Quo Vadis Reflexivity? Negotiating the Key Value of Education and Science

Reflexivity is not measurable. It does not fit into the widespread evaluation schemes of educational and scientific institutions, practices and outcomes. Nevertheless probably nobody who is professionally involved in teaching and research would call reflexivity useless or dispensable, neither for one's own actions nor for cultural innovation and social change as a whole. I would like to explore and discuss our reflections on our rating practices. What do we do with our reflections? Let's imagine we have reflected that somebody, be it an interviewee or a student, is not sympathique to us, that we consider his or her statements as dump or meaningless. Or let's say that we have reflected that the evaluation schemes we are daily applying are dump and meaningless. Which consequences do we draw from these reflections? If we see reflexivity in sociology as the paradigm of consequently questioning the self, how can we continue rating, classifying and comparing others as usal - or better do we have to continue doing so? What would be the alternative education and the alternative education research? Do sociological reflections on inequalities and power differences attempting to acknowledge the relational standpoint of the knowledge producer necessarily translate into and contribute to the social struggles for changing the world?