Sociologists are writing an increasing amount about various parts of higher education. Fundamentally and briefly, these can generally be described as topical, normative, discursive and frequently interesting. The total impact of this growing list must vary with the background of the reader. While each is informative and most contain shrewd insights, the list indicates only a personal and not a theoretical concern with higher education. We have finally begun the scrutiny of the complex organization where most of us are domiciled. That is to say, the publications seem to warrant the inference that more and more sociologists are concerned about higher education, but scarcely any have been cast in a framework commensurate with our state of knowledge and methodological sophistication. When the Academic Man (Wilson, 1942) first appeared, Wilson's style of research was appropriate to the task. It was scholarly, normative in places, insightful and carried the weight of the personal observer. At that time, the theories of organization which could be appropriate to research today were not available. Moreover, in the interim, the dash between theory and research—neither well defined—subsided, and general sophistication in both methods and techniques developed. Some volumes appeared between Wilson and the current crop. Typical of these was The Academic Market Place ( Caplow and McGee, 1958). While a certain effort at systematic research was revealed, most empirical observations seemed somewhat independent of the statistical or sampling design. Certainly more credance could be given to the typologies developed, however related they were to the role of the observant participant. Sociological theories were not particularly advanced during this period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]