Faculty & contact

Short intro: Recent years have witnessed an increase in affective political polarization worldwide, harming democracies, democratic institutions, and citizens. My research explores the causes and potential effects of this process, while aiming to find and test methods to depolarize society through deliberation.

Research interests: My academic focus revolves around the sociology of education, with a specific emphasis on analysing how societal dynamics and social issues shape educational systems and opportunities. This entails investigating educational disparities attributed to factors such as minority status, socioeconomic class, and related factors.

Short intro: My study focuses on the perspectives of pastors and their spouses about work-life balance. Latin American workers tend to overlook the significance of work-life balance, and occupations like pastoral counselling that demand intimate contact with those in vulnerable circumstances sometimes cause greater stress for their employees. Additionally, pastors don’t follow a set schedule since there are individuals who require their help at all hours of the day. I’m curious how Pastors handle situations like these and how they adjust their work-life balance to fit their irregular schedules compared to other professions. My research will also look at the WLB of pastors’ spouses since, although wives often have to engage with the Christian community on a similar level to their husbands, their job is seen as a means of supporting the pastor’s primary responsibilities. Additionally, pastors’ spouses typically handle childcare, domestic duties, and some even work outside the home. As a result, part of their personal time may be devoted to supporting their husbands’ work at the church. In this sense, WLB may differ from their husbands in this regard, yet in some way, the wives’ “sacrifice” may support the pastors’ WLB. To promote the wellness of the workers and their families, I wish to contribute to the knowledge of WLB in Latin America, with a particular focus on vocations like the pastorate that demand greater levels of stress and emotional engagement with people.

Short intro: In my research, I am trying to investigate how the integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and robotics into society will contribute to shaping the present and future socio-technical pathways in OMAN. Further, I will try to uncover the government’s role in the production of future imagery and its positioning. On one hand, the Omani government is a robust player in creating the nation’s understanding and expectation of AI, however, on the other hand, like any other government, the public and private narratives have an influence on the government. 

Short intro: A. Aysu Sinik is a third year Ph.D. student. Her research aims to analyze how decision-making mechanisms within companies and necessary government channels are shaped by the labor and automation investment strategies while also considering the technology and business policies of states that promote technology use to enhance economic growth. In so doing, it purports to explain how the workforce is positioned in the new technology systems by employing the theory of sociology of expectations by taking Turkey’s food industry as a case.

Short intro: International student mobility (ISM) is gaining momentum. Hungary is also part of this phenomenon, but the students coming here (especially from the Global East) face significant problems after arrival notably from cultural and social aspects. With my research I aim to connect ISM with transnationalism, transnational social spaces and migration capital to understand the experiences of mobile students. Focusing on how internationally mobile students live their everyday lives, I can also have a better understanding on how their border-crossing relationships and exchanges happen through transnational social spaces. I want to uncover the ways international students can improve their capital throughout their mobility in Europe. Researching social networks in a qualitative way can give a wider picture of how students can utilise their newly created transnational social networks.

Short intro: My research aims at explaining the authoritarian survival in countries of the Global South that suffer from autocratic rules of varying forms in the age globalization as we undergo massive development in ICTs. In doing so, it attempts to vindicate how intensification digital technology commodifies information, spurring the integration of nations into global market economy in the wake of neo-liberal ideology that reinforces authoritarian power relations by examining the Ethiopian political experiment.

Short intro: The research aims to shed light upon and test empirically, how deviation is different societies and cultural norms connect and hold causality. Cultural differences of norms (believes) and roles (actions) are being compared.
The research tests, weather deviant behavior among males is magnified by gender norm believes within and between societies. The dissertation will measure gender norms by a Cross Country Survey on Cultural and Gender Norms (ESS, WVS) Gender difference in household duties and power in the domestic sphere, gender difference in labor force participation and participation in the social sphere (OECD). Also, the research investigates the within society distributions, clusters, and hierarchies of gender norms (Eurostat). Thus, the studies examine the relation between gender norms and risk behavior: The within society correlation of gendered norms with the presence of risk behavior and delinquents (ESPAD). Latent classes of deviant behavior, alcohol and drug use and delinquent behavior (Latent profile analyses and Structural modeling, ESPAD Hungary). Between society traditional gender norms /as an instrument (IV- SISTER method)/ in relation to risk behavior, health risks, life expectancy, the risk of death by Covid19 (SHARE Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe, SHARE Corona Survey,), and higher suicide ratio (WHO) among males (random effects) and the difference between objective and subjective well being in the light of cultural differences.

Short intro: The role of social networks in labor markets has been widely recognized for decades. The dissertation focuses primarily on the perspective of individuals and aims to give a deeper understanding of how social networks shape the economic and employment opportunities of individuals. It investigates the direct and indirect effects of professional ties on a wide range of labor market outcomes, such as job finding probabilities, the level of wages, job stability, and the chances for upward mobility in terms of employment outcomes. Following recent trends in the measurement of network effects, the empirical work takes a relatively novel approach to quantify the economic benefits of social ties by exploiting the potential of a large Hungarian linked administrative employer-employee panel dataset. Although direct information on social ties is not available in the dataset, the availability of anonymous firm and individual identifiers makes it possible to identify various segments of networks, such as former co-workers and university peers. Building on studies using similar data, elaborating on the empirical approaches already applied for measuring network-related effects, and incorporating recent developments in panel data methods, the dissertation presents 3 empirical studies on the role of social ties in the labor market. The results, on the one hand, draw attention to the importance of professional ties as essential intermediaries facilitating and directing worker mobility. On the other hand, they provide indications of the downside of networks: social ties may directly or indirectly contribute to maintaining or even increasing existing labor market inequalities.

Email: gergely.monus@stud.uni-corvinus.hu

Supervisor(s): László Lőrincz

Research topic: Understanding Internal Migration from a Network Perspective

Short intro: The growing importance of agglomerations, spatial spillovers, and other kind of interactions between settlements is widely recognized in urban research. Interestingly, macro-level studies of internal migration – one of the most important underlying social process of urban development – traditionally overlook such effects. Researchers tend to focus on settlements as individual units through gravity or push-pull models. In my proposal I argue that these modeling frameworks are unable to explain migration as a system, a shortcoming that can be overcome by the application of network theory and network models.

Email: orsolya.polyacsko@uni-corvinus.hu

Supervisor(s): Borbála Göncz, Vera Messing

Research topic: The Politicization of Migration and Integration in Hungary – Claims-making in the media

Email: flora.samu@stud.uni-corvinus.hu

Supervisor(s): Károly Takács, Szabolcs Számadó

Research topic: Collaboration and reliable communication in dynamic networks

Email: e.silva@stud.uni-corvinus.hu

Supervisor(s): Zoltán Szántó, Lilla Mária Vicsek

Research topic: Representations of corruption in the media: comparative study of Brazil and Portugal

Email: ainura.smailova@stud.uni-corvinus.hu

Supervisor(s): Borbála Göncz

Research topic: Comparative study of Brazil and Portugal 

Short intro: My research focuses on the relationship between social capital and the recovery of the people through social capital. How to use social capital like a tool to adapt with natural disasters. The research will analyse the relationship of individual and community levels for disasters resilience; to understand of the effect of natural disasters on residents’ livelihood; to comprehend how the people do based on social capital when coping pre, during and post-disasters.

Short intro: Orsolya Udvari is a PhD student at the Sociology Doctoral Program at Corvinus University of Budapest since 2021. Her research focuses on the phenomenon of obstetric violence and her topic is women’s trauma narratives in the Hungarian health care system, comparing experiences based on class and ethnicity with qualitative methods.

Email: eszter.vit@uni-corvinus.hu

Supervisor(s): Károly Takács, Dorottya Kisfalusi

Research topic: Peer Effects on Educational Aspirations

Short intro: In the past few decades, China’s economic development has transformed the structure of Chinese society and within it also of families. Both internal and external migration processes have a significant impact on blood relations. The traditional Chinese extended family seems to be disintegrating in the south. Middle-aged men and women who are able to work are looking for work away from home either abroad or  on the mainland. Left-behind children and the elderly remain only in the villages. The urban middle class mainly sees the prosperity of their families abroad. The influence of the onechild policy is still felt today, although the male dominance in the cities seems to be declining. In more and more families of urban intellectuals, the value is not only represented by the male child. Gender roles are also being transformed, and femininity and masculinity are taking completely different forms.