Research
Welcome to the Research Department of the Institute of Sociology!
The researchers at the Institute of Sociology stand for a theoretically diverse and methodologically and methodologically integrative approach to social science research. Research at the Institute is conducted in teams and in individual work under the premise of openness to different - qualitative and quantitative - methods, against the background of a broad and historically epistemologically guided approach to the theories of our discipline and with the aim of a publication culture that is appropriate to the subject matter, scientifically and socially relevant.
The thematic research foci at the Institute range from inequality - transformation - and sustainability to institutions - relationships - and social practices to social theory - methodology - and cultural sociology and can be organised thematically as follows:
The Institute's researchers are organised as follows:
Wilfred Uunk is a professor of sociology. He comes from the Netherlands, studied sociology in Utrecht and obtained his doctorate in 1996 in Nijmegen on the subject of homogamy (similarity in partner characteristics). Between 1996-1998, Uunk was a post-doc at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin (topic: job mobility in East and West Germany) and from 1998-2002 a post-doc in Utrecht (topic: remarriage). He then worked at Tilburg University until 2017; first as a post-doc, then as Junior Professor of Sociology (topics: Divorce, Gender and Labour, Migration, Welfare Solidarity). From 2017-2020, Uunk was a research associate with a chair in sociology at the University of Bamberg (topic: gender and education) and from 2020-2021 senior researcher at The Hague University of Applied Sciences. In May 2021, he finally accepted a professorship in Macro Sociology and Social Inequality at the Institute of Sociology at the University of Innsbruck.
Wilfred Uunk conducts research on various forms of social inequality (e.g., by gender and migration status). His research often compares countries and he uses quantitative methods of social research.
E-Mail: Wilfred.Uunk@uibk.ac.at
Phone: +43 512 507 73445
Room: w. 2.06
Virtual office hours: Thursday from 13:00 to 14:00
Rike Stotten has been an assistant professor (tenure track) at the Department of Sociology since 2020. Her research focuses thematically on Rural Sociology and Agro-Food Studies and spatially on mountain areas. She is interested in the diverse relationships and interdependencies between urban and rural areas, production and consumption, as well as the underlying processes, structures and power relations. She is spokesperson for the Rural Social Research Section of the Austrian Sociological Society and deputy spokesperson for the Mountain Agriculture Research Centre.
She studied geography and sociology at the Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Universität Aachen and graduated with a master's thesis on the acceptance of nature conservation measures at the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture in Switzerland. She worked as a research assistant at the Institute for Spatial and Landscape Development at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich and at the Competence Centre for Urban and Regional Development at Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts.
E-mail: Rike.Stotten@uibk.ac.at
Phone: +43 512 507-73425
Link: Agricultural and regional sociology / i-point
Room: w 2.07
Consultation hours in the summer semester 2024: Monday from 08:30-09:30 without registration
Dr Pia Blossfeld is a university assistant at the University of Innsbruck. She was previously an academic assistant at the University of Leipzig. She completed her doctorate at the University of Oxford. Her research interests include social inequality, social mobility, education, life course research, international comparisons and labour market research.
E-mail: Pia.Blossfeld@uibk.ac.at
Homepage: https://piablossfeld.github.io/
Phone: +43 512 507-73414
Room: w.2.22
Thea Xenia Wiesli has been a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Sociology since 2023. Her research interests lie in the areas of sustainable development, food studies, meat consumption, animal-human relations and regional sociology. In her PhD, she investigated the connection between sustainability and high quality of life in rural regions and nature parks. In other research projects at the Centre for Development and Environment at the University of Bern, she worked on the resettlement of mountain villages, food policies and food justice
E-mail: Thea.Wie sli@uibk.ac.at
Link: https://www.uibk.ac.at/de/soziologie/forschung/agrar-und-regionalsoziologie-alt/
Phone: +43 512 507-73439
Room: w.2.24
Bernadette Müller Kmet has been working as a university assistant in the field of quantitative methods in the social sciences at the Institute of Sociology at the University of Innsbruck since December 2015. She completed her doctorate at the University of Graz in 2009 with a thesis on personal and social identity, focusing on the operationalisation of the concept. A revised version of her dissertation was published in 2011 under the title "Empirische Identitätsforschung. Personal, social and cultural dimensions of self-localisation" published by VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. Her doctorate was followed by two teaching and research stays at the St. Augustine University of Tanzania (SAUT). As part of this work, she focussed on educational sociology and development policy issues in the higher education sector. From 2009 to 2012, she was a research assistant (research focus: "International comparative and historical social analysis") at the Institute of Sociology at the Karl-Franzens University of Graz. In 2013, she held a deputy position at the Department of Education at the Vienna University of Economics and Business.
Her research interests lie in the areas of identity research, international comparative social research, migration research, educational sociology and social inequality.
E-Mail: Bernadette.Mueller-Kmet@uibk.ac.at
Phone: +43 512 507-73423
Room: w 2.20
Consultation hours: by appointment
Jessica Pflüger is Professor of Mesosociology (Social Institutions and Organisations). She has taught and researched in Munich, Erlangen, Bochum, Cardiff and Hong Kong. Her research focuses on the sociology of work, organisations and science, as well as social research methods.
E-Mail: Jessica.Pflueger@uibk.ac.at
Phone: +43 512 507-73410
Homepage: https://www.uibk.ac.at/de/soziologie/forschung/mesosoziologie/people/jessica-pfluger/?edit_off=true
Room: w 2.09
The individual areas of research focus on the following special sociologies, among others :
Here you will find further links to publications by members of the Institute, sociological research projects and doctoral students at the Institute:
