John Meyer

Biography

John W. Meyer is Professor of Sociology (and, by courtesy, Education), emeritus, at Stanford. He has contributed to organizational theory, comparative education, and the sociology of education, developing sociological institutional theory. Since the 1970s, he has studied the impact of global society on national states and societies (some papers are collected in Weltkultur: Wie die westlichen Prinzipien die Welt durchdringen, Suhrkamp, 2005; a more extensive set is in G. Kruecken and G. Drori, eds.: World Society: The Writings of John W. Meyer, Oxford 2009). In 2003 he completed a collaborative study of worldwide science and its national effects (Drori, et al., Science in the Modern World Polity, Stanford). A more recent collaborative project is on the impact of globalization on organizational structures (Drori et al., eds., Globalization and Organization, Oxford 2006). He now studies the world human rights regime, world curricula in mass and higher education, and the worldwide expansion of formal organization. He is a member of the National Academy of Education, has honorary doctorates from the Stockholm School of Economics and the Universities of Bielefeld and Lucerne, and received the American Sociological Association's section awards for lifetime contributions to the sociology of education, and to the study of globalization.

Research Interest

Comparative and Historical Sociology, Organizations and Work, Political Sociology, Sociology of Education