Introduction to special section: the politics of size in higher education

ABSTRACT

The world of higher education today is saturated by expressions of size and greatness. Universities are described as global, world class and excellent and they are expressed in international rank depictions, as selected points and visualised flows on world maps, or in coloured circles of the U-Multirank ranking. Such sizing practices are not necessarily new, their proliferation, and the ways in which we encounter them in the contemporary academy are. A (visual) language of marketing has expanded quickly – and sometimes quirkily – around the globe, mediated by a technical infrastructure that enables it to do so. Despite a symbolic meaning such sizing practices nourish first and foremost a profane building endeavour. In order to become large in distance the spectator’s gaze is channelled by devices, colours, semantics and numbers. The theme of this Special Section ‘the politics of size in higher education’ aims to bring the process and outcomes of referencing mediations into the spotlight. It aims at investigating how prestige and stratification are built through the spatial, material, and visual infrastructures and devices that make us believe in the greatness/size of a university.

KEYWORDS:

• Size
• higher education
• visualisation
• digitalization
• stratification

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Alexander Mitterle

Alexander Mitterle is a research associate at the Institute for Sociology and the Centre for School and Educational Research at the Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg. He has published on various aspects of higher education, including stratification, internationality, career pathways, admissions, private HE, real-socialist HE, and academic time.

Roland Bloch

Roland Bloch is research associate at the Centre for School and Educational Research at Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg. He has studied political science, philosophy, and American studies at University of Leipzig and at Vanderbilt University. His research focusses on the organisational transformation of universities in teaching, doctoral education, and academic careers, and emerging stratifications in higher education.

Susan L. Robertson

Susan L. Robertson is Professor of Sociology of Education at the University of Cambridge. She has written extensively on the cultural political economy of higher education, state formation, and education policy.