See the
Note on the Data Used to Calculate the Number of Degree Completions in English Language and Literature and in Languages and Literatures Other than English.
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 language and literature, 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 provided.
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Indicator II-18
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English Language and Literature Degree Completions
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Figures depicting English degree counts and the discipline’s share of all degrees
have been updated with data for the 2007–2008 and 2008–2009 academic years (4/6/2011).
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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 the Number of Degree Completions in English Language and Literature and in Languages and Literatures Other than English,
the
Note on the Definition of Advanced Degrees,
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 undergraduate1
and graduate programs in English language and literature. 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 mid- to late 1980s, however,
the number of degrees in English had declined by over 50% for each type of degree.
After that, the number of English degrees rose substantially, but so did the number
of all degrees. Consequently, for the next quarter century the discipline’s share
of all degrees remained within approximately one percentage point of its 1980s nadir
at each of the three degree levels.
Beginning in the early 2000s, 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 2009,
the number of new English Ph.D.’s declined in most years during this period.
Having held at approximately 7% of all bachelor’s 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 from the late 1970s through 1987, by
1993, these students’ share had regained its 1977 level (Figure II-18e).
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 come from other nations to the United States to study and
who are 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 earned 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 U.S. minority group. Their share was greatest 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 U.S. 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.
Note
1 The degree counts presented as part of the Humanities Indicators
do not include so-called double major degrees. When degrees are earned concurrently
in this way, only the first degree is counted. Although second degrees 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 first became available via WebCASPAR in November 2010. If resources
permit, an analysis of these data will be conducted in 2011.
Data on the number of students completing minors are not gathered as part of the
data collection program from which these degree completion counts are drawn,
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, page 8, Table 12).
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Indicator II-19
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History Degree Completions
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Figures depicting history degree counts and the discipline’s share of all degrees
have been updated with data for academic years 2007–2008 and 2008–2009 (4/6/2011).
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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 Definition of Advanced Degrees,
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 a banner year for the nation’s undergraduate history programs (Figure II-19a),1
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 again beginning in 2002—bringing
the number of bachelor’s degrees awarded in 2009 to 77% of the early-1970s high.
History’s share of all undergraduate degrees experienced a similarly sharp decline
through the mid-1980s and has 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, despite growth in the number of
bachelor’s completions in history, steady increases in the total number of bachelor’s
degree completions kept history’s share in the vicinity of 2% of all bachelor’s
degrees from 1986 to 2009.
Degree completions at the master’s and doctorate levels followed a similar trajectory
up through the mid-1980s (Figures II-19b and II-19c). At the master’s
level, the first wave of recovery from the 1980s slump crested at roughly the same
time and was similar in magnitude to that observed at the undergraduate level. But
the second wave did not bring master’s completions as close to their historic high.
At the crest of this wave, in 2009, the discipline’s master’s degree completions
reached only 67% of their 1969 peak.
At the doctoral level, the initial recovery reached its zenith later but was more
complete, bringing the number of Ph.D. completions to 87% of its peak value in 2000.
The following decade brought fairly consistent declines followed by marked upticks
in completions in 2008 and 2009, with the number of degrees awarded in this latter
year constituting 81% of the 1973 level.
As with bachelor’s degrees, history’s share of all master’s and doctoral degrees
during the 1985–2009 period remained near the dramatically reduced levels of the
1980s. In 2009, history degrees represented 0.5% of all master’s and first professional
degrees, down from 2.4% in 1967. At its height in 1970, history’s share of all Ph.D.’s
was 3.5%. In 2009 the discipline’s share was 1.5%.
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 from 1995 to 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
one-tenth of all master’s degrees and doctoral degrees were awarded to students
from underrepresented racial/ethnic groups. The same was true of doctoral degrees.
(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 history degrees earned by women 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). The gender distribution
of degrees came closest to being equal at the master’s level. In 2007, 48% of history
master’s degrees were awarded to women.
Note
1 The degree counts presented as part of the Humanities Indicators
do not include so-called double major degrees. When degrees are earned concurrently
in this way, only the first degree is counted. Although second degrees 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 first became available via WebCASPAR in November 2010. If resources
permit, an analysis of these data will be conducted in 2011.
Data on the number of students completing minors are not gathered as part of the
data collection program from which these degree completion counts are drawn,
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, page 8, Table 12).
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Indicator II-20
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Degree Completions in Languages and Literatures Other than English
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Figures depicting language degree counts and the discipline’s share of all degrees
have been updated with data for academic years 2007–2008 and 2008–2009 (4/6/2011).
|
|
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 the Number of Degree Completions in English Language and Literature and in Languages and Literatures Other than English,
the
Note on the Definition of Advanced Degrees,
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).1
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 degrees
declined steadily for a total decrease of slightly more than 50% at the bachelor’s
and doctoral levels and closer to 60% at the master’s level.
At all three degree levels completions have rebounded, but to differing extents.
Other than during a brief period in the mid-1990s, the number of bachelor’s degrees
has increased. By 2009 the number was 19,031, 87% 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 decline in master’s awards. But
then completions began to rise again, and since 2006 the number of master’s degrees
has been slightly above the 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 reached 73% of their 1973 high, a level near which they remained through
2009.
At the height of their popularity in the late 1960s and early 1970s, LOTE degrees
represented approximately 3% of all degrees at the bachelor’s and doctoral degree
levels and 2% of master’s degrees. Subsequently these shares declined, bottoming
out in the mid- to late 1980s. At that time, the share of all bachelor’s degrees
awarded by LOTE programs was approximately a third of what it had been at its greatest,
while the discipline’s share of all master’s degrees was 24% of what it had been
at its height. The decline was not quite as pronounced at the doctoral level: in
1988, LOTE’s share was approximately 45% of what it had been in its peak year of
1973. The LOTE share of degrees was fairly constant at these reduced levels up through
2009.
Data on the racial/ethnic distribution of LOTE degrees over the 1977–2007 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 seven 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 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 steadily, so that by 2002, the proportion
of doctorates awarded to these students was 15%, an increase of seven percentage
points over the 1977 level. Since the early 2000s the share has declined somewhat
and was 12% in 2007. 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% represented 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
1 The degree counts presented as part of the Humanities Indicators
do not include so-called double major degrees. When degrees are earned concurrently
in this way, only the first degree is counted. Although second degrees 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 first became available via WebCASPAR in November 2010. If resources
permit, an analysis of these data will be conducted in 2011.
Data on the number of students completing minors are not gathered as part of the
data collection program from which these degree completion counts are drawn,
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, page 8, Table 12).
Note on the Definition of Advanced Degrees
According to the National Center for Education Statistics’ (NCES)
Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) Glossary, master’s degrees are “awards that require
the successful completion of a program of study of at least the full-time equivalent
of 1 academic year, but not more than 2 academic years of work beyond the bachelor’s
degree.”
The NCES, which collects the degree completion data presented as part of the Humanities
Indicators, defines first professional degrees as those awards that require completion
of a program that meets all the following criteria: (1) completion of the academic
requirements to begin practice in a profession; (2) at least two years of college
work prior to entering the program; and (3) a total of at least six academic years
of college work to complete the degree program, including prior required college
work plus the length of the professional program itself. According to NCES, the
following ten fields award first professional degrees:
Chiropractic (D.C. or D.C.M.)
Dentistry (D.D.S. or D.M.D.)
Law (LL.B., or J.D.)
Medicine (M.D.)
Optometry (O.D.)
Osteopathic Medicine (D.O.)
Pharmacy (Pharm.D.)
Podiatry (D.P.M., D.P., or Pod.D.)
Theology (M.Div., M.H.L., B.D., or Ordination)
Veterinary Medicine (D.V.M. or V.M.D.)
Although some fields (e.g., library science, hospital administration, and social
work) require specialized degrees for employment at the professional level, NCES
does not count degrees in these fields as first professional degrees; instead, they
are treated as master’s degrees.
Whereas all doctorates had previously been included in a single category, for academic
years 2007–2008 and 2008–2009 NCES gave schools the option of employing a new classification
system that distinguishes between three types of doctorate degrees:
Research/Scholarship—A Ph.D. or other doctoral degree that requires advanced
work beyond the master’s level, including the preparation and defense of a dissertation
based on original research, or the planning and execution of an original project
demonstrating scholarly achievement;
Professional Practice—A doctoral degree conferred upon completion of a program
providing the knowledge and skills for the recognition, credentialing, or licensing
required for professional practice; or
Other—A doctoral degree that does not meet the definition of the research/scholarship
or professional practice doctorate.
Schools could classify certain degrees that had historically been treated as first
professional degrees as either “Professional Practice” doctoral degrees (as in the
case of medical degrees, for example) or master’s degrees (as in the case of advanced,
nondoctoral degrees in theology).
To ensure comparability with previous years, for 2007–2008 and 2008–2009 the Humanities
Indicators counted as doctorates all of those degrees classified by postsecondary
institutions as “Doctorate Degree,” “Doctorate Degree—Research/Scholarship,” or
“Doctorate Degree—Other.” The HI treated as “master’s and professional degrees”
those degrees classified by schools as “Doctorate Degree—Professional Practice,”
“First Professional Degree,” or “Master’s Degree.”
For more information about NCES’s new system for classifying advanced and other
degrees, which is required for the purposes of IPEDS reporting for academic year
2009–2010 and eliminates the first professional degree category, please see
http://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/submit_data/changes0809.asp.
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Note on the Data Used to Calculate the Number of Degree Completions 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 and later, 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
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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’s (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 a variety of other topics; 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 decision-makers,
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 with a broad base of quantitative
information about the U.S. science, engineering, and technology enterprise.
The NSF has developed a set of standardized disciplinary categories 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, its disciplinary
classification is most detailed in these areas. The utility of the NSF system for
the purposes of the Humanities Indicators (HI) is limited. For example, the NSF
scheme does not distinguish between the academic study of the arts, considered by
the HI to be part of the humanities, and art performance. This makes it impossible
for the HI to include in its tally those degrees conferred in the areas of musicology,
art history, film studies, and drama history/criticism. Moreover, while the HI considers
such disciplines as archeology, women’s studies, gay and lesbian studies, and Holocaust
studies to be part of the humanities field, NSF categorizes them as social sciences.
Additionally, NSF places interdisciplinary degrees in areas such as general humanities
and liberal studies in a broad “Other” category that includes degrees for many disciplines
that are clearly not within the purview of the humanities as conceptualized by the
HI. Consequently, such interdisciplinary degrees, along with those mentioned above,
cannot be captured in humanities degree counts from 1966 to 1986.
For 1987 and later years (1995 and later for data on the race/ethnicity of degree
recipients), however, NSF also categorizes earned degrees according to the more
detailed Classification of Instructional 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 HI. (For an inventory of the disciplines and
activities treated as part of the humanities by the HI, see the Statement on the Scope of the “Humanities”
for Purposes of the Humanities Indicators.) The CIP was first developed
by 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.
For the purposes of the Humanities Indicators the CIP has several advantages over
the NSF classification system. For example, because the NSF system groups degrees
in the nonsectarian study of religion with those awarded in programs designed to
prepare students for religious vocations and since the latter type of degree is
much more common, the HI cannot 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 HI can include degrees
in all the excluded 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 categories included by the HI under the broad field headings
(“humanities,” “natural sciences,” etc.) used throughout Part II of the HI, see
the
NSF and CIP Discipline Code Catalog. This catalog also indicates which degree
programs are included by the HI within specific humanities disciplines (e.g., for
the purposes of the HI, 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 historical trends in the
academic humanities, the HI 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 estimates based on the NSF classification
system leave off and those based on CIP begin. 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 HI do not include so-called double major
degrees. When degrees are earned concurrently in this way, only the first degree
is counted. Although second degrees 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 first
became available via WebCASPAR in November 2010. If resources permit, an analysis
of these data will be conducted in 2011.
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, page 8, Table 12).
Back to Content
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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”* 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).
* 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.
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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
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12.4%
4.6%
14.8%
0.8%
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* 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.
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