THE SOCIAL HIERARCHY OF OBJECTS: HYPOTHESES ON THE DYNAMICS OF SCIENTIFIC CAPITAL IN EDUCATION PRODUCTION IN BRAZIL BETWEEN 1996 AND 2023

• Grant number: 24/07831-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research
• Start date: May 21, 2024
• End date: March 20, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Education
• Principal Investigator: André Garcia Corrêa
• Grantee: André Garcia Corrêa
• Host Investigator: Pierre Doray
• Host Institution: Instituto Federal de Educação, Ciência e Tecnologia de São Paulo (IFSP). Campus São Carlos. São Carlos , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: Université du Québec à Montréal (UQÀM), Canada

Abstract

This post-doctoral project proposes a research project to be carried out at the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQÀM) which aims to subject concepts of the sociology of science proposed by Pierre Bourdieu to analysis using quantitative data. In particular, it will focus on the concepts of the scientific field, its symbolic capital and the Social Hierarchy of Objects (SHO) and how they interact in the objective relations between agents in the field. The field to be analyzed will be scientific production in Education in Brazil. The aim is to update a database that has already been used in other research, which brought together metadata from theses defended in Brazil between 1996 and 2016 up to the present day. This updated database will be used to analyze the relationships between keywords and bibliometric indicators in order to identify SHO in the field. Among the indicators for analyzing complex networks will be used a) degree of centrality; b) weighted degree and; c) network density. In addition to collecting and analyzing this data, methodological procedures will also be improved by developing data mining tools. The aim of the analysis is to test the hypothesis that the COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on the field's SHO, bringing to light new concepts that can concentrate a significant amount of symbolic capital. It is also intended to test claims about the field made in another study, which dealt with the proliferation of terms to describe Distance Education in the field and its subcategories. Finally, this research aims to publish its results in scientific reviews both in Canada and Brazil, and also participate in scientific events in both countries.