Scientific revolutions,paradigms and textbooks in development theories

The purpose of this study is to test whether Thomas Kuhn's model of scientific revolutions and his hypothesis of the ‘mirror effect’ of education apply to the history of the sociology of development, as many analysts of the field argue. Syllabi were examined from 1970 to 1981 for each of the existing graduate programs in sociology of development in Mexican major public and private universities.Results are inconsistent with the claim that the sociology of development has experienced a major scientific revolution, and we found no evidence of the existence of paradigms in the field. The same results are consistent with Kuhn's hypothesis of the ‘mirror effect’ of scientific change on textbooks and scientific training in pre-paradigmatic disciplines.