Why Rankings Appear Natural (But Aren’t)

Rankings have dramatically proliferated over the past several decades. An
often-overlooked impact of this proliferation is that it has facilitated the
institutionalization of an imaginary of the modern world as a stratified order,
whose actors are imagined as continuously striving to perform better than
others. To better understand this impact, we need to take a closer look at
rankings’ premises and the way these resonate with the broader institutional
environment of which rankings are a part.

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