The Coordinated Curriculum: How Institutional Theory Can Be Used to Catalyze Revision of the Sociology Major

Content analysis of 77 college and university catalogs and department websites assesses conformity with select recommendations for the sociology major. The majority of institutions have programs that fulfill some recommendations examined, but the minority fulfills most of the recommendations. Some sociology programs are much more coordinated than others. Fewer than one in three institutions with sociology majors have programs that fully or nearly fully conform to the measured recommendations. Benchmarking current levels of curricular coordination leads to identification of institutions that may represent gold standards and aspirational models. Institutional theory informs methods of using benchmark data to advance curricular coordination.