Inbreeding in Social Work Education: An Empirical Examination

Abstract

Academic inbreeding frequently has been asserted to be detrimental to the quality of educational institutions. Prior empirical studies, however, have been equivocal in supporting this position and sizeable proportions of inbreeding have been noted in high-prestige institutions. This study found inbreeding to be quite prevalent in graduate schools of social work, but not related to an institution's ranking on measures of prestige, scholarly and professional productivity, and teaching quality. Similarly, the academic nativity of individual faculty members across schools was not related to their scholarly productivity. It was concluded that inbreeding alone is not predictive of institutional or individual calibre.