Engines of Anxiety

"This is a very important book. It connects the movement toward growing quantification of performance with growing inequality. The authors take as their point of departure the publication of law school rankings by U S News and World Report . They show that once these rankings started to be published, many law schools began adjusting their programs to improve their standing in the very dimensions that were being measured. For instance, they would game who they would offer admission to first, so that they could have better statistics on admissions test scores. The authors do lot of interviews with deans and faculty to understand how the quantification of performance perverts the mission of these schools. That is fed by came from the diffusion of performance standards. Espeland and Sauder frame the book as a contribution to our understanding of about a broader phenomenon—what social scientists call ‘the audit society.’ Individuals and institutions are increasingly quantifying performance with a lot of the perverse and unintended consequences. The movement toward the audit society has been associated with the neo-liberalism, how institutions are using market mechanism to maximize efficacy and outcomes. Quantitative tools have a flattening effect. For instance, in the United States, teenagers considering college enter their grade point average and test scores into a program called Naviance. The program will suggest what kind of university they should be applying to—which ones are their reach and safety schools. “Naviance creates the sense among teenagers that there is one objective universal hierarchy” Naviance creates the sense among teenagers that there is one objective universal hierarchy, and it creates more competition as everyone can be ranked on a single set of standards. If this tool did not exist, it would be easier for applicants to understand that different schools have different missions, and meet the needs of different students. It’s an example of how quantification has perverse effects once institutionalized."