Ranking

The term “ranking” (or, more often, “rankings”) is usually understood as a hierarchy of higher education institutions, which is expected to indicate differences in their quality as educational and scientific organizations. These rankings first emerged around the turn of the twentieth century and were initially produced by scientists and academic administrators, yet they rarely reached beyond academic circles. Their influence on administrators, faculty, students, policymakers, and the higher education sector as a whole—all over the world—has been extensively documented, studied, debated, and puzzled over. But how have some seemingly simple lists come to be so important? In contrast with most literature grappling with the question, which typically sees the history of rankings in higher education as a succession of "successful" publications, we argue that the history of ranking institutions of higher education is characterized by a much higher degree of continuity than it is often assumed.