This article focuses on the development of class-specific inequalities within German universities. Based on data on the social origin of students, doctoral students, and professors in the long-term cross-section, the article views the empirically observable dynamic of social closure of higher education since the 1950s. The focus of interest is on the level of the professorship. Data show that career conditions for underprivileged groups have deteriorated again. This finding is discussed in the context of social closure theories. The article argues that closure theories consider social closure processes primarily as intentional patterns of action, aimed at a strategic monopolization of participation, and securing social power. Such an analytical approach means that unintended closure processes remain understudied. Our conclusion is that concealed modes of reproduction of social structures ought to be examined and theorized more intensively due to their importance for the elimination of social inequality within universities.

This introduction outlines the analytical potential of the concept of ‘device’ that is key to the special issue ‘Devices of evaluation’. Evaluation relies not only on the human capacity to value, classify, compare, or judge, but also on social operators that affect evaluations in different ways. The notion of ‘devices’ puts the focus not on human actors but on things, tools, and instruments, on (infra-)structures and procedures, on assemblages and constellations which human actors either draw on when they attribute value or worth, or which have their own agentic capacity and facilitate or enforce evaluations themselves. We propose three perspectives through which a focus on devices can have analytical potential and thus contribute to the study of evaluation in academia: Devices facilitate and accomplish evaluation as trans-situational relays, they connect different forms of evaluation, and they enable, guide, and shape comparisons among very different valuation constellations and contexts. Broadening the focus in this way, the concept can improve our understanding of the non-human side of evaluation. The contributions to this special convey the idea that devices of evaluation are crucial for understanding the production, diffusion, and institutionalization of value and worth in academic contexts.

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Zusammenfassung Der Beitrag stellt die Ergebnisse einer Interviewstudie mit aus statusniedrigen Herkunftsgruppen stammenden Juraprofessoren vor. In der Analyse wurden die Aufstiegsnarrative der Professoren fokussiert, die, so der zentrale Befund, eng mit der Kohortenzugehörigkeit der Erzählenden verknüpft sind. Dabei lässt sich feststellen, dass sich die biographischen Narrative mit gesellschaftlichen Transformationsprozessen und veränderten normativen Leitbildern im Zeitverlauf wandeln. Während die Professoren älterer Kohorten in ihren Narrativen vor allem Gelegenheitsstrukturen eine hohe Relevanz zuschreiben, sind es Professoren jüngerer Kohorten, die individuumsbezogene Narrative bemühen, indem sie die Bedeutung von Begabung und Ehrgeiz für den gelingenden Aufstieg herausstellen.

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