University Rankings, Diversity, and the New ... - Sense Publishers

INTRODUCTION
this period, one could still argue that quality assurance has failed in addressing issues
concerning learning outcomes, performance and results (Stensaker 2003).
In an audit society perspective, rankings then could be seen as a new accountability
mechanism in higher education – a mechanism that has developed because existing
mechanisms have not been able to answer the critical questions of the public. While
the accountability function of rankings could be interpreted within a market perspective,
one can nevertheless also argue that rankings fulfil an important democratic
function in society – as an independent source of information about a sector that is
becoming more important.
Rankings as Institutional Identity Creation
If we change the level of analysis from a macro level to the institutional level, quite
a different perspective on rankings emerges. While many rankings proclaim their
purpose to be that of affecting student choice and student behaviour, one should
not rule out the possibility that those mostly taking action vis-à-vis rankings are the
higher education institutions themselves – in a race for prestige and position in the
academic pecking order (Dill and Soo 2005). Rankings provide institutions with
prestige, depending on their position in the hierarchy created. As Labianca et al.
(2001) have pointed out in a study of university emulation in the United States,
universities consider other universities’ reputation and position as crucial for their
own strategic development.
In this perspective, rankings function as a fashion arena in which institutions
compare themselves, and in which they strive to create and build their own identity.
As in other fashion arenas, rankings define who is hot and who is not, due to the
emphasis on hierarchy and exclusivity (the haute couture). Whether the identity
intended to be built is useful or relevant in a systems perspective is of less importance
here. Fashion creates its own field with quite different norms, values and logics,
than in other societal arenas.
Rankings as a Symptom of the Knowledge Society
While a globalisation perspective emphasises the quantitative expansion of higher
education, the mobility of knowledge and trading within the existing knowledge
base, a knowledge-society perspective would rather emphasise the qualitative
changes in the production and structuring of knowledge. In the latter perspective,
the innovative aspects of knowledge are valued and appreciated – how knowledge
can be applied and exploited commercially in the market place (Gibbons et al.
1994). As knowledge producers, universities for centuries have provided ideas
and theories relevant for many different purposes and contexts. Rankings may
contribute to change this picture.
Hence, in this perspective ranking is a symptom of the emerging knowledge
society, and the tendency to emphasise certain dimensions of the knowledge
production. The function of ranking in this perspective is that of a structuring
device of knowledge. Although the external information function is part of this
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