Mitchell Stevens

Mitchell L. Stevens is Professor of Education and, by courtesy, Sociology in Stanford University’s Graduate School of Education. An organizational sociologist, he holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from Northwestern University (1996), an M.A. from the same institution (1989), and a B.A. in Sociology from Macalester College (1988, magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa). Stevens joined Stanford in 2009 as Associate Professor, advancing to full Professor in 2020. Previously, he served as Associate Professor in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development (2003–2009), and held faculty positions at Hamilton College (1998–2003) and St. Lawrence University (1995–1996).

Stevens has held prominent administrative roles, including Faculty Co-Director (Education) of the Stanford Center on Longevity (2021–present), Faculty Chair of MA/MPP, MA/MBA, and Policy, Organization, and Leadership Studies programs at Stanford GSE (2019–2022), Director of the Center for Advanced Research through Online Learning (2015–2018), Director of Data Policy, Vice Provost for Teaching and Learning (2015–2016), Director of Digital Research and Planning, Graduate School of Education and Vice Provost for Online Learning (2013–2015), and Director of the Scandinavian Consortium for Organizational Research (2010–2017). He convenes the Pathways Network and the Futures Project on Education and the Learning Society at Stanford. His longstanding research interests include educational sequences, lifelong learning, alternative educational forms, higher education organization, and the formal organization of knowledge. Stevens authored award-winning books including Seeing the World: How Universities Make Knowledge in a Global Era (2018, Princeton University Press, with Cynthia Miller-Idriss and Seteney Shami), Remaking College: The Changing Ecology of Higher Education (2015, co-editor with Michael W. Kirst, Stanford University Press), Creating a Class: College Admissions and the Education of Elites (2007, Harvard University Press; Pierre Bourdieu Award, American Sociological Association Education Section, 2009), and Kingdom of Children: Culture and Controversy in the Homeschooling Movement (2001, Princeton University Press; finalist, C. Wright Mills Award, Society for the Study of Social Problems, 2002). Key articles feature “Commensuration as a social process” (1998, with Wendy Nelson Espeland) and “A sociology of quantification” (2008, with Espeland).

Professional Email: mitchell.stevens@stanford.edu