Raf Vanderstraeten - Biography#

Raf Vanderstraeten studied at the universities of Leuven, Belgium (MA, PhD) and Bielefeld, Germany (Habilitation). He has worked in full-time positions at the universities of Leuven, Utrecht, Bielefeld, Helsinki, Antwerp and Ghent. In the recent past, he has also held visiting appointments at the universities of Antwerp (Belgium), Lille (France) and Chicago (USA), as well as the London School of Economics and Political Science (UK). He was the founding Director of the Center for Social Theory at Ghent University, and is now senior full professor at Ghent University.

Raf Vanderstraeten has a strong interest in theory-driven and historical sociological research. As a former student of Niklas Luhmann, he particularly draws on the tradition of systems-theoretical and neo-institutionalist research. In his own research, he studies historical transformations in three social ‘systems’, namely, science, education, and religion. Over the years, his work appeared in a broad range of scholarly journals, such as The British Journal of Sociology, British Journal of Sociology of Education, European Educational Research Journal, Journal of Philosophy of Education and Review of Research in Education (for his work on education), Acta Sociologica, European Journal of Social Theory, Memory Studies, Soziale Systeme, and Thesis Eleven (for his work on religion), or Minerva, Science in Context, Scientometrics, Social Science History, Social Studies of Science, Sociology, The American Sociologist and Zeitschrift für Soziologie (for his work on science).

He serves (or has served) on the editorial board of the journals Sociology, Soziale Systeme, and The American Sociologist. He also spends much time doing peer review for other academic journals or publishers, as well as for funding agencies, such as Academy of Finland, Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst, European Research Council, Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique – Belgique, Fonds zur Förderung der wissenschaftlichen Forschung Österreich, Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, Leverhulme Trust, National Science Centre of Poland, Volkswagen Stiftung, and Zentrum für Interdisziplinäre Forschung – Bielefeld.

Raf Vanderstraeten teaches courses on the history of sociology, sociological theory, and social inequality.