Victor Vakhshtayn

Biography

He received his education as a Social Psychologist, and then an MA degree in Sociology. In 2007, he presented his PhD thesis, which was dedicated to researching everyday interactions. Since 2003, he has been teaching at the State University Higher School of Economics and at the Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences. He has participated in research projects for the World Bank, OECD, OSCE, the National Democratic Institute, and for a number of European universities. He has worked in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, Croatia, Hungary, the USA, and Israel. He has published more than 30 articles in academic and professional magazines in Russian, English, and German. He is the author of the books The Theory of Frames and the Sociology of Everyday Life (European University, St. Petersburg, 2011), and The Reality of Education and Research Realities (State University Higher School of Economics, 2010, co-authored).

Since 2008, he has led the Department of Social Sciences, “Shaninka” (British University in Moscow). In 2011, he founded the Philosophy and Sociology Department at the Russian Presidential Academy of the National Economy and Public Administration along with his “Shanika” associates, the State University Higher School of Economics, and Moscow State University, after heading the Department of Theoretical Sociology and Epistemology. During that time, he was Head of the Center for Sociology Studies. The center’s main specialization is Longitudinal and Monitoring Studies in the spheres of social, political, and economic processes.

His areas of theoretical interest include: the sociology of education, epistemology of the social sciences, frame analysis, and the sociology of everyday life.