Our work

One of the key aims of the Institute is to foster gender mainstreaming at local, national and international level. Therefore the Institute is integrated into local, national and international networks.

The Institute is part of the Association for Men and Gender Issues Styria and can strongly benefit from this position at the interface to psychosocial praxis.

The Association for Men and Gender Issues Styria is networking in different areas, e.g. through the networks Plattform gegen Gewalt in der Familie (platform against domestic violence), AMÖ (Austrian working group of men’s councelling centres and other men centres) and Gender Lab Graz. The Institute is using these networks when generating social science data in different research areas and disseminating research results. National research and education networks are used as well.

The Institute has numerous and long-standing experience in international cooperation with science and education organizations in member countries of EU, EFTA and OECD.

Researchers of the Institute are members of scientific societies such as the ÖGS (Austrian Society of Sociology) and the DeGEval (Society for Evaluation). The Institute is also a full member of the Wissenschaftskonferenz Österreich (Austrian Science Conference).

• Coordination and realization of international (e.g. European Union) or national research projects
• Dissemination of research results: presentations, conferences, seminars and workshops (Gender Lab Graz, see http://www.genderwerkstaette.at(link is external))
• Evaluation, development of theories, basic research and practice-oriented analyses
• Consulting and development
• Networking

Social science projects in our Institute are targeted towards generating, disseminating and applying knowledge about connections between masculinities, gender and education, labour and care, organizations & companies, networks, violence, health and further topics. The focus is on the role of men in these social contexts.

Changes of life and work situations of men are always related to respective changes women experience and to chances for gender equality. Therefore gender relations are a core research focus, considering the background of complex social affiliations and processes of social changes. 

Gender is observed as a category which characterizes social positioning of people. But it is not enough considering men and women as homogenous groups. In addition we have to assume that other social categories like milieu, ethnic affiliations or body crucially influence individual life and social structures. The paradigmatic research perspectives of ‘intersectionality’ and ‘diversity’ take this fact into account.

• Critical masculinity research
• Gender, diversity and intersectional research
• Gender and diversity analyses in organizations and different policy fields
• Violence and resilience against violence
• Youth
• Health
• Education and labour
• Urbanism and media art
• Client analyses in psychosocial contexts
• Applied research and interference research, e.g. in education work (gender competence, gender reflecting work with boys etc.)
• Scientific evaluations and assessments in the above fields