Faculty Home / About / Faculty directory / Professor Raewyn Connell

Professor Raewyn Connell

PhD(Sydney), BA(Hons)(Melbourne)

University Chair

Email:

Phone: +61 2 9351 6247

Fax: +61 2 9351 4580

Building.Room: A35.544

Research interests

Social structures, inequalities and social justice

  • Gender relations and gender identity
  • Social change
  • Sociology of knowledge

Keywords

world social science, global power structure, corporate masculinities, neocolonialism, teachers


Professional biography

Raewyn Connell, BA (Melb), PhD (Syd), holds a University Chair in the University of Sydney. She has previously held posts at the University of California at Santa Cruz, Macquarie University in Sydney, and Flinders University in Adelaide. She has held visiting posts at the University of Toronto, Harvard University, and Ruhr-Universität Bochum.

Raewyn is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia, a recipient of the American Sociological Association's award for distinguished contribution to the study of sex and gender, and of the Australian Sociological Association's award for distinguished service to sociology in Australia. Raewyn's teaching fields have included general sociology, social theory, sociology of education, gender relations, sexuality, and research methods.

Currently, Raewyn is supervising seven research higher degree students, refecting the major contribution her own research and theorising about the social construction of masculinities has had in creating this international research field.

Raewyn's books, including Masculinities, and papers have been translated into 13 languages. Masculinities alone has been translated into Italian, Swedish, German, Spanish and Chinese, and is the most cited research publication in its field. More recently she has opened up questions about the relations between masculinities and neoliberal globalisation.

Raewyn is also a leading figure in other research fields, all of which are areas that demonstrate her characteristic concern for combining an understanding of large-scale social structures with recognition of personal experience and collective agency.

Making the Difference (1982) is the most discussed Australian study of social inequalities in education while in Gender and Power (1987) Raewyn developed an influential sociological theory of gender which her curent research is reformulating in a world context.

As author of Ruling Class Ruling Culture (1977) and co-author of Class Structure in Australian History (1980), Raewyn has also been a key figure in the development of an Australian sociology of class. Her other research agendas include adolescence, intellectual labour, and sexuality.

Raewyn's most recent book, Southern Theory (2007) discusses theorists unfamiliar in the European canon of social science, and explores the possibility of a genuinely global social science. Across these fields, Raewyn has tried to make social science relevant to social justice, becoming involved with campaigns, teachers and social-movement activists to bring research to bear on public policy and strategies of social change. Raewyn has conducted applied studies and given policy advice to governments about poverty and education, AIDS prevention, gender equity, and other fields.

In the past decade, Raewyn was invited by United Nations agencies to lead international discussions about masculinities, violence and peacemaking, and the role of men and boys in achieving gender equality.

Raewyn's work is widely cited in social science and humanities publications internationally. Four of her books were listed among the 10 most influential books in Australian sociology. She is frequently invited to give keynote addresses at conferences and seminars, including events in Canada, Switzerland, Germany, Senegal and Britain.


Awards

  • American Sociological Association Award, for distinguished contribution to the study of sex and gender

  • Australian Sociological Association Award, for distinguished service to sociology in Australia


Professional and community roles


Current research students

Project title Degree Research student
Early career teachers in the new NSWIT regime. MPhil Catherine Keeley
Trading Gender: The embodiment of women in the male dominated work of manual trades and IT. PhD Louisa Smith
Formation and transformation of rural masculinity: An ethnography of gender relations in a Chinese village. PhD Xingkui (Ken) Zhang
Just school: Teacher perceptions of social justice in Catholic schools. PhD Andrew Fraser
Exploring contemporary Khmer masculinity and its relation to domestic voilence in globalised Cambodia. PhD Mozammel Haque
The gendered landscape of Australian school education, 1975 to present. PhD Maree Herrett
Suicidal masculinities: Understanding the gendered nature of male suicide. PhD Jo Dunn
TBA PhD Megan Lugg
Education, gender and globalisation. PhD Sebastian Madrid
Learning in the World Social Forum. MPhil Rawya Mansour

Selected publications

Books

  • Connell, R, Campbell, C, Vickers, M, Welch, A, Foley, D, Bagnall, N. (2007). Education, Change & Society. Melbourne, AUS: Oxford University Press.
  • Connell, R. (2007). Southern Theory: the global dynamics of knowledge in social science. Australia: Allen & Unwin.
  • Connell, R. (2005). Masculinities. (Vol. 1), Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.
  • Kimmel, M, Hearn, J, Connell, R. (2005). Handbook of Studies on Men & Masculinities. (Vol. 1), Thousand Oaks: Sage.

Book chapters

  • Connell, R. (2008). The Neo-liberal Parent and Schools. In George Martell (Ed.), Breaking the Iron Cage: Resistance to the Schooling of Global Capitalism (pp. 175–193), Ottawa, Canada: Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives.
  • Connell, R. (2008). The rise of the global-private: power, masculinities and the Neo-liberal world order. In Jurczyk K and Oechsle M (Eds.), Das Private Neu Denken (pp. 315–330), Muenster, Germany: Westfaelisches Dampfboot.
  • Connell, R. (2007). Men, masculinity research and gender justice. In Ilse Lenz, Charlotte Ulrich and Barbara Fersch (Eds.), Gender Orders Unbound: Globalisation, Restructuring and Reciprocity (pp. 51–68), Opladen & Farmington Hills: Verlag Barbara Budrich.
  • Connell, R. (2007). Poverty and education. In Carol De Shano Da Silva (Ed.), The Opportunity Gap (pp. 13–36), Cambridge MA: Harvard Educational Pub Group.
  • Connell, R. (2006). The New Right Triumphant: The Privatization Agenda and Public Education in Australia. In Martell G (Ed.), Education''s Iron Cage, special issue of "Our Schools/Our Selves" (Vol. 15, pp. 143–162), Ottawa: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.
  • Connell, R. (2006). Desarrollo, globalizacion y masculinidades. In G Careaga;S Cruz Sierra (Ed.), Debates Sobre Masculinidades: Poder, Desarrollo, Politicas Publicas Y Ciudadania (Vol. 1, pp. 185–210), Mexico: Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico.
  • Connell, R. (2006). Country/city men. In Campbell, H., Mayerfield Bell, M. and Finney, M. (Eds.), Country Boys : Masculinity and Rural Life (Vol. 1, pp. 255–264), Pennsylvania, US.: Pennsylvania State University Press.
  • Connell, R. (2005). Introduction. In Connel R W (Ed.), Masculinities Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.
  • Connell, R. (2005). Afterword: The Contemporary Politics of Masculinity. In Connel R W (Ed.), Masculinities (Vol. 1, pp. 244–266), Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.

Journal articles

  • Connell, R. (2008). A Thousand Miles from Kind: Men, Masculinities and Modern Institutions. Journal of Men's Studies: a scholarly journal about men and masculinities , 16(3), 237–252.
  • Connell, R. (2008). Masculinity construction and sports in boys' education: a framework for thinking about the issue. Sport Education and Society, 13(2), 131–145.
  • Connell, R, Crawford, J. (2007). Mapping the intellectual labour process. Journal of Sociology, 43(2), 187–205.
  • Connell, R. (2007). News from the coalface: experiences of gender reform by the staff of public sector agencies. International Feminist Journal of Politics, 9(2), 137–153.
  • Connell, R. (2007). Managing social relations: the dimension of intellectual labour. International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, 27(1-2), 19–31.
  • Connell, R. (2007). The heart of the problem: South African intellectual workers, globalization and social change. Sociology: The Journal of the British Sociological Association, 41(1), 11–28.
  • Connell, R. (2007). The Northern Theory of Globalization. Sociological Theory, 25(4), 368–385.
  • Connell, R. (2007). Another word for 'struggle': Lynne Segal - psychology, feminism and social justice. Overland, 186, 44–47.
  • Connell, R. (2006). Northern theory: The political geography of general social theory. Theory and Society, 35(2), 237–264.
  • Connell, R. (2006). The experience of gender change in public sector organizations. Gender Work and Organization, 13(5), 435–452.
  • Connell, R. (2006). Core activity - Reflexive intellectual workers and cultural crisis. Journal of Sociology, 42(1), 5–23.
  • Connell, R. (2006). Advancing gender reform in large-scale organizations: a new approach for practitioners and researchers. Policy and Society: journal of public, foreign and global policy, 24(4), 1–21.
  • Connell, R. (2006). Glass ceilings or gendered institutions? Mapping the gender regimes of public sector worksites. Public Administration Review, 66(6), 837–849.
  • Connell, R. (2006). Conocimiento indigena y poder global: lecclones de los debates africanos . Nomadas, 25, 86–97.
  • Connell, R. (2006). Chicago Values: The Neoliberal Dream and Howard Government Politics. Overland, 183, 32–38.
  • Connell, R, Wood, J. (2005). Globalization and business masculinities. Men and Masculinities, 7(4), 347–364.
  • Connell, R, Wood, J, Crawford, J. (2005). The global connections of intellectual workers: An Australian study. International Sociology, 20(1), 5–26.
  • Connell, R. (2005). Growing up masculine: Rethinking the significance of adolescence in the making of masculinities. Irish Journal of Sociology, 14(2), 11–28.
  • Connell, R, Messerschmidt, J. (2005). Hegemonic masculinity: Rethinking the concept. Gender & Society, 19(6), 829–859.
  • Connell, R, Crawford, J. (2005). Are we postmodern yet? The cultural politics of Australian intellectual workers. Australian Journal of Political Science, 40(1), 1–15.
  • Connell, R. (2005). Change among the gatekeepers: Men, masculinities and gender equality in the global arena. Signs: journal of women in culture and society , 30(3), 1801–1825.
  • Connell, R. (2005). Boys, masculinities and curricula: the construction of masculinity in practice-oriented subjects. Zeitschrift fuer Internationale Bildungsforschung und Entwicklungspaedagogik, 28(4), 21–27.
  • Connell, R. (2005). A really good husband: Work/life balance, gender equity and social change. Australian Journal of Social Issues, 40(3), 369–383.

Conference papers

  • Connell, R. (2007). Advising schools about gender. In . Kaohsiung, Taiwan, 11-12 February 2006.
  • Connell, R. (2007). Men's movements. In . Kaohsiung, Taiwan, 11-12 February 2006.
  • Connell, R. (2006). Globalization and gender equity. In . Kaohsiung, Taiwan, 11-12 February 2006.
  • Connell, R. (2006). Personal reflections. In . Kaohsiung, Taiwan, 11-12 February 2006.
  • Connell, R. (2005). The nature of public education. In . Parliament House, Melbourne, 21 May 2005.
Show all publications
Back to Top