Kai Heidemann

Maastricht University

Kai Heidemann is Professor of Sociology at the University College Maastricht of the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands. He holds a PhD in Sociology (University of Pittsburgh, USA) and an MA in Anthropology (University of Massachusetts-Amherst, USA).

His research is situated at the intersection of political sociology and the sociology of education, with a focus on the study of social movements and educational reforms. On the one hand, his work examines how social movement actors seek to influence state education systems and policies. On the other hand, his work explores the educational dimensions of social movements by analysing how they develop their own pedagogies and didactic resources. He has explored these issues in Argentina, Belgium, France, the Basque Country and the United States.

From a theoretical point of view, his work is based on a mix of neo-institutional and praxeological currents of social movement studies to highlight the agency and strategic capacities of grassroots actors when they engage in educational actions. His research tends to be comparative and engages in theoretical case studies based on qualitative methods such as ethnography, mediated discourse analysis, content analysis and process tracing.