Prof. Dr. Sascha Liebermann

Professor of Sociology, Head of Department and Head of the B.A. PhASE / Chair of the Senate

Department of Philosophical and Aesthetic Education, Faculty of Educational Sciences. Research focus:

Methodology and methods of case-reconstructive research, especially Objective Hermeneutics
Educational processes
Socialization
Family sociology
Social state
Welfare state, with a focus on Universal Basic Income
Theory of professionalization
Political sociology
Sociology of work
Community and society

Phone: 02222 93211534
Office hours: Consultation hours by appointment

Further Activities

Third-party funded projects and reports

1999 – 2001 // Collaboration in the subproject Conduct of Life under Pressure to Normalize – Discontinuities in Employment Biographies: Forms of Their Practical Coping and Patterns of Their Interpretation (Prof. Dr. Hartmut Neuendorff), DFG Research Group “Normalism” (Speaker: Prof. Dr. Jürgen Link), University of Dortmund

2001 // Co-author of the project report of the same title together with Hartmut Neuendorff, Ute Fischer, Caroline Großer and Thomas Loer

2000 – 2003 // Collaboration in the research network Desolidarization, funded by the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, – Prof. Dr. Hartmut Neuendorff (Dortmund), Prof. Dr. Wilhelm Heitmeyer (Bielefeld University) and Prof. Dr. Peter Strohmeier (Bochum University)

2010 – 2013 // Project lead (part-time) “Solidarity and political communalization. A study on habitus formations and patterns of interpretation in the public discussion on an unconditional basic income in Germany and Switzerland”, Ruhr University Bochum, project cooperation and funding by Prof. Theo Wehner, ETH Zurich

Further activities

Reviewer for Sozialer Sinn. Journal for Hermeneutic Social Research

Reviewer in educational and youth welfare services

Teaching and continuing education at universities in Germany (TU Dortmund, J.W. Goethe University Frankfurt) and Switzerland (University of Zurich, University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland). Continuing education courses in case analysis in Germany, Switzerland and Austria.

Consultant Editor of Basic Income Studies, De Gruyter

Co-founder (2001) and board member (2001-2007) of the Institute for Hermeneutic Social and Cultural Research e.V., Frankfurt am Main

Co-founder (2003) and active member of the initiative Freedom Instead of Full Employment

Supervised doctoral projects

Hendrik Muijsson: Working title: “Patterns of interpretation of family in ‘activating social policy’. Crisis management in the familial triad between structural requirements and technocratic overdetermination”

Juliane Wegner: “The unavoidable conflict of the entrepreneurial family – a structural-hermeneutic analysis of the emergence of destructive conflict dynamics in a particular type of family” (completed)

Andreas Zäh: “Generational patterns of interpretation of gainful employment – A study on the significance of gainful employment and forms of professional self-proving efforts among people born between 1985 and 1995 in Germany” (completed)

Publications (Selection)

Book

(2002): The Crisis of the Work Society in the Consciousness of German Business Leaders. An Analysis of Patterns of Interpretation, Research Contributions from Objective Hermeneutics, Volume 4. Edited by Ulrich Oevermann, Roland Burkholz, Christel Gärtner and Ferdinand Zehentreiter, Frankfurt: Humanities Online

(2015): From the Spirit of Democracy: Unconditional Basic Income, Frankfurt: Humanities Online

Articles

(with Ute Luise Fischer and Caroline Großer)(2002): “The Persistence of Patterns of Interpretation – Problems of Action and Employment-Related Patterns of Interpretation under Conditions of Transformation in Saxony”, Journal für Psychologie, vol. 10, issue 3, pp. 249-278

(with Thomas Loer) (2010): “‘Superfluous’, ‘Excess’, ‘Dispensable’ – Gaps in Constitutional Theory, Diagnostic Shortenings”, sozialersinn. Journal for Hermeneutic Social Research, issue 1 (2009), pp. 153-179

(2016): “Autonomy and Responsibility in Higher Education. On the Discussion about Mandatory Attendance“, in: sozialersinn. Journal for Hermeneutic Social Research, issue 1 (2016), pp. 143-163

(2018): “Unconditional Basic Income – Risky Experiment or Further Development of the Welfare State in the Spirit of Democracy?”, Politisches Lernen, journal of the German Association for Political Education NRW, H 1-2

(2023): “Underrated Present. Unconditional Basic Income as a Response to the Structural Contradiction Between the Civic Community and the Society of the Gainfully Employed”, in: Journal for Public Economy and the Common Good, 46 (2) 2023, pp. 211-232

Book chapters

(2009): “Political Communalization and the Autonomy of Citizens. Sociological Reflections on the Relationship Between Political and Economic Citizens”, in: Market, Human Being and Freedom. Business Ethics in Debate, ed. by Markus Breuer, Philippe Mastronardi and Bernhard Waxenberger, Bern: Haupt-Verlag, pp. 151-173

(with Thomas Loer)(2010): “Autonomy in Counseling – Promote, Inhibit or Erode?”, in: Stefan Busse, Susanne Ehmer (eds.). Do We Know What We Are Doing? Advisory Practice in Supervision and Coaching, series: Interdisciplinary Counseling Research, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, pp. 166-191

(2012): “Manifold Possibilities, Peculiar Obstacles –Basic Income in the German Debate”, in: Basic Income Worldwide. Horizons of Reform, ed. by Matthew C. Murray and Carole Pateman, forthcoming with Palgrave Macmillan – International Political Economy Series, pp. 173-199

(with Thomas Loer) (2015): “Exploring the World and Liberating the Mind. How Do We Shape the University in the 21st Century? A Sketch. In: The Task of Education. Prospects for the University, ed. by Philip Kovce and Birger Priddat, Metropolis-Verlag, pp. 175-193

(2016): “The Self-Misunderstanding of the ‘Work Society’ or on the Structural Commonality of Democracy and Unconditional Basic Income”, in: Unconditional Basic Income – Theory and Practice in Germany and Europe, Dortmund Political-Philosophical Discourses Vol. 14, ed. by Thomas Meyer and Udo Vorholt, pp. 63-85

(2018): “Challenge to the Understanding of Work Through an Unconditional Basic Income”, in: Vedder, Günther et al. (eds.): Organization of Work and Work-Integrated Continuing Education, Institute for Interdisciplinary Labour Science, Leibniz University Hannover

(2019): “‘…I would like to be independent…’. Autonomy in the Public Discussion on an Unconditional Basic Income. An Exemplary Analysis of Patterns of Interpretation”, in: Funcke, Dorett; Loer, Thomas (ed.): From Case to Theory. On the Path of Reconstructive Social Research. Wiesbaden: Springer VS, pp. 255-288

(2020): “From Marginal Idea to Contested Alternative. Recent Developments and Main Arguments in the German Debate”, in: Caputo, Richard/ Liu, Larry (Hrsg.): Political Activism and Basic Income Guarantee: International Experiences and Perspectives: Past, Present, and Near Future, Palgrave MacMillan

(with Hendrik Muijsson) (2020): “Familial Communalization or Care Arrangement? Patterns of Interpretation of Family in the Public Discussion and Among Parents of a Two-Year-Old Child”, in: Funcke, Dorett (ed.): Reconstructive Couple and Family Research, Wiesbaden: Springer VS

(with Ute Fischer) (2024): “On the Significance of Non-Standardized Methods in Research on Unconditional Basic Income”, in: Care & Gender – Potentials and Risks of Universal Basic Income (UBI), Studies of the Freiburg Institute for Basic Income Studies (FRIBIS) at Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg. Freiburg Institute for Basic Income Studies Annual Conference 2023. Zurich: LIT, pp.289-322. (open access see here)

Here you can find further publications.

Dates