David Diehl

David Diehl is an assistant professor in the Department of Human and Organizational Development at Vanderbilt University. His training is in the sociology of education, social network analysis, and organizational theory. The overarching question guiding his research is ‘how are cultural ideas about education created, spread, and enacted?’ This work can be divided into two interconnected strands. First, at the macro level, he studies how ideas are created and spread by policymakers, politicians, academic researchers, foundations, and journalists. At the micro level, he studies how teachers and other staff in schools encounter these broad ideas in the form of reforms, structures, and practices and how they work within the divergent expectations associated with them. In both strands, he applies a range of methods to existing and original data. His work has appeared in journals including American Journal of Sociology, American Sociological Review, Sociology of Education,Teachers College Record, Philanthropy and Education, and Sociological Forum.

A current version of his CV can be found here.