here. Additionally, in the NSF system, interdisciplinary degrees in areas
such as general humanities and liberal studies are placed in a broad “Other” category
that includes degrees for many disciplines that are clearly not within the purview
of the humanities as they are used by the Humanities Indicators Project. Consequently,
such interdisciplinary degrees, along with those mentioned above, cannot be captured
in humanities degree counts from 1966 to 1986.
For the year 1987 and later (1995 and later for data on the race/ethnicity of degree
recipients), however, the NSF also categorizes earned degrees according to the more
detailed Classification of Instruction Programs (CIP), which permits a more precise
count of humanities degrees; that is, a count that includes degrees in all those
programs that are part of academic disciplines included within the scope of the
“humanities” for the purposes of the Humanities Indicators. (For an inventory of
the disciplines and activities treated as part of the “humanities” by the Humanities
Indicators, see the
Statement on the Scope of the “Humanities” for Purposes of the Humanities Indicators.)
The CIP was first developed by the NCES in 1980 as a way to account for the tremendous
variety of degree programs offered by American institutions of higher learning and
has been revised three times since its introduction, most recently in 2009 (this
version is referred to as “CIP 2010”). The CIP has also been adopted by Statistics
Canada as its standard disciplinary classification system. While the CIP greatly
facilitates comparisons between the two countries, such comparisons are beyond the
present scope of the Humanities Indicators Project.
For the purposes of the Humanities Indicators, though, the CIP has several advantages
over the NSF system. For example, because the older system grouped degrees in the
nonsectarian study of religion with those awarded in programs designed to prepare
students for religious vocations and because the latter type of degree is much more
common, the Humanities Indicators could not include what the NSF considers to be
degrees in religion in the humanities degree counts for years prior to 1987. With
CIP-coded data, however, academic disciplines such as comparative religion can be
separated from vocational programs such as theology and thus can be included in
the humanities degree tally. Additionally, when using CIP-coded data, the Humanities
Indicators can include degrees in all the disciplines mentioned above, from art
history to Holocaust studies, in its counts of humanities degrees from 1987 onward.
For an inventory of the NSF and CIP disciplinary codes included by the Humanities
Indicators under the broad field headings used throughout this document (“humanities,”
“natural sciences,” etc.), see the
NSF and CIP Discipline Code Catalog. For the humanities, this catalog lists
the many degree programs that are counted within specific disciplines (e.g., English
degrees include those classified under CIP as being in “English Language and Literature,”
“American Literature,” and “Creative Writing,” among others).
In constructing indicators that use IPEDS data to track long-term historical trends
in the academic humanities, the project has employed completion data that were classified
using both the NSF and CIP systems. In these cases, either a note accompanying the
chart or a break in the trend line indicates where the NSF classification leaves
off and the CIP-based one begins. For those indicators reporting degree data gathered
in 1987 or more recently (1995 or more recently for the charts and tables describing
the proportions of all degrees received by members of racial/ethnic minority groups),
CIP-coded data are used.
In the case of several of the degree-related indicators, the humanities are compared
to certain other fields such as the sciences and engineering. The nature of these
fields is specified in the
Statement on the Scope of the “Humanities” for Purposes of the Humanities Indicators.
These broad fields do not encompass all postsecondary programs. Therefore, where
fields are being compared in terms of their respective shares of all degrees, the
percentages will not add up to 100%. Also, none of the graphs showing change over
time includes a data point for the academic year 1999, because the NCES did not
release data for that year.
The degree counts presented as part of the Humanities Indicators are for first degrees
only. Although second degrees (which result in a student graduating with a “double
major”) are not common (in the 2006–2007 academic year, they accounted for 5.2%
of all degree completions), anecdotal evidence suggests that a preponderance of
such degrees are in the humanities. Second-degree data are not available via WebCASPAR.
In order to obtain counts of such degrees, a separate analysis will need to be performed
using NCES’s online Data Analysis System. If resources permit such an analysis in
the future, degree counts included in subsequent editions of the Humanities Indicators
would represent a more complete tally of humanities degrees awarded in the United
States. Data on the number of students completing minors are not collected as part
of IPEDS, but such information was compiled for selected humanities disciplines
as part of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences-sponsored Humanities Departmental
Survey (HDS;
see the HDS final report, Table 12).
Back to Content
|
Note on the Calculation of Shares of Degrees Awarded to Members of Traditionally
Underrepresented Ethnic Groups
The shares of all degrees earned by members of traditionally underrepresented racial/ethnic
groups were calculated by dividing the number of humanities degrees completed by
students identified by their institutions as African American (non-Hispanic), Hispanic,
or American Indian/Alaska Native by the total number of degree completions in the
humanities. Not included in the count of traditionally underrepresented
minorities were (1) students designated by their educational institutions as being
of “Other/Unknown Ethncity”1 and (2) international students—that is, temporary
residents who were in the United States for the express purpose of attending school
and who were likely to return to their home countries upon graduation (significant
numbers of these individuals may be of African or Hispanic background, but the National
Center for Education Statistics (NCES), the compiler of these data, does not request
that institutions of higher learning collect racial/ethnicity data for such students).
Note
According to the NCES, the compiler of these data, a student is assigned to this
category only if he or she does not select a racial/ethnic designation and his or
her educational institution finds it impossible to place the student in one of the
NCES-defined racial/ethnic categories during established enrollment procedures or
in any post-enrollment identification or verification process. Over time the percentage
of students categorized as “Other/Unknown” has grown, thereby reducing the ability
of postsecondary institutions, policymakers, and the general public to reliably
track the racial/ethnic diversity of degree recipients.
Back to Content
|
Note on Racial/Ethnic Composition of Total U.S. Population
Using information provided by the U.S. Census Bureau’s Population Division,* the
Humanities Indicators has calculated the following estimates of the share of the
total national population represented by each of the categories employed by the
National Center for Education Statistics for the purpose of reporting the percentage
of degrees awarded to students of different races/ethnicities (estimates are for
July, 2008):
African American, Non-Hispanic
Asian or Pacific Islander
Hispanic
Native American or Alaska Native
|
12.4%
4.6%
14.8%
0.8%
|
* Data drawn from U.S. Census Bureau, “Table 3: Annual Estimates of the Resident
Population by Sex, Race, and Hispanic Origin for the United States: April 1, 2000
to July 1, 2008 (NC-EST2008-03),” released May 14, 2009,
http://www.census.gov/popest/national/asrh/NC-EST2008-srh.html.
Back to Content
|
|