The acquiring of prestige is essential for succeeding at a career in academia. Further the
distribution of prestige between women and men may help explain the low representation of women
in full professor positions. Christian Poulsen sets out to disprove the widely accepted notion
that univer-sities are based on a pure meritocratic system. His book compounds extensive survey
studies of Swedish professors as well as focus group interviews with male and female
professors. Findings were compared with other studies on prestige and status in which Spain
served as a reference country.It was found that women were not discriminated against in the
transferring of merit to prestige. Additionally it was revealed that professors feel the status
of the profession has decreased but on the other hand female professors were more satisfied
with the current status of professors. Not surprisingly it was also found that the prestige of
Swedish professors is not based alone on merit. Instead relational factors play a role in the
assignment of prestige.Christian Poulsen introduces the term'consecrating moments'to explain
the relational nature of assigning prestige. The concept refutes the widely accepted idea that
a career in academia is made up of a long and continual flow of good performance. In doing so
it discusses sociology of education feminist theory of women in academia and the theory
developed by Robert K. Merton and his followers.The book is the PhD dissertation of Christian
Poulsen adhered to the Sociology department at Lund University Sweden.
