Elite Formation and Hither Education Institutions

本研究项目旨在考察德国高等教育“新生状态”中“精英教育"的社会建构。因此，它侧重于描述分层差异引入高等教育领域的方式。分析这种分层的逻辑，是理解精英教育社会建构的关键。对于迄今为止被视为相当平等主义的德国高等教育，对差异化属性的分析可以解释为什么以及如何将某些高等教育机构和课程的校友视为上级，并从长远来看是精英。该项目调查了高等教育中声称优越的两种变体。首先（A）我们来看看高等教育机构，它们的目标是通过声称为社会的不同部分培养特定的领导者来区分自己。第二（B），我们调查了声称培养优秀的初级研究人员的博士资格（研究生院）项目，从而提到了他们在该领域的独特地位。在项目的第一阶段，通过实地分析和深入的个案研究查明了这种组织上的分层“推动者”，以便描述不同的属性。特别是，在变量（A）和（B）中制定的属性被雕刻出来。在此背景下，我们现在期待“分层的促进者”和确定的分层属性在整个高等教育机构领域引发影响。对这些影响的分析是项目第二阶段的主题。核心问题是，其他高等教育机构如何应对推动者所引发的分层差异。其他高等教育机构是否也遵循同样的差异化逻辑，以赶上顶尖大学？或者，他们宁愿逃避这种逻辑，甚至可能推动促进纵向差异的替代标准？为了回答这些问题，我们计划进行进一步的实地分析，然后再次确定需要深入调查的案件。组织要求的等级分化分别竞争的介绍或某些分层区分的有效性将分析以下方面：（a）课程，（B）组织安排，（c）选择标准和过程，（d）学生的选择。通过这种方式，研究项目精英形成和高等教育机构解决了学生选择的体制机制选择，区别和一致性，因为它们是在研究小组的框架内阐述的。

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.