Elite Formation and Hither Education Institutions

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

The research project aims at investigating the social construction of `elite education in German higher education in `statu nascendi. It hereby focusses on describing the ways in which stratificatory differences are introduced into the field of higher education. Analyzing the logics of such stratifications are key to understanding the social construction of `elite education`. For German higher education that has so far been viewed as rather egalitarian, the analysis of differentiating attributes can explain why and how alumni of certain higher education institutions and programs can be seen as superior, and in the long run as elite. The project investigates two variants in which claims for superiority are made within higher education. First (A) we look at higher education institutions that aim to distinguish themselves by claiming to educate specific leaders for different parts of society. Second (B) we investigate programs for PhD-qualification (graduate schools) that claim to educate excellent junior researchers, thereby referring to their distinct position in the field. During the first project phase such organizational `promoters of stratification have been identified through field analyses and scrutinized through in-depth case studies in order to describe differentiating attributes. Especially, attributes that are enacted across both variants (A) and (B) were carved out.Against this background, we now expect that the `promoters of stratification and the identified stratificatory attributes trigger effects in the field of higher education institutions as a whole. The analysis of these effects is the subject of the second project phase. The central question is how other higher education institutions react to the stratificatory differentiations that have been mobilized by the promoters. Do other higher education institutions align themselves to the same differentiating logics in order to catch up with the top? Or do they rather elude from such logics and possibly even push forward alternative criteria that promote vertical differentiation? In order to answer these questions we plan to undertake a further field analysis and then again identify cases for in-depth investigation. Organizational claims for rank differentiation respectively the contesting of the introduction or the validity of certain stratificatory differentiations will be analyzed with respect to the following dimensions: (a) curriculum, (b) organizational arrangements, (c) selection criteria and processes, (d) student choice. In this way the research project elite formation and higher education institutions addresses the institutional mechanisms of student choice selection, distinction, and coherence, as they are elaborated in the framework of the research group.