Doctoral Dissertations in Human-Animal Studies: News and Views

Kathleen C. Gerbasi,1 David C. Anderson, Alexandra M. Gerbasi, and Debbie Coultis

Previous work (Balcombe, 1999) reported a considerable increase in the number of post-secondary courses offered on Animals and Society. An alternative view of the current state of Human Animal Studies HAS is to go a step further and look at the numbers of HAS doctoral dissertations completed over the past two decades. For that purpose this study compares numbers and characteristics of doctoral dissertations in HAS from 1980 to 1999. The study uses the decade of the 1980s as a basis of comparison for the 1990s.

Archival searching is an inexact art. We retrieved pertinent dissertations from the databases of OCLC, PsycINFO, and ProQuest Dissertations Abstracts International (DAI) by using words and phrases, such as “animal-assisted therapy,” “pets therapeutic use,” “bereavement and pets,” and “human-companion animal bond.” The search process finds only dissertations in which the requested phrases (or words in the phrases) appear in the title or abstract of the dissertation. While searching DAI for other information, two additional dissertations were found. (These dissertations were not included in the data set as they were outside our search methodology.) The results of this project should represent what any similarly conducted search for HAS dissertations would discover. No attempt was made to judge the merits of the dissertations but rather to describe their numbers and demographics.

Methods

The three databases were searched for a variety of terms related to HAS for the years from 1980 to the present. This search found 305 dissertations; 278 from the United States and the remainder from other countries, most frequently Canada (14), the United Kingdom (4), and South Africa (4). Because of difficulties in reliably locating foreign dissertations and the time lag for dissertations entering DAI, this study was limited to U.S. dissertations published in DAI and done for the 20 years from 1980 through 1999.

The following variables were derived from DAI citations and abstracts: author, year of dissertation, degree earned, advisor’s name when included, university, and academic subjects. Additional variables were the sex of the authors and an assessment based on the abstract as to the empirical nature of each study.

For academic subject areas with more than 15 dissertations, an author search was conducted to look for publication of the dissertation in a journal. Standard available databases (PsycINFO, MEDLINE, ERIC, and WilsonWeb) were searched for this final variable.2

Results

A total of 259 HAS dissertations met the search criteria. The majority of degrees were PhD’s (224), with EdD (19) and PsyD (9) far behind. The remaining degrees were DSW (4) and one each Doctor of Nursing Science, Doctor of Pharmacy, and Doctor of Recreation.

The 1990s yielded 186 dissertations, more than double the 73 found for the 1980s. The total number of all dissertations in the United States has been increasing annually for the past two decades (Sanderson, Dugoni, Hoffer & Myers, 2000). It is difficult to determine if the increase in HAS dissertations is part of this general trend or is an actual increase in the relative frequency of HAS dissertations. Using annual data from Sanderson et al., it is possible to compare numbers of HAS and all non-HAS dissertations for 1980-1989 and 1990-1999 (Table 1). This dissertation distribution by time is significant (X2=26.85, df =1, p< .00001), suggesting the relative proportion of HAS dissertations increased from the decade of the 1980s to the 1990s.

Table 1. HAS and All Non-HAS Dissertations by Years

The total number of female authors was 156, and the total number of male authors was 79. An analysis of sex of author by years reveals a non-significant chi-square (X2 =.00013, df = 1, p ~ 1.00), indicating that for both of the past two decades twice as many women as men have researched HAS at the doctoral level (Table 2). This difference in numbers of HAS dissertations authored by men and women may reflect the disproportionate number of doctoral degrees earned by women in the fields of education and psychology. In 1999, women earned 64.2% of the Education doctorates and 66.7% of the Psychology doctorates (Sanderson et al., 2000).

Table 2. Sex of Dissertation Authors by Years

Note. It was not possible to identify gender of all authors by their names.

These 259 HAS dissertations represent 27 different academic disciplines. All areas of psychology combined contribute more than 29% of the dissertations, and clinical psychology alone is responsible for 35 or 46% of the psychology entries. Psychology with education, literature, anthropology, health science, sociology, agriculture, philosophy, and social work make up 84% of the sample. The remainder of the sample is 39 dissertations representing 18 different academic areas (Table 3).

Table 3. Characteristics of HAS Dissertations 1980-1999
 

Analysis of dissertations by academic areas and years (excluding the “other category”) reveals a significant difference (X2 = 25.34, df = 8, p< .005), suggesting a great deal of variability across the different academic areas from one decade to the other in the numbers of HAS dissertations. For example, dissertations in psychology doubled from the 1980s to the 1990s, while education held the same and anthropology and literature increased dramatically. So although the total number of dissertations doubled from the 1980s to the 1990s this pattern is not representative of all disciplines.

The number of empirical dissertations varies considerably as would be expected, based on the disciplines considered (Table 3). One indicator of the state of HAS may be the frequency that dissertations are published as journal articles. Our sample’s five largest disciplines have a publication rate of 11% (Table 3) 3

Another feature of the dissertations to consider is the school of origin and advisor. If HAS is growing and has a focal point of activity, one might expect to see a core of institutions and advisors responsible for a majority of the dissertations. There are 130 academic institutions in the sample.4 The mean number of dissertations per institution is 1.99, the mode one, and the median 1.5. The largest number from one school is 8 from The Union Institute, a non-traditional school, in Ohio.

The name of the major advisor was available for 168 of the dissertations. Of these, only five advisors appear for two different dissertations, and no advisor appears more than two times. In addition, no dissertation author’s name later appears as the major advisor for a HAS dissertation. These data do not indicate a focus of universities or advisors in HAS.

Discussion

Looking at the numbers of HAS dissertations, one may conclude that the state of HAS has improved considerably from the 1980s to the 1990s. It may be noteworthy that the number of dissertations has doubled and increased at a faster rate than the number of all dissertations. However, the lack of focus in terms of universities and advisors and the low publication rate suggest an alternative interpretation. To explore this alternative explanation, the interrelated sociological concepts of diffusion and status are employed.

Diffusion describes the process by which innovations are spread through and across institutions and organizations. The basic diffusion pattern identified by most of the Neo-Institutionalists is that high status actors and organizations first adopt an innovation and then impose adoption of the innovation on lower status actors and organizations. There are many such examples (Meyer & Rowan 1977; Palmer, Jennings, & Zhou 1993). Following adoption by high status actors and organizations, lower status actors and organizations are motivated to imitate them. This diffusion may take some time as the lower status actors and organizations often do not have the resources to adopt an innovation as swiftly as do the high status actors and organizations.

Status has several components. A producer's status, or the association with status, can be considered something that non-producing market participants generally value in its own right; thus, it can be considered an end in and of itself (Frank, 1985) or as a means of gaining increased power over others (Weber, 1978). Status also can be a signal of the underlying quality of a producer’s goods. Status also is dependent on the perceived quality of a producer's products in relation to the perceived quality of that producer's competitors' products (Podolny, 1993).

A particularly relevant modification of this process to HAS concerns the nature of the innovation. High status adopters initiate adoption of innovations that are mainly non-controversial and consistent with established norms, and the lowest status members tend to adopt last (Wejnert, in press). However, when innovations are more controversial, low status or peripherally located actors may initiate the adoption process, apparently being less fearful of losing status by nonconforming behavior or trying to increase their status and prestige to a more local audience (Becker, 1970).

The current pattern of HAS dissertations and associated variables suggests that HAS is a controversial innovation that has been adopted by lower status and /or more peripheral actors and organizations (applied as opposed to pure scientists and schools outside the confines of Arts and Sciences, such as veterinary schools and nursing schools).

Several findings in the data support this conclusion: The most frequent sole granting institution was The Union Institute. There is no Arts and Science (core and high status) academic department in the sample that consistently has sponsored doctoral research in HAS. Furthermore, the academic areas most frequently represented are the applied fields of clinical psychology and education; dissertations from applied areas represent nearly half the sample. Only five advisors in the sample each have advised two dissertations; none have advised more than two.

These factors, interpreted within the framework of diffusion and status, suggest HAS is risky business for traditional disciplines. Other evidence may support this conclusionCcenters for animals and society are typically located in veterinary schools, not in core high status academic departments.

Another aspect to consider in the diffusion of HAS is that many of these PhDs might go on to get academic jobs. Because, however, the field is viewed as low status by high status core institutions they may get jobs only at non-doctorate granting institutions. Hence, as in our sample, these individuals do not become HAS dissertation advisors.

The diffusion model suggests that for the status of HAS to increase it must move from the periphery to core of key powerful academic institutions and professional organizations. Currently, neither the American Psychological Association nor American Sociological Association has established divisions devoted to HASCproposed, but not fully formed, sections are collecting petitions.

Furthermore, it is important to note that while psychology generated the most HAS dissertations; psychology is not one of the disciplines cited by Balcombe (1999) as being the best represented at the post-secondary level. Indeed, at the psychology graduate school level, it is common to find students who want to study Human–Animal relations or do an HAS dissertation pleading for help from anyone willing to assist them.

Although it is encouraging to see the increase in the numbers and relative frequency of HAS dissertations, many other demographics of these dissertations strongly indicate that the field is lacking support and recognition from key academic and professional institutions. For the field to develop fully, it must become better organized, recognized, and valued.

* Kathleen C. Gerbasi, Niagara County Community College; David C. Anderson, Rockydell Resources; Alexandra M. Gerbasi, Department of Sociology, Stanford University; and Debbie Coultis, People, Animals, and Nature

Notes

1 Correspondence should be addressed to Kathleen C. Gerbasi, Psychology Department, Niagara County Community College, Sanborn, NY 14132. Requests for information on the dissertations found or methods may be e-mailed to kcgerbasiphd@earthlink.net. To access information from the dissertation database, go to http://psyeta.org/dissertations/dissertations.html

2 Thanks to Niagara County Community College Librarian Professor Elizabeth Fulwell for her expert guidance in the author publication search variable and to the following students who assisted the senior author in this search: Shannon Dingey, Jen Lubera, Nick Paolone, Sara Scull, Sherry Schwartz, Laurie Westoven, Miranda DalPorto, and Glenn Gwozdek.

3 For some disciplines, the most obvious search vehicle (ERIC for education and MEDLINE for health science) was not the best place to find the publicationsCmore were found in PsycINFO.

4 Institutions with multiple campuses counted as separate entities: UC Davis and UCLA were counted as different institutions.

References

Balcombe, J. (1999). Animals & society courses: A growing trend in post-secondary education. Society & Animals, 7, 229-240.

Becker, M. H. (1970). Sociometric location and innovativeness: Reformulation and extension of the diffusion model. American Sociological Review, 35, 267-282.

Frank, R. (1985). Choosing the right pond: Human behavior and the quest for status. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Meyer, J. & Rowan, B. (1977). Institutionalized organizations: Formal structure as myth and ceremony. American Journal of Sociology, 83, 340-363.

Palmer, D. A., Jennings, P. D., & Zhou, X. (1993). Late adoption of the multidivisional form by large U.S. corporations: Institutional, political and economic accounts. Administrative Science Quarterly, 38, 100-131.

Podolny, J. (1993). A status-based model of market competition. American Journal of Sociology, 98, 829-872.

Sanderson, A., Dugoni, B., Hoffer, T., & Myers, S. (2000). Doctorate recipients from United States universities: Summary report 1999. (Electronic version). Chicago: National Opinion Research Center. Retrieved 2/26/2002. http://norc.org/issues/sed9899, pp. 39, 44, 45.

Spence, M. A. (1974). Market Signaling: Informational transfer in hiring and related processes. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Weber, M. (1978). Economy and society. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Wejnert, B. (in press). Major components in the diffusion of innovations. In K. Cook & J.

Hagan (Eds.), Annual review of sociology, Palo Alto:

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A Note: At least two dissertations were found published as books, but not all databases cite books; therefore, book publications are not included in these numbers.

B Note: This does not equal 100% due to rounding.

C Note: Information in DAI often is insufficient to evaluate this variable reliably, so this number should be viewed cautiously.
 

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