Mediating the Use of Global University Rankings

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Abstract
This study explores responses to rankings from a group of staff working as education partnership facilitators for a professional intermediary organisation, the British Council. The study adopts an activity systems perspective from which to view the contexts in which rankings are encountered and the range of practices used to reduce tensions created by rankings, or reconcile their effects. The article illustrates how rankings have become embedded as a new form of infrastructure in the international education “context of practice”; as a tool (to enable benchmarking); as a form of exchange (to demonstrate credentials to customers and stakeholders); and as a division of labour (in the task of assessing value across national borders). The range of responses to rankings displayed by respondents in this study demonstrates a significant space that has been created for interpretation and reconstruction of meaning. The implications of this analysis for policy makers, practitioners, and researchers are discussed.

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