Faculty Perceptions of Disciplinary Cultures and Their Relationship to Teaching: Validating Becher’s Convergent-Divergent Dimension

Abstract

Becher’s (1989) seminal work on academic disciplines proposed the Convergent-Divergent dimension to capture one social dynamic that distinguished disciplinary cultures, and yet little work has explored how the Convergent-Divergent dimension relates to faculty teaching practices. This study operationalizes this dimension in items appended to the Faculty Survey of Student Engagement (FSSE). With nearly 700 responses from faculty in 98 disciplines, this study examines the relationship of a Cultural Convergence construct with faculty teaching practices and whether faculty taught similarly to their disciplinary peers. Findings indicate that cultural convergence does not influence teaching practices in four of five areas, though the more convergent a discipline, the more faculty tend to teach similarly to their peers in three of five areas of teaching.