Outlining a theory of the social and symbolic function of evaluations of education

Sammendrag

Abstract

The article presents the results of a research project focusing on evaluations of education as a part of a New Public Management in the area of education.

The empirical material consists of:

- 8 state-sanctioned evaluations of the formal training programs for the positions in a medical field

- various texts on evaluations

- various examples of Danish evaluation research.

A field of producers of Danish evaluation research is constructed as part of a field of power: analogous to the analysed evaluations, Danish evaluation research forms a discourse legitimizing socially necessary administrative interventions. The evaluations and the evaluation research are constructed as parts of a mechanism performing and legitimizing a sorting to an existing social order.

The theoretical starting point is from theories, primarily by Émile Durkheim, Pierre Bourdieu and Ulf P. Lundgren.

Keywords: evaluation, evaluation of education, social reproduction, New Public Management, societies after the Modern, meritocracy