Assembling University Education: Values in Sociomaterial Environments

This paper compares ways of materializing methodology of learning at two different universities. One of our sites is the basic studies program for social science and business studies students at a new problem-oriented university. The other site is the integrative methods course for communication studies students in a traditional university. In particular, Becker‘s (1988) description of a social field of knowing and theories about the role of assemblages and materiality in practice-based studies (Law 1987,1992, Gherardi 2006, Svabo 2009) are used as organizing concepts. The relations between material organizing devices, students as learning subjects, and teachers as experienced academic practitioners are discussed in order to explore how academic values are translated and transformed during the education process, and how the material assemblages in evidence are both reflective and constitutive of educational values. By placing a focus on how values are materialized, the paper extends the understanding of educational institutions and schools as social places to learn in a direction that is relevant for both organizational studies and educational policy discussions. By examining specific configurations or assemblages, we are able to understand in detail how academic discourse and situations structure the educational regime.