What can we learn from a peer review?

The quality assurance of research articles is based on a widespread reliance on peer review, which has gradually become black boxed, as the way to do it. By opening the black box, it turns out that this form of quality assurance varies a great deal. This article looks at the comments offered by peer reviewers and treats them as an important but overlooked element of the methodological circle and science production. Based on an auto-ethnographical study of one manuscript that undergoes peer reviewing in three different journals the article examines how the review comments affect the author and hence promote/inhibit the becoming of a research article. The article offers a transmethodological look at peer review by employing concepts from actor-network theory. This allows for a theoretical move from notions of single authorship to notions of writing as a performance of relations between heterogeneous actors. The analysis aims to identify the connections that are established between the manuscript and other actors such as scientific standards for good research, journals’ aim and scope, universities’ requirements for staff publication, peer reviewer’s personal academic interests etc. which all become part of a peer review network. In conclusion, the article suggests acknowledging the relational and co-productive aspect of peer reviewing as an important part of quality assurance of scientific knowledge

En styringsteknologi bliver til

Hos  Michel  Foucault  og  Nikolas  Rose  er  magt  ikke  noget,  man  besid-­‐der, men noget der skal udføres og derfor betinget af handlinger og intentioner  hos  de,  som  søges  styret.  Alligevel  fremstilles  styringstek-­‐nologier i governmentality litteraturen ofte som mere eller mindre direkte afledt af beskrivelser i policy-­‐papirer. De interesserer sig først og  fremmest  for  at  studere,  hvordan  færdige  styringsteknologier  gri-­‐ber ind i menneskers liv og medvirker til, at subjekter bliver til på be-­‐stemte måder. En styringsteknologi har en tilblivelseshistorie, der er værd at beskrive. Denne artikel viser gennem en Latourinspireret ana-­‐lyse af en implementeringsproces, hvordan en lov udfoldes som trans-­‐lationer i et netværk. Analysen følger implementeringen af loven om pædagogiske  læreplaner  i  dagtilbud  med  henblik  på  at  identificere  koblinger mellem viden, magt og subjektivitet og andre aktanter, der danner  grundlag  for,  at  loven  kan  fungere  som  en  styringsteknologi  for arbejdet i dagtilbud. Analysen bidrager til en nuancering af vores forståelse  af  policy  som  flydende  og  med  et  element  af  uforudsigelig-­‐hed, som ikke indfanges af governmentalitystudier, der studerer lov-­‐givningsprocesser ud fra et styringseffektperspektiv

Learning to Become a Science Talent

The article focuses on the concept of talent and its enactment in a science talent program. The article investigates how students become a particular kind of knowing subject through their participation in a science talent program at the Mærsk McKinney Science Centre in Denmark. Drawing on concepts from new materialist studies (Latour 1993; Blok & Ellgaard Jensen 2009; Fox & Alldred 2017) the article explores the relationship between the possibilities for distribution that are offered to the participants, and the ways in which the participants respond by centering and decentering within the talent network (Mialet 2008, 2012). The study contributes to our understanding of, how the increased focus on talent development in many national educational systems influences basic preconceptions of what a science student is and how the knowing subject in society should treat science, by looking into the micro-politics of talent development.           

Reproduction and opportunity: A study of dual career, aspirations and elite sports in Danish SportsClasses

This paper analyzes the patterns of retention in SportsClasses of promising young athletes in Denmark. Since 2005, SportsClasses have provided extra training for potential elite athletes in Grades 7-9 in designated Danish public schools. They were introduced after the Danish Ministry of Culture lowered the age of recruitment for athletes from 15 to 12 in response to increased competition in the world of elite sports. The SportsClasses attempt to balance collaboration between two different organizations: Danish public schools and sports clubs. Using a survey of the student population in 2013 and a follow-up sample in 2015, we explore the respondents’ social backgrounds and experiences in order to understand their likelihood of retention during the program and their career aspirations. Focusing on socioeconomic status, the role of having parents in elite sports, gender, and type of sport, we study what key experiences and relationships lead students to abandon or sustain their interest in careers related to sports and how this differs for boys and girls. By applying Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus and types of capital, we conclude that the program produces elements of both reproduction and opportunity but that the patterns strongly favor the retention of boys compared to girls

Reproduction and opportunity: A study of dual career, aspirations and elite sports in Danish SportsClasses

This paper analyzes the patterns of retention in SportsClasses of promising young athletes in Denmark. Since 2005, SportsClasses have provided extra training for potential elite athletes in Grades 7-9 in designated Danish public schools. They were introduced after the Danish Ministry of Culture lowered the age of recruitment for athletes from 15 to 12 in response to increased competition in the world of elite sports. The SportsClasses attempt to balance collaboration between two different organizations: Danish public schools and sports clubs. Using a survey of the student population in 2013 and a follow-up sample in 2015, we explore the respondents’ social backgrounds and experiences in order to understand their likelihood of retention during the program and their career aspirations. Focusing on socioeconomic status, the role of having parents in elite sports, gender, and type of sport, we study what key experiences and relationships lead students to abandon or sustain their interest in careers related to sports and how this differs for boys and girls. By applying Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus and types of capital, we conclude that the program produces elements of both reproduction and opportunity but that the patterns strongly favor the retention of boys compared to girls