Systems of Status Symbolism in Academic World

Project coordinator: Michael Sokolov

Systems of symbols of academic status are one of the main components of the entire institutional organization of modern science. Scientists are divided into status groups that have a monopoly on certain positions in the academic labor market (the monopoly of specialists in a certain branch of learning, positions that are available only for those who are not below a certain rank, etc.) and those who claim for recognition and attention to their work. Belonging to the status group is determined by having symbols associated with that position - scientific degrees, citation indexes, publications in periodicals with a certain reputation, "quality" of affiliations and activities, in which X was involved, and so on and so forth.

One of the main conditions of smooth functioning of science institutions is to maintain the ability of symbols to distinguish academic statuses. If they fail to do it, it’ll be difficult for scientists to determine whom to listen, read, invite to the conference or employ. Even more difficult this task would be for those who are not connected directly with the profession - university administrators, government officials, colleagues from other departments, and others who are totally dependent on professionals in decision-making on scientific potential of an individual or institution.
In literature on institutional sociology of science there is a number of hypotheses about how the system of the academic status production affects the behavior of scientists - their effectiveness, career mobility strategies chosen by them, cognitive styles of their work (the most notable names are A. Abbott, P. Bourdieu, M. Lamont, R. Whitley). Ideas of this kind inevitably arise in any discussion of the effectiveness of any status and symbolic innovations (in Russia in recent years it concerns the changes in the policy of awarding degrees etc.) Most of these hypotheses, however, is based on a study of cases of certain academic systems or even certain elements of these systems, and does not include systematic comparisons between them. One of the main goals of this project is to develop a more systematic approach to the analysis of the status symbolism in science, which would allow a comparative study, and implement it in comparison of the five largest national academic systems - the UK, Germany, Russia, USA and France.