Walter R. Heinz

Walter R. Heinz (* 21st November 1939 in Munich ) is a German social scientist , emeritus professor (since 2004) for Sociology and Psychology at the University of Bremen .

Career

Heinz studied psychology, sociology and philosophy of science at the University of Munich and graduated as a psychologist (1964). A grant from the Harkness Foundation of the Commonwealth Fund (1965-1967) gave him the opportunity to continue his postgraduate studies in sociology and social psychology at the University of California, Berkeley and Harvard University . In 1969 he received his doctorate in sociology from the University of Regensburg

1964/1965 Heinz was a research assistant at the Institute for Sociology at the University of Munich and from 1967 to 1972 at the Sociological Institute at the University of Regensburg. In 1972 he was appointed to the professorship for sociology and psychology at the University of Bremen. He built up the psychology course there, was vice rector for research (1984–1986), spokesman for the DFG - Collaborative Research Center “Status Passages and Risk Situations in the Life Course” (1988–2001), then spokesman for the Graduate School of Social funded by the VW Foundation Sciences “(GSSS) (2002–2004) at the University of Bremen. Heinz has been Senior Professor at the Bremen International Graduate School of Social Science ( BIGSSS ) since 2004 .

Heinz's scientific career and reputation are linked to research stays and visiting professorships in Canada (including Simon Fraser University and University of British Columbia , Vancouver, BC; University of Toronto ) and the USA ( University of Minnesota ). The year as the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) - Visiting Chair of German and European Studies at the Center of International Studies, University of Toronto, Canada (1995/1996) was of particular importance .

He is married to the social worker Eva C. Heinz. They have a son and a daughter.

Science management

The Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) has appointed Heinz as scientific director (2014 and 2015) of the German Center for Higher Education and Science Research (DZHW) in Hanover in order to coordinate its transformation into a research institute . From 2010 to 2014 Heinz was a member of the Executive Board of the Society for Longitudinal and Life Course Studies (SLLS) and from 2009 to 2012 a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Jacobs University Bremen . He was director of the Institute for Research into Social Opportunities (ISO) in Cologne from 1998 to 2004.

Research priorities

Heinz made significant contributions to the theory of professional socialization and the empirical study of career choices, professional development, and career patterns in the context of training paths and labor market conditions . He has examined the process of finding a career and documented the influence of the respective educational cultures and training institutions (vocational training system and higher education) on professional learning, personal development, qualification paths and career goals through international comparisons between Germany, England, the USA and Canada.

In the field of life course and biography research, the effects of social change on the course patterns of male, but above all female, life courses in the industrialized service and knowledge societies were the focus of Heinz's work. He further developed the theory of status passages and, with his research group in the Collaborative Research Center, examined transitions from one phase of life to another, from training to gainful employment, from being single to starting a family, from career to retirement, and recorded the increasing ambivalence of individual decisions in uncertain circumstances. The role of the respective version of the welfare state , the occupational structure and the labor market was also researched.

Awards

• Federal Cross of Merit 1st Class (2015)
• Fellow at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study (NIAS) in the Humanities and Social Sciences (1988/1989)

Publications (selection)

• The main thing is an apprenticeship (with H. Krüger, U. Rettke, E. Wachtveitl and A. Witzel) Weinheim: Beltz 1985, 1987 (2nd ed.)
• Theoretical Advances in Life-Course Research (Ed.). Weinheim: Deutscher Studien Verlag 1991, 1997 (2nd edition)
• Work, job, curriculum vitae. Munich: Juventa 1995
• Society and Biography (with A.Weymann, ed.) Weinheim: Deutscher Studien Verlag 1996
• From Education to Work: Cross-National Perspectives (Ed.). New York: Cambridge University Press 1999
• Restructuring Work and the Life Course (with V. Marshall, H. Krüger and A.Verma, eds.). Toronto: University of Toronto Press 2001
• Social Dynamics of the Life Course: Transitions, Institutions, Interrelations (with V. Marshall, ed.). New York: Aldine De Gruyter 2003
• The Life Course Reader. Individuals and Societies across Time (with J. Huinink and A. Weymann, eds.). Frankfurt / New York: Campus 2009

Web links

• Internet presence on bigsss-bremen.de