Abstract:
This thesis is the first to theoretically address programme accreditation and recognition procedures for architectural education as a contestable symbolic field. At one level, the general perception of accreditation conveys an apparently benign interest in ensuring the quality of architectural education and the competence and capabilities of graduates. Yet, as external mechanisms of control, these procedures often hold schools of architecture, their host institutions and their academic practices to account. The thesis builds on Pierre Bourdieu's "logic of practice" to develop a theoretical field within which to address the proposition that accreditation procedures must operate on at least two related levels. First, at the level of trans-national institutional structures or protocols that set out formal methods by which the procedures are to be carried out. Secondly, at the level of the practices of individuals or small groups of individuals, agents, brought together as site visiting panels charged with implementing the procedures at a local level......
