The Organization of Valuation and Devaluation

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Gabriele Wagner
• Subject Area: Empirical Social Research
• Term: since 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 439338023

Using the example of talent selection in honors programs and art colleges, the research project develops a model of interaction between external norms and organizational structures in selection processes. Using a process-oriented case comparison, the project is dedicated to filling a conceptual gap in organizational research: up to this date, it has been largely misunderstood how external norms and the organizational logic interact precisely in processes of member selection. To develop this model, a comprehensive application of both the sociology of conventions and the sociology of organization is necessary. Although the sociology of conventions has proven to be suitable for describing negotiation processes with conflicting norms, the impact of formal organization remains under-specified in this approach. This limitation is countered with a complementary organizational-sociological perspective. The object of investigation of the selection of gifted students is suitable for the theoretical-conceptual concern of the project for two reasons. First, the concept of giftedness opens up a relatively large space for interpretation compared to other selection criteria. Secondly, the concept of giftedness has a considerable normative charge, because giftedness is regarded as the (primarily) positive and scarce value of the performance society, which traditionally operates in a field, which is characterized by a tension between equality and excellence. The scope for interpretations of giftedness and its normative charge intensify this tension for the organizations’ solutions, thus facilitating the investigation of its social processing. The case-comparative investigation of selection processes in scholarship programmes and art academies opens up valuable contrasting opportunities, for example through the different ways in which the selected persons are integrated into everyday organizational life in the future. For this comparative process-oriented analysis of the selection procedures, the project uses a multi-level ethnographic and documentary access. The research project thus aims at a deeper, detailed and process-oriented understanding of the interactions between social norms and organizational decisions.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants