On 21 June 2024, Prof. Dr. Regula Julia Leemann, Professor & Chair of Educational Sociology, gave her farewell lecture at the University of Teacher Education at the University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland (FHNW) in Basel. With Regula Julia Leemann, one of the key German-speaking representatives of the Economics and Sociology of Conventions (EC/SC) in the field of education is retiring.

Lecture hall at Basel/Muttenz
Over the past 15 years, Regula has been intensively pursuing the reception and empirical application of EC/SC to questions of Swiss educational institutions, partly in collaboration with Christian Imdorf, another scholar in the field of EC/SC. A core result of these endeavors was the edited volume “Bildung und Konventionen” (Education and Conventions) with Christian Imdorf and Philipp Gonon (published in 2019; see https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-658-23301-3).
In Regula’s last three research projects funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (“Training networks in practice” with Christian Imdorf, “Specialized middle school as an independent educational pathway alongside vocational training and baccalaureate schools” with Christian Imdorf, and the current project “Governance of transitions in the Swiss education system“, whose proposal was awarded an excellence grant by the SNSF), she also productively applied and further advanced EC/SC in the field of education, generating important insights for educational sociology, teacher training as well as evidence-based education policy.
In 2014 Regula has – together with Julia Brandl (University of Innsbruck) – invented the workshop series “Sociology of conventions” (first time held in Basel). This series has been institutionalized since then and become very important for the establishment of EC/SC outside of France. In sum, Regula’s Team has organized three of these biennial workshops, which bring together researchers from different disciplines to discuss theoretical, methodological and methodological issues relating to the EC/SC.

Leanna
On 21 June 2024, after a long career, Regula Julia Leemann was given a well-deserved farewell. The lecture theatre was filled with many important representatives of German-speaking educational sociology, as well as family and friends of Regula. LEANNA provided the live music for the event. After a welcome address by the head of the Institute, Prof. Dr. Claudia Schmellentin Britz, Prof. Dr. Christian Imdorf gave a speech on the importance of universities of teacher education for the establishment of educational sociology as a reference discipline for teacher training, thereby emphasizing the role of EC/SC in contemporary sociology of education. He paid tribute to Regula’s work and her great commitment, not only to the EC/SC in particular, but also to educational sociology in general. Regula was a persistent advocate of the institutionalization of a sociological perspective in teacher education.

Christian Imdorf
One expression of these efforts was a handbook on sociology of education for prospective and practicing teachers, which Regula published with colleagues from the Universities of teacher education in Zurich and Bern. The teacher training that Regula and her team initially conducted in seven degree programs in four cantons at seven locations also benefited greatly from the high-quality research projects, Regula has trained and supported “a second Swiss” generation of EC/SC researchers in the field of sociology of education. This way, EC/SC was also productively used and further developed in their dissertations.
In addition to her commitment to teaching, research and the EC/SC, Christian Imdorf also recognized Regula’s dedicated work for the scientific community.
Christian also paid tribute to Regula’s long-standing commitment (2008-2020) to the board of the Education Section of the German Sociological Association. For many years, Regulas chair of sociology of education has been responsible for the monthly newsletter for this section and for the section of educational sociology of the Swiss Society for Sociology. Since 2020, Regula has been a member of the board and treasurer of the latter.
Regulas team then took the opportunity to say goodbye with some personal tributes to the many years of close collaboration and thanked Regula for her tremendous support, encouragement and excellent leadership in both research and teaching over the past 15 years.

Regula’s Team (from the left to the right): Damaris Wittwer, Rebekka Sagelsdorff, Andrea Fischer, Luca Preite, Raffaella Esposito, Sybille Bayard, Sandra Hafner, Fanny Klaffke, Bettina Weller, Jasmin Näpfli, Kim Stäheli.
To conclude, Regula herself gave a speech on the importance of sociology of education for the teacher education. She provided an overview of the most important research findings that have been produced by the staff of the Chair of Sociology of Education in the last years, and showed how these findings can be put to practical and fruitful use in teacher education.
The event closed with a heartfelt and moving thank-you speech from Regula, in which she expressed her gratitude to her relatives and friends, current and former colleagues, professional and personal companions, acquaintances and, in particular, her long-standing team.

Regula Julia Leemann
Sandra Hafner, Raffaella Esposito, Rainer Diaz-Bone
OpenEdition vous propose de citer ce billet de la manière suivante :
diazbone (15 juillet 2024). Regula Julia Leemann’s farewell lecture at Basel. Économie des conventions. Consulté le 19 février 2025 à l’adresse https://doi.org/10.58079/120qz