Reviews and conference contributions

Kölsch, F. (2023): Ein gemeinsamer Blick auf die Vergangenheit und in die Zukunft. Bericht von der Sektionstagung Methoden der qualitativen Sozialforschung vom 22. to 23. June 2023, University of Mainz. In: Soziopolis. Link to the article

Articles in specialist journals

Kölsch, F. (2025): Before (e)valuating: student testing in History and Engineering. In: British Journal of Sociology of Education (with Herbert Kalthoff). Link to the article

Scham und Schweigen. Seminaraffekte und universitäre Anerkennung . Research Colloquium Theoretische Empirie, Institute of Sociology, University of Mainz, 18.07.2024.

Geschichte darstellen. Research Colloquium Theoretische Empirie, Institute of Sociology, University of Mainz, 11.05.2023.

University teaching is commonly understood as a space for academic education and the acquisition of competencies. Accordingly, empirical higher education research often focuses on evaluating and improving teaching methods. In contrast, the doctoral project shifts attention to the university examination process, conceiving of assessment and evaluation as organized practices of self-observation and observation by others. Special emphasis is placed on the sociomaterial and affective dimensions of human judgment.

The project explores how university examination settings are structured, how the interplay between subjectivation and objectification unfolds in practice, and how examinations produce, differentiate, and classify their human objects of knowledge as organizational artefacts. In this regard, the project conceptualizes examinations and evaluations as “natural candidates for a medium of university education” (Stichweh). Methodologically, the research draws on ethnographic traditions that foreground the embodied positioning of the researcher as an epistemic instrument. Conceptually, it establishes a dialogue between educational sociology, evaluation studies, and organizational sociology.