Suchergebnisse

Based on a study of Amer Nobel laureates in sci, this report examines the strategy & tatics of interviewing members of ultra-elites, the typically thin layer of people at the very top of the stratification system of every soc instit who have great influence, authority or power & who generally are accorded the highest prestige. As recipients of the most distinguished internat'l award in sci, Nobel laureates are members of the ultra-elite of sci, being defined as such by fellow sci'ts & by the public at large. Unlike those who ordinarily serve as R's & informants for soc sci'ts, members of this ultra-elite carefully husband their time & require evidence of the legitimacy of the interview task & of the interviewer's competence. Requests for interviews must provide this evidence if the interview is to be granted. Detailed preparation for each interview on the S's career & his sci'fic work served 2 purposes: it provided the basis for tailoring interview schedules to the special qualifications of each laureate & it served to persuade wary S's of the interviewer's knowledgeability & seriousness of purpose. Rather than accepting the interviewer & his task as a given, a majority of laureates continuously engaged in testing & critical evaluation of the interviewer. They were also concerned with maximizing their own role performance & sought information on how well they were doing. The report also considers problems of the use of technical language & the phrasing of questions. Members of the ultra-elite are impatient with generalities just as they are impatient with questions that do not seem to tap their special qualifications. Ultra-elites are unlikely to be receptive to the use of standard interview guides, & the use of such guides is apt to be inefficient for the purposes of res. AA.

Although differential ranking in science is not readily visible to lay observers, American science is, in fact, sharply graded. Rewards and facilities for research are concentrated among relatively few investigators and organizations. This distinctive pattern of stratification, at odds with the egalitarian ethos of science, is not solely attributable to the distribution of talent in the scientific community. There is however a high correlation between assessed contributions to science and investigators' scientific standing. The present pattern of stratification is the outcome of processes of allocation of men and resources among various sectors of science which include selective recruitment and socialization of young investigators, differential access to publication and research facilities, and differential recognition of scientists' contributions through citations to their work and honorific awards. In a time when the legitimacy of reward systems in many social institutions is routinely challenged, scientists are apt to accept their own as just and correct.