Elite Formation and Hither Education Institutions

本研究项目旨在探讨德国高等教育中“精英教育”的社会建构。本文着重描述了将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”的社会建构的关键。对于迄今为止被视为相当平等的德国高等教育来说，对不同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项目的校友视为优越，并从长远来看是精英。该项目调查了在高等教育中声称优越的两种变体。首先(A)我们看看旨在通过声称为社会不同部分培养特定领导者来区分自己的高等教育机构。第二(B)我们调查了博士资格（研究生院）项目，这些项目声称培养优秀的初级研究人员，从而参考了他们在该领域的独特地位。在第一个项目阶段，已经通过实地分析和深入的案例研究确定了这种组织分层的促进因素，以便描述不同的属性。特别是，在两个变体(A)和(B)之间制定的属性被分割出来。在这种背景下，我们现在期望分层的推动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第二个项目阶段的主题。核心问题是其他高等教育机构如何应对由推动者动员起来的分层差异。其他高等教育机构为了赶上顶尖大学，是否也遵循同样的差异化逻辑？或者他们宁愿逃避这样的逻辑，甚至可能推行促进垂直差异化的替代标准？为了回答这些问题，我们计划进行进一步的实地分析，然后再次确定案例进行深入调查。组织对等级区分的主张分别是对某些分层区分的引入或有效性的争论，将从以下方面进行分析：(a)课程，(b)组织安排，(c)选择标准和过程，(d)学生选择。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、区分和一致性的制度机制，因为它们在研究小组的框架中得到了阐述。

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.