The Evaluation of Research as an Exercise in Reflection on Democratic Societies

Journal title SOCIOLOGIA E RICERCA SOCIALE
Author/s Andrea Bonaccorsi
Publishing Year 2013 Issue 2013/100 Language Italian
Pages 14 P. 97-110 File size 615 KB
DOI 10.3280/SR2013-100010
DOI is like a bar code for intellectual property: to have more infomation click here

Below, you can see the article first page

If you want to buy this article in PDF format, you can do it, following the instructions to buy download credits

Article preview

FrancoAngeli is member of Publishers International Linking Association, Inc (PILA), a not-for-profit association which run the CrossRef service enabling links to and from online scholarly content.

The evaluation of research in human and social sciences has been subject to intense criticism in recent years. Several authors argue that research in these fields is radically incommensurable and should not be subject to any kind of measurement. Based on Bourdieu and Foucault, these contributions suggest that research evaluation is a subtle device for controlling ideas and reducing the potential for dissent and radical critical work on society, under an apparently objective and neutral scientific methodology. The paper takes issue with these reconstructions and suggests an alternative theoretical path. First, commensuration is integral part of modernity. The effort to make social reality more measurable has historically been part of a process of emancipation, trying to reduce the power of traditional, implicit and opaque sources of knowledge. Second, scientific communities can reflexively find an agreement on what is quality of research and which are the criteria for its identification in practice. Third, while there is no question that research is incommensurable by nature, yet it is possible to transform purely qualitative judgments by experts into measures that can be subject to inter-subjective comparisons. Based on several streams of literature in sociology, the paper suggests that the tensions induced by evaluation are potentially beneficial to human and social sciences.

  1. A. Abelhauser, R. Gori, M.J. Sauret (2011), La folie évaluation, Paris, Mille et une nuits.
  2. A. Abbott (2001), Chaos of Disciplines, Chicago, University of Chicago Press.
  3. M.J. Anderson (1988), The American Census. A Social History, New Haven, Yale University Press.
  4. M.J. Anderson, S.E. Fienberg (1999), Who counts? The Politics of Census-taking in Contemporary America, New York, Russel Sage Foundation. M. Bailey, D. Freedman (2011), The Assault on Universities. A Manifesto for Resistance, London, Pluto Press.
  5. M. Balinski, R. Laraki (2010), Majority Judgment. Measuring, Ranking, and Electing, Cambridge (Mass.), The Mit Press.
  6. L. Boltanski (1982), Les cadres. La formation d’un groupe social, Paris, Les Editions de Minuit.
  7. L. Boltanski, L. Thévenot (1991), De la justification. Les économies de la grandeur, Paris, Gallimard.
  8. A. Bonaccorsi (2012a), Ancora sulla valutazione nelle aree umanistiche e sociali: competizione, stratificazione, equità, in P. Miccoli, A. Fabris (a c. di), Valutare la ricerca? Capire, applicare, difendersi, Pisa, Ets.
  9. A. Bonaccorsi (2012b), «La valutazione della ricerca come esperimento sociale», Scuola democratica, 6, nuova serie, ottobre, pp. 156-65.
  10. P. Bourdieu (1980), Le sens pratique, Paris, Les Editions de Minuit; tr. it., Il senso pratico, Roma, Armando, 2005.
  11. P. Bourdieu (1982), Leçon sur la leçon, Paris, Les Editions de Minuit; tr. it., Lezione sulla lezione, Genova, Marietti, 1991.
  12. P. Bourdieu (1984), Homo academicus, Paris, Les Editions de Minuit.
  13. P. Bourdieu (1997), Méditations pascaliennes, Paris, Les Editions de Minuit; tr. it., Meditazioni pascaliane. Milano, Feltrinelli, 1998.
  14. P. Bourdieu (2001), Science de la science et réflexivité, Paris, Raisons d’agir; tr. it., Il mestiere di scienziato, Milano, Feltrinelli, 2003.
  15. G.S. Bowker, S.L. Star (1999), Sorting Things out. Classification and Its Consequences, Cambridge (Mass.), The Mit Press.
  16. S. Brint (2002), The Future of the City of Intellect. The Changing American University, Stanford, Stanford University Press.
  17. R. Bryant (2000), Discovery and Decision. Exploring the Metaphysics and Epistemology of Scientific Classification, London, Associated University Presses.
  18. M. Bulmer, K. Bales, K. Kish Sklar (eds.) (1991), The Social Survey in Historical Perspective, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
  19. S. Collini (2012), What are Universities for?, London, Penguin Books.
  20. L. Daston (ed.) (2000), Biographies of Scientific Objects, Chicago, University of Chicago Press.
  21. M. Dean (2010), Governmentality. Power and Rule in Modern Society, Los Angeles, Sage Publications.
  22. A. Desrosières (1993), La politique des grands nombres. Histoire de la raison statistique, Paris, La Découverte.
  23. A. Desrosières, L. Thevenot (1988), Les categories socio-professionnelles, Paris, La Découverte.
  24. T. Docherty (2011), For the University. Democracy and the Future of the Institution, London, Bloomsbury Academic.
  25. F. Donoghue (2008), The Last Professors. The Corporate University and the Fate of the Humanities, New York, Fordham University Press.
  26. O. Dudley Duncan (1984), Notes on Social Measurement, New York, Russell Sage Foundation.
  27. W.N. Espeland, M.L. Stevens (1998), «Commensuration as a Social Process», Annual Review of Sociology, 24, pp. 313-43.
  28. M. Foucault (1966), Les mots et les choses, Paris, Gallimard; tr. it., Le parole e le cose. Un’archeologia delle scienze umane, Milano, Rizzoli, 1967.
  29. M. Foucault (1975), Surveiller et punir. Naissance de la prison, Paris, Gallimard; tr. it., Sorvegliare e punire. Nascita della prigione, Torino, Einaudi, 1976.
  30. M. Foucault (1978a), La «gouvernamentalitè»: Cours du Collège de France, Annéè 1977-1978: Securitè, territoire et population, 4e leçon, 1er février 1978, in Dits et écrits II. 1976-1988, Paris, Gallimard, 2001.
  31. M. Foucault (1978b), Introduction to G. Canguilhem, On the Normal and the Pathological, in Dits et écrits II. 1976-1988, Paris, Gallimard, 2001.
  32. P. François (2008), Sociologie des marchés, Paris, Armand Colin.
  33. T.F. Gieryn (1983), «Boundary-work and the Demarcation of Science from Non-science: Strains and Interests in Professional Ideologies of Scientists», American Sociological Review, 48, pp. 781-95.
  34. T.F. Gieryn (1995), Boundaries of Science, in S. Jasanoff, G.E. Markle, J.C. Petersen, T.J. Pinch (eds.), Handbook of Science and Technology Studies, Thousand Oaks, Sage Publications.
  35. T.F. Gieryn (1999), Cultural Boundaries of Science. Credibility on the Line, Chicago, University of Chicago Press.
  36. B. Godin (2001), «The Emergence of Science and Technology Indicators: Why did Governments supplement Statistics with Indicators?», Research Policy, 32 (4).
  37. B. Godin (2005), Measurement and Statistics on Science and Technology, London, Routledge.
  38. R. Gori (2011), La dignité de penser, Paris, Les Liens qui Libèrent.
  39. R. Gori (2013), La societè des imposteurs, Paris, Les Liens qui Libèrent.
  40. H. Holborn Gray (2012), Searching for Utopia. Universities and Their Histories, Berkeley, University of California Press.
  41. A. Kahn, V. Pécresse (2011), Controverses. Université, science et progrès, Paris, NiL Editions.
  42. L. Karpik (2007), L’économie des singularités, Paris, Gallimard.
  43. D.L. Kirp (2003), Shakespeare, Einstein, and the Bottom Line. The marketing of Higher Education, Cambridge (Mass.), Harvard University Press.
  44. M. Lamont (2009), How Professors think. Inside the Curious World of Academic Judgment, Cambridge (Mass.), Harvard University Press.
  45. M. Lampland, S.L. Star (2009), Standards and Their Stories. How quantifying, classifying, and formalizing Practices Shape everyday Life, Ithaca, Cornell University Press.
  46. T. Lenoir (1997), Instituting Science. The Cultural Production of Scientific Disciplines, Stanford, Stanford University Press.
  47. C. List, P. Pettit (2011), Group Agency. The Possibility, Design, and Status of Corporate Agents, Oxford, Oxford University Press.
  48. P. Macherey (2011), La parole universitaire, Paris, La Fabrique éditions.
  49. L. Menand (2010), The Marketplace of Ideas. Reform and Resistance in the American University, New York, W.W. Norton and Company.
  50. M. Nussbaum (2010), Not for Profit. Why Democracy needs the Humanities, Princeton, Princeton University Press; tr. it., Non per profitto. Perché le democrazie hanno bisogno della cvultura umanistica, Bologna, il Mulino, 2013, nuova ed.
  51. A. O’Hagan, C.E. Buck, A. Daneshkhah, J.R. Eiser, P.H. Garthwaite, J. Jenkinson, J.E. Oakley, T. Rakow T. (2006), Uncertain Judgments. Eliciting Experts’ Probabilities, Chichester, John Wiley.
  52. A. Orléan (sous la dir. de) (1994), Analise économique des conventions, Paris, Puf.
  53. S. Patriarca (1996), Numbers and Nationhood. Writing Statistics in Nineteenth-century Italy, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
  54. V. Pinto (2012a), Valutare e punire, Napoli, Cronopio
  55. V. Pinto (2012b), «“Larvatus prodeo”. Per una critica del sistema della valutazione», Iride. Filosofia e discussione pubblica, 25 (3), pp. 475-92.
  56. T. Porter (1995), Trust in Numbers: The Pursuit of Objectivity in Science and Public Life, Princeton, Princeton University Press.
  57. P. Prado (2009), Le principe d’université. Comme droit inconditionnel à la critique, Paris, Lignes.
  58. S.M. Stigler (1999), Statistics on the Table. The History of Statistical Concepts and Methods, Cambridge (Mass.), Harvard University Press.
  59. C.A. Taylor (1996), Defining Science. A Rhetoric of Demarcation, Madison, University of Wisconsin Press.
  60. L. Thévenot (2001), «Organized Complexity. Conventions of Coordination and the Composition of Economic Arrangements», European Journal of Social Theory, 4 (4), pp. 405-25.
  61. J. Ziman (1978), Reliable Knowledge. An Exploration of the Grounds for Belief in Science, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
  62. J. Ziman (2000), Real Science. What it is, and What it means, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

  • To What Extent is Inclusion in the Web of Science an Indicator of Journal ‘Quality’? Diego Andrés Chavarro, Ismael Ràfols, Puay Tang, in SSRN Electronic Journal /2019
    DOI: 10.2139/ssrn.3321197
  • To What Extent is Inclusion in the Web of Science an Indicator of Journal 'Quality'? Diego Chavarro, Ismael Rafols, Puay Tang, in SSRN Electronic Journal /2017
    DOI: 10.2139/ssrn.2990653

Andrea Bonaccorsi, La valutazione della ricerca come esercizio riflessivo nelle società democratiche in "SOCIOLOGIA E RICERCA SOCIALE " 100/2013, pp 97-110, DOI: 10.3280/SR2013-100010