Yes, the group-think effect varies from what I have heard (I am not an academic myself, just the daughter of one). But I think it's fair to regard tenure, like any other guild-like apprentice/journeyman/master structure (only doctors have a better, I think), as being a large structural factor inclining the whole system to group-think. That, and publish-or-perish in peer-reviewed journals.
As I said but a bit differently, I think that's definitely a factor but your language makes it more structuralist than I think it works in practice. The presence of conflicting norms and conflicting positions tends to leave niches in the review process which untenured folk learn, quite quickly, to take advantage of. Sometimes to manipulate the structures such as to reinforce the group-think; others to bypass it. I'm thinking of cases but can't, for obvious reasons, type them here. And I can't, just offhand, think of a way to encode them. At least a way that would retain enough of the particulars to make them interesting. |
