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Dimension 2: Manifestations of the Normative Power of University Rankings: Struggling between Love and Hate

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Abstract

This chapter conceptualises university rankings as a form of normative power in higher education in the light of Foucault’s critique of power and Bourdieu’s analysis of the hierarchy of academic disciplines. Based on this conceptualisation, the significance of the impacts of league tables on Taiwan’s higher education is interpreted as the extent of the normative power of ranking. The chapter argues that the hierarchical structure of the higher education system is a determining factor affecting the degree of penetration of the normative power. The findings from fieldwork also suggest that faculty’s attitudes toward university rankings largely depend on their positions and the positioning of their affiliations in the academic hierarchy. To be specific, young faculty members from prestigious universities are keener to embrace the competitive game imposed by rankings, while senior faculty members, especially those from non-prestigious universities, tend to show stronger resistance to the ranking movement. This analytical approach to university rankings substantially demonstrated the connection between ranking systems and power relations in higher education. It illustrates the ubiquitous but uneven capillary effect of the normative power of ranking in the stratified and differentiated higher education system.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The concept of reactivity indicates that measures are reactive. The concept “blurs the distinction between the act of measuring and its object” (Espeland and Sauder 2007, p. 3). Some argue that it contaminates results of measurements, while some believe that it is an inevitable part of social measures because of human reflectivity (see Espeland and Sauder 2007 for detail).

  2. 2.

    Sauder and Espeland (2009) made a similar point in their analysis of the discipline of rankings by using Burawoy’s (1979) study of labour relations.

  3. 3.

    This viewpoint involves the notion of “face” in the Chinese context.

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  1. The Hong Kong Institute of Education, Hong Kong SAR, People’s Republic of China

    William Yat Wai Lo

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Lo, W. (2014). Dimension 2: Manifestations of the Normative Power of University Rankings: Struggling between Love and Hate. In: University Rankings. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-4560-35-1_5

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