Social Science, Cultural Rationalization & the Historical Rise of Schooling

As a computational historical sociologist, I use a combo of quantitative and natural language processing (NLP) techniques in analyzing archival data to better understand how the emergence of social science dramatically transformed Western culture and the modern nation-state.

Semantic Network of the UK Political Discourse (1851–1885) Showing the Political Problematique of State Schooling

Related Works

Smith, D.S. (2022a). Social scientization and the rise of the schooling state in UK parliamentary discourse, 1803–1909. Social Science History 46(1): 223–254 → view paper

Under Review

Smith, D. S. (2022d, under review). Visions of Deliverance: Social Science, Rationalization, and the Expanded Purposiveness of Schooling in the UK Parliament, 1803–1914. → view paper

Smith, D.S. (2022c, under review). The Nation-state, Social Scientization, and Education Legislation in the United Kingdom, 1800–1914. → view paper

Smith, D.S. (2022b, under review). The Making of Mr. Gradgrind: Social Science and the Rationalization of Schooling in Official UK Political Discourse, 1803–1914. → view paper

Ongoing

(Ideas Workshop-able)

Smith, D.S. and McFarland, D. (2022). A computational historical sociology of relational change in political meaning: The UK parliamentary discourse in the long nineteenth century.

Smith, D.S. (2022e). Nineteenth-century Social Scientization: A Transnational Epistemic Movement

Read My Dissertation Précis Here

Culture, Diversity & Power in Science & Education

In collaborative work, I explore the ways contemporary science and culture are entangled, particularly in gendered contexts.

An unstable cultural order mediated
by gender as practice

Related Works

Kim, L., Smith, D.S., Hofstra, B. McFarland, D. (2022, in press) Gendered Knowledge in Fields and Academic Careers. Research Policy. → view paper

Bromley, P. & Smith, D.S. (2020). “Creating the Canon: The Meaning and Effects of Textbooks and Curricula” in T. Domina, B. Gibbs, L. Nunn, and A. Penner, Eds., Education and Society. University of California Press. → view paper

Smith, D.S., Wendt, H., & Kasper, D. (2017). Social reproduction and sex in German primary schools. Compare: Journal of Comparative and International Education 47(2): 240-256. → view paper

Under Review

Bromley, P. & Smith, D.S. (2021, under review) Women, World Society, and the Expansion of Academic Knowledge: The Study of Gender in Comparative Education Review, 1957–2016. → view paper

In Preparation

(Manuscript Available)

Liang, W., Mahowald, K., Raymond, J., Krishna, V., Smith, D.S., McFarland, D., Zou, J. (2021). How random is the review outcome? A systematic study of the impact of external factors on eLife peer review.