Networks, Paradigms and Careers in the Academic Field: Sociology in Germany and the United States

这个项目假设大学之间的制度经济竞争的竞争优势的科学家个人的科学竞争的知识和认可的进步越来越多的叠加。人们认为，这种竞争促进了学术领域的分化，使之成为中心、半边缘和边缘，知识沿着标准化，以及职业的分化和标准化。这种发展的程度取决于一个国家学术领域的中心/半边缘/边缘分化程度、现有知识的同质性以及学科方法的标准化程度。此外，还必须考虑到由于教授职位以及科学期刊和研究课题数量的增加而导致的科学扩展的相反影响。为了说明这些情况，社会学学科的研究着眼于两个国家在这些方面不同的学术领域的变化：美国和德国，这两个国家表现出中心/半边缘/边缘分化的程度分别较高和较低，以及科学的扩展，知识的同质性和方法的标准化程度分别较高和较低。调查的时间跨度为2000年至2018年。调查的目的是测试一种研究方法，可以转移到其他学科的科学社会学和超越。

This project assumes an increasing superimposition of the institutional economic competition between universities for competitive advantages on the individual scientific competition of scientists for progress of knowledge and recognition. It is assumed that this competition enhances the differentiation of the academic field into centre, semi-periphery and periphery, the canonization of knowledge along with a standardization of methods and the differentiation and standardization of careers. How far this development advances depends on the degree of centre/semi-periphery/periphery differentiation of a country’s academic field and the homogeneity of the existing knowledge as well as the standardization of methods of a discipline. Furtheron, the opposite effect of the expansion of science as a result of the growing number of professorships as well as scientific journals and subjects of research has to be taken into account. To account for these conditions, the investigation of the discipline of sociology looks at the changing academic fields in two countries that differ in these respects: the USA and Germany, which display higher respectively lower levels of centre/semi-periphery/periphery differentiation as well as expansion of science and higher respectively lower degrees of homogeneity of their knowledge and of standardization of methods. The time span of the investigation comprises 2000 to 2018. The investigation aims at testing a research approach which can be transferred to other subjects of the sociology of science and beyond.