TY - JOUR

T1 - The making of professors: Assessment and recognition in academic recruitment

AU - Hamann, Julian

N1 - Funding information: I would like to thank Stefan Beljean, Jens Maesse, Julia Schubert, and Lena M. Zimmer for their comments on previous versions of this paper. I would like to thank the anonymous reviewers and the editors Stephen Turner and Sergio Sismondo for their helpful feedback. The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Research support from German Research Foundation (project number 254562991) is gratefully acknowledged. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3196-908X Hamann Julian Leibniz Center for Science and Society, Leibniz University Hannover, Germany Julian Hamann, Leibniz University Hannover – Leibniz Center for Science and Society, Lange Laube 32, Hannover, 30159, Germany. Email: julian.hamann@lcss.uni-hannover.de 9 2019 0306312719880017 © The Author(s) 2019 2019 SAGE Publications This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License ( http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ ) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages ( https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage ). How do academics become professors? This paper considers the making of ‘professor’ as a subject position through which academics are acknowledged in both organizational contexts and disciplinary fields. The paper examines social processes of recognition in 145 appointment procedures for professorships in the discipline of history at sixteen German universities between 1950 and 1985. Based on an analysis of over 1500 documents from archived appointment records, I investigate how academics are acknowledged as professorial in appointment procedures. The procedures invoked both (1) processes of judgement, in which worth and qualities are attributed to candidates, and (2) processes of legitimation, in which said judgements are stabilized and made acceptable. Using insights from the sociology of valuation and evaluation, this paper sheds light on the fundamental processes of recognition and valorization in academia. The findings contribute to the sociology of scientific knowledge and science and technology studies, which have concentrated on academic recognition in the realm of research, but paid less attention to such recognition in organizational contexts. Complementing this literature, the paper allows for a more general understanding of ‘professor’ as a focal academic subject position. evaluation Germany judgement legitimation positioning professors Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft https://doi.org/10.13039/501100001659 254562991 edited-state corrected-proof I would like to thank Stefan Beljean, Jens Maesse, Julia Schubert, and Lena M. Zimmer for their comments on previous versions of this paper. I would like to thank the anonymous reviewers and the editors Stephen Turner and Sergio Sismondo for their helpful feedback. Funding The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Research support from German Research Foundation (project number 254562991) is gratefully acknowledged. ORCID iD Julian Hamann https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3196-908X

PY - 2019/12

Y1 - 2019/12

N2 - How do academics become professors? This paper considers the making of ‘professor’ as a subject position through which academics are acknowledged in both organizational contexts and disciplinary fields. The paper examines social processes of recognition in 145 appointment procedures for professorships in the discipline of history at sixteen German universities between 1950 and 1985. Based on an analysis of over 1500 documents from archived appointment records, I investigate how academics are acknowledged as professorial in appointment procedures. The procedures invoked both (1) processes of judgement, in which worth and qualities are attributed to candidates, and (2) processes of legitimation, in which said judgements are stabilized and made acceptable. Using insights from the sociology of valuation and evaluation, this paper sheds light on the fundamental processes of recognition and valorization in academia. The findings contribute to the sociology of scientific knowledge and science and technology studies, which have concentrated on academic recognition in the realm of research, but paid less attention to such recognition in organizational contexts. Complementing this literature, the paper allows for a more general understanding of ‘professor’ as a focal academic subject position.

AB - How do academics become professors? This paper considers the making of ‘professor’ as a subject position through which academics are acknowledged in both organizational contexts and disciplinary fields. The paper examines social processes of recognition in 145 appointment procedures for professorships in the discipline of history at sixteen German universities between 1950 and 1985. Based on an analysis of over 1500 documents from archived appointment records, I investigate how academics are acknowledged as professorial in appointment procedures. The procedures invoked both (1) processes of judgement, in which worth and qualities are attributed to candidates, and (2) processes of legitimation, in which said judgements are stabilized and made acceptable. Using insights from the sociology of valuation and evaluation, this paper sheds light on the fundamental processes of recognition and valorization in academia. The findings contribute to the sociology of scientific knowledge and science and technology studies, which have concentrated on academic recognition in the realm of research, but paid less attention to such recognition in organizational contexts. Complementing this literature, the paper allows for a more general understanding of ‘professor’ as a focal academic subject position.

KW - evaluation

KW - Germany

KW - judgement

KW - legitimation

KW - positioning

KW - professors

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85074051698&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1177/0306312719880017

DO - 10.1177/0306312719880017

M3 - Article

C2 - 31560254

AN - SCOPUS:85074051698

VL - 49

SP - 919

EP - 941

JO - Social studies of science

JF - Social studies of science

SN - 0306-3127

IS - 6

ER -