Claims in educational research : conditions for external project funding

This study focuses on outcome justifications during the preparation of project applications at the Swedish Research Council during the period of 2002-2004. The study is based on a theoretical approach derived from Michel Foucault placement of the reproductive processes in language use, John L. Austin’s pragmatic speech act theory, and Judith Butler’s idea of power in authoritarian language and combines it with forms of representativity used in the methodological approach of qualitative content analysis of institutionally oriented communication. Three analyses are made that aims to clarify the argumentative content and applications used in the language for the preparation of project applications. The result is that assessment varies without obvious reason; contextual and functional representativity is included within the rhetoric’s in assessments as a message within the practice itself; and the overall communication of representativity lacks factuality. The following conclusions are made. Sanctions are justified even if they only express the principled positions or speculation. Assessment does not need to give any information of value beyond what motivates the impression of the sanction itself. Information may be missing in the assessment without prejudice to recommendations for further preparation. Experiences of this might have repercussions for the applicants and for the experts. It is pointless to engage in an honest form of calls or text-processing. One of the merits of the study is to learn how to deal with the practice of academic writing in such a way that it ceases to impress. In this way anyone involved in producing research papers and evaluations can re-evaluate their understanding of their practice. The purpose of this study has taken on a wider significance beyond the examples of language use in the samples. As further research is proposed, the broader issue of this study emphasizes how research is conducted with the primary interest of strengthening researcher’s own institutional importance