LA VALUTAZIONE: UN POTERE SPACCIATO PER SAPERE / Evaluation: A Power Disguised as Knowledge

Abstract

This article analyses why and how today the evaluation devices are acquiring increasing importance in Higher Education and in the society at large. Evaluation presents itself as a neutral and objective form of expert knowledge, which everyone has to accept in order to improve her/his professional performances in the collective interest. But, in fact, it is a new kind of invisible (but by no means soft) power, that aims to discipline strongly human conduct. The article tries to denounce the evaluation discourse as «grotesque» (in Foucault’ terms), and to demystify its efficiencydriven narrative of technocracy. Its resulting effect is a trend towards a generalized normalization process of the knowledge, as well as of the social and cultural practices as a whole.

Keywords:
Evaluation, Power, Knowledge, Scientific research, Higher Education.