Which areas of specialization have been correlated with higher placement into “permanent” (typically tenure-track or tenured) positions over the past few years? “The broad finding is that those in Value Theory and History & Traditions (n=1125) have a higher proportion in permanent academic placement… than those in LEMM or Science, Logic, & Math (n=864),” according to Carolyn Dicey Jennings (UC Merced), who analyzed data gathered by Academic Philosophy Data and Analysis (APDA) on graduates from 2021 through 2026 and shared the results in a post at the APDA Blog. Jennings breaks down the areas of specialization into “big” (more than 100 graduates over the past five years), “mid-sized” (between 20 and 100 graduates), and “small” (fewer than 20 graduates). Within each of those size categorizations, she lists the percentage of graduates with particular AOS’s who have found permanent placement. Her findings are below. AOS’s listed in bold have a higher than average placement rate (the average across all areas is 32%). Big Social/Political (37%; n=254) Ancient (37%; n=101) Ethics (36%; n=274) Epistemology (33%; n=165) Philosophy of Science (29%; n=102) Metaphysics (28%; n=112) Philosophy of Mind (25%; n=151) Mid-Sized Law (60%; n=25) Medieval/Renaissance (52%; n=23) Gender/Race/Sexuality/Disability Studies (48%; n=56) Philosophy of Physics (40%; n=25) Logic (33%; n=39) German Philosophy/Kant (31%; n=68) Applied Ethics (31%; n=85) Modern Philosophy (31%; n=36) Historical Philosophy (29%; n=28) Continental Philosophy/Phenomenology (29%; n=56) Metaethics (26%; n=34) Philosophy of Religion (25%; n=20) Philosophy of Language (24%; n=70) Value Theory (22%; n=27) Cognitive Science/Psychology/Neuroscience/Linguistics (22%; n=73) Philosophy of Technology (20%, n=40) Small Education (100%; n=2) American/Latin American Philosophy (100%; n=2) African Philosophy (67%; n=3) Philosophy of Action (67%; n=3) Philosophy of Biology/Environmental Philosophy (45%; n=11) 19th/20th Century Philosophy (44%; n=16) Metaphilosophy/Experimental (40%; n=5) Asian Philosophy (38%, n=8) Decision Theory (31%; n=16) Philosophy of Economics (23%; n=13) History of Analytic Philosophy (22%; n=9) Aesthetics (18%; n=11) Philosophy of Math (17%; n=18) Comparative Philosophy (15%; n=7) Other (0%; n=2) Jennings adds: “A final point worth considering is that hiring trends come and go, and this analysis is not future-facing/predictive. Yet, the headline success of those in Value Theory and History & Traditions appears to be consistent across past analyses.” The post Placement & AOS first appeared on Daily Nous .