Strategic action fields in US higher education: The 1939 Mercer University heresy trial

Abstract

This paper uses Fligstein and McAdam’s (2012, 2011) theory of the strategic action field, or "SAF," to highlight the ways in which individuals can act within cultural and material constraints to shape social processes. It applies these concepts to the Mercer University heresy trial of 1939, in which a group of students backed by fundamentalists from the conservative Protestant movement accused members of the University’s faculty of unbelief. By understanding the organization, the social movement, and the higher education industry as "SAFs," the theory explains how the trial reached its unusual outcome, and suggests implications for broader understandings of organizational change.