• Biography

• Publications

• Research

• Teaching

• Awards

Biography

Erna Nairz was born in Dornbirn, Vorarlberg, in 1966 and graduated there from high school in 1985. She then worked for a leading international company in Switzerland and also spent time in the USA.

She completed her studies in Business Education at WU Wien with a thesis entitled The Structure of Human Needs: Critique of Reductive Discourse on a Complex Concept. From 1995 to 2007, Erna Nairz was a university assistant at the Institute for Educational Science and Philosophy (now the Department of Educational Science) at WU. There, she completed her dissertation in 1998, entitled Study and Career: A Study on the Change in Attitudes of Business Educators. Her habilitation thesis, The Silent Pedagogy: The Research Paradigm of Pierre Bourdieu, was completed her habilitation in Educational Science and General Pedagogy in 2007. In 2013, Erna Nairz was a visiting scholar at the Faculty of Education at the University of Cambridge.

Erna Nairz's research focuses on comprehensive basic and applied research on the topics of education and inequality, educational careers, school and university development, the professionalization of key actors in knowledge-generating organizations, dropouts, best practices in education, educational and career orientation, and habitus. She is also active in university teaching and continuing education, as well as in training and consulting in the areas of professionalization, transition management, leadership, and coaching.

Her research activities are reflected in numerous national and international projects and publications, lectures at scientific conferences, and panel discussions. Erna Nairz is also an international expert and consultant on improving education systems.

Research

To current and completed research projects in PURE

Research topics

• (In)Equality issues in education

• Bourdieu's Theory of Practice, Habitus analysis

• Drop out research (early school leaving, drop out in higher education)

• Educational pathways

• Professionalisation of teaching fields

Research approaches

• Quantitative and qualitative research methods in social sciences focussing on education

• Qualitative interview techniques

• Visual methods

• Mixed methods

• Grounded theory

Teaching

• Qualitative research methods in social sciences

• Qualitative interview techniques

• Developmental psychology focussing on J. Piaget, E. Erikson, J. Marcia, A. Freud, A. Adler, S. Freud …

• Sociology of education focussing on P. Bourdieu

• Inequality in education

• Education economics

• Youth search for identity
  To the current courses

Awards

• 2018: Award of the Benya Foundation for comprehensive basic and applied research

• 2013: OeNB-WU Award for Internationalization

• 2013: WU Award for outstanding Achievements in Research and Teaching: OeNB research project

• 2013: WU Award for outstanding Achievements in Research and Teaching: EU research project - Reducing Early School Leaving in the EU; 7th EU framework program

• 2012: Visiting scholar grant for University of Cambridge

• 2007: Award for Excellence in Research

• 2007: Award for Innovative Teaching

• 2002: Awardee of the Dr. Maria Schaumayer Habilitation Grant