How Professors Think: Inside the Curious World of Academic Judgment

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lematize subjective orientation to action—see Goffman (1974); Polletta and
Ho (2005). For a similar approach and critique of Bourdieu’s work, see
Guaspare et al. (2005), as well as Boltanksi and Thévenot (1991).



  1. See Armstrong (1999); Bakanic, McPhail, and Simon (1987); Chubin
    and Hackett (1990); Cole (1978); Cole and Cole (1981); Cole, Rubin, and
    Cole (1978); General Accounting Office (1994); Liebert (1982); Roy (1985);
    and Zuckerman and Merton (1971). See also Bornmann and Daniel (2005),
    which examines the extent to which a Swiss foundation gave awards to the
    “best” scientists.

  2. Merton (1973) in particular is associated with this view. The function-
    alist vision of culture appealed intuitively to the notion that funding (or pub-
    lishing) decisions in scientific fields should be based on the evaluation of re-
    search projects (or research results)independentlyof the social characteristics
    of the researchers. Subjectivism, cooptation, and in-group favoritism stood in
    opposition to open scientific debate, free inquiry, and unbiased discussion of
    results and scientific quality of proposals. The empirical literature found that
    reviewers follow universalistic norms more often than not; see Cole (1978);
    Cole and Cole (1981); Cole, Rubin, and Cole (1978); General Accounting
    Office (1994); and Zuckerman and Merton (1971).

  3. My approach draws on insights from several sources, including the rhe-
    torical approach proposed in Gilbert and Mulkay (1984); Cicourel’s point
    that rules and mores are not things for definition by sociological analysis but
    are available for definition by actions in everyday life (1974); works by science
    studies scholars—such as Fujimura (1988); Gerson (1983); Clarke (1990);
    Clarke and Gerson (1990); and Star (1985)—that examine the cooperative
    pursuit of tasks in science and the role of claim-making in this process.

  4. For Weber, legitimacy varies according to the “type of obedience [it
    claims], the kind of administrative staff developed to guarantee it, and the
    mode of exercising authority.” See Weber (1978, 213).

  5. For Emile Durkheim, religious systems provide a general interpretation
    of how the world is organized and how its elements relate to one another and
    to the sacred. This cosmology acts as a system of classification and its ele-
    ments are organized according to a hierarchy (for example, high/low, pure/
    impure, us/them). The belief invested in this “order of things” structures peo-
    ple’s lives to the extent that it limits and facilitates their action. See Durkheim
    (1965, chapter 7).


276 / Notes to Pages 109–110

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