Die Gewalt des kollektiven Besserwissens

Classificatory evaluation is a social phenomenon that is as old as humanity itself. How does the German state evaluate whether educational qualifications acquired across the globe are recognized as 'equivalent' or not? Tying her work in with Pierre Bourdieu's theory of symbolic violence, Ilka Sommer's study shows that recognition is neither objective information nor a subjective decision. For the first time, the administrative practice of 'equivalency reviewing' - which was recently expanded through 'Recognition Laws' - is investigated in a methodologically reflexive fashion. On the basis of empirical investigation, the implicit mechanisms of construction are made visible: the violence of collective 'knowing better' unifies and divides the evaluator and evaluated.