Devices of Future Excellence: Detaching Excellence Recognition from 'Eminent Men'

Autor/inn/en	Bloch, Roland; Mitterle, Alexander
Titel	Devices of Future Excellence: Detaching Excellence Recognition from 'Eminent Men'
Quelle	In: Research Evaluation, 31 (2022) 4, S.452-462 (11 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Zusatzinformation	ORCID (Bloch, Roland) ORCID (Mitterle, Alexander)
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0958-2029
DOI	10.1093/reseval/rvac018
Schlagwörter	Foreign Countries; Graduate Study; Doctoral Students; Student Recruitment; College Admission; Competition; Holistic Approach; Admission Criteria; Futures (of Society); Germany + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Ausland; Aufbaustudium; Graduiertenstudium; Hauptstudium; Doctoral studies; Doctorate studies; Student; Students; Doctoral candidate; Doktorandenprogramm; Schüler; Schülerin; Studentin; Doktorand; Doktorandin; Hochschulzugang; Hochschulzulassung; Zulassung; Wettkampf; Holistischer Ansatz; Admission; Admission procedures; Zulassungsbedingung; Zulassungsverfahren; Future; Society; Zukunft; Deutschland
Abstract	The global diffusion of the graduate school organizational model has shifted the way future academic excellence is identified from a paternalistic master-disciple relationship to a collective organizational decision. 'Eminent men' used to recruit PhD students on the firm belief that they could identify excellence and integrate it in their own scientific endeavor. Graduate schools formalize such judgments and transform them into an organizational decision. They establish admission devices to assure criteria-based collective decisions. To understand this shift, the article draws on the example of two German graduate schools that proclaim to search for outstanding doctoral candidates. As a latecomer in the transformation to graduate schools, the German case allows to observe the shift "in statu nascendi." The article highlights the distinct role multi-site admission devices play. In both cases, they redistribute agency and excellence through the construction of competitive social fields. Documents, grades, committee deliberations, interviews, and excel files mobilize a social space in which applicants are qualified as acting holistically and competitively against each other in order to identify those most likely of future excellence. Admission is not predefined but the result of a cascade of socio-material fielding practices that purify a comparative social space, qualify applicants competitively, and infuse them with site-specific agency that increasingly authenticates them as field actors. Building on the work of Michel Callon and colleagues, we understand such formatting of future excellence as "field agencements." (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2024/1/01