Keynotes

Abstract Richard Münch

Richard Münch (born in 1945) studied sociology, philosophy, and psychology at the University of Heidelberg from 1965 to 1970, where he earned his M.A. degree in 1969 and his PhD in 1971. He completed his habilitation (postdoctoral qualification) in sociology at the University of Augsburg in 1972, where he was a research fellow at the Chair for Sociology and Communication from 1970 to 1974. As a professor of sociology he taught at the University of Cologne from 1974 to 1976, at the University of Düsseldorf from 1976 to 1995, and at the University of Bamberg from 1995 to 2013. The University of Bamberg named him Emeritus of Excellence in 2013. Since 2015, he has been a senior professor of social theory and comparative macrosociology at Zeppelin University Friedrichshafen. He has been a visiting professor at the University of California in Los Angeles several times and was a member of the editorial boards of the American Journal of Sociology, Annual Review of Social Theory, Sociological Theory, Zeitschrift für Soziologie, and Soziologische Revue.

Abstract Gita Steiner-Khamsi

Gita Steiner-Khamsi (Prof. Dr.) holds a dual academic appointment as Professor of Comparative Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, New York (since 1995) and more recently at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva. In addition, she has been a part-time Research Professor at the University of Oslo where an international team has introduced social network analysis as a method of inquiry to understand the role of international organizations and policy knowledge for domestic school reform.

Past President of the Comparative and International Education Society (USA) and the Network for international policies and cooperation in education and training, she is editor of three book series (Routledge, Teachers College Press, E. Elgar) and author of several books and journal articles on comparative policy studies, globalization and education, and public-private partnerships in education. Her most recent edited volume (with Antoni Verger and Christopher Lubienski) was published by Routledge and was entitled The Global Education Industry. World Yearbook of Education 2016; her forthcoming book, published by E. Elgar in 2018, was co-edited with Alexandra Draxler and is entitled The State, Business and Education:Public-Private Partnerships Revisited.

Abstract Rita Nikolai

Rita Nikolai has been a Heisenberg fellow of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation) since April 2017. Previously, she was an assistant professor for system-related school research at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. Her research focuses on education and welfare policies, private schools in an international comparative perspective, educational inequalities, school systems, and theories of institutional change.

Abstract Elisabeth Chatel

Elisabeth Chatel was born in 1946. From 1963 to 1969 she studied mathematics and economics at the University of Paris. After having worked as a research assistant at the Ministry for labour and as an assistant for economic science at the University of Paris and the Federal University of Cameroon from 1970 to 1975, she acquired the teaching diploma for the secondary degree of schooling (CAPES: Certificat d’aptitude au professorat de l’enseignement au second degré), and then the habilitation as a gymnasium teacher for economics and social sciences. From 1975 to 1990 she worked as a gymnasium teacher. In 1988, she founded a research group on the didactics of economics and social sciences at the Institut National de Recherche Pédagogique and started several research projects on teaching economics from the perspective of the economy of conventions. In 1996, she acquired a PhD in economics. In 2001, she started teaching at the Department for education science at the University of Rouen. She acquired a PhD in education in 2005. She pursued her research, focussing on institutional theories and pragmatic sociology, at the research centre IDHES (Institutions et Dynamiques Historiques de l’Economie et de la Société) at the CNRS (Centre national de la recherche scientifique) laboratory of the École Normale Supérieure Saclay in Paris. Today, Elisabeth Chatel is retired, but she continues to pursue her research at said laboratory, focussing on their historical dimension.