About Us

The Sociology of Gender is one of the four key research areas of the Department of Sociology. We are concerned with "gender" as lived experience and an analytic category that effects and structures all spheres of social life, politics and culture. As such, it is indispensable to sociological analysis and theory. The faculty members associated with the Sociology of Gender provide research and teaching expertise on a range of topics related to gender, including social change, body and sexuality, culture, creativity, and politics. We explore the dynamics of gender in intersections with other sociologically and practically relevant categories, such as, class, race, ethnicity, sexuality, age, and physical ability.  
The Sociology of Gender aims to equip students with appropriate research methods and theoretical frameworks for a sociological, as well as, interdisciplinary inquiry into gender:  Sociology of gender, gender theories, methodologies of gender research, sociology of youth and histories of social movements for gender and sexual equality are some of the BA and MA courses we regularly offer. Students acquire theoretical and methodological competences in the workings of gender in social structures that they can apply in a variety of professional careers. 
The faculty members of Sociology of Gender contribute with their research activities to the University of Graz research theme "Heterogeneity and Cohesion" and to the field of excellence “Dimensions of Europeanization”. We explore gender regimes in their historical and geopolitical contexts, as well as, topical issues of the present.  Our specialty area is gender cultures of state socialism and post-socialism in Central and Southeastern Europe. We collaborate closely with the Coordination Centre for Gender Studies and with the Centre for Southeastern Europe. Together we host the biennial conference Creative Bodies—Creative Minds that brings to Graz an international community of scholars from a range of disciplines, engaging in gendered aspects of creativity.
In the recent years, the Sociology of Gender team collaborated with universities in Austria and abroad on the institutionalization of gender studies and on increasing the interest of girls / young women in activities with a traditionally strong gender imbalance.  
The Professorship in the Sociology of Gender was endowed at the University of Graz in 2005. The founding professor of the research area "Sociology of Gender and Gender Studies", Prof. Angelika Wetterer, retired in October 2014, Prof. Libora Oates-Indruchová succeeded her in February 2015.