Rate My Professor Robert Van Krieken

Van Krieken's research focuses on process sociology, particularly Norbert Elias's theories of civilization and decivilization, the sociology of childhood and child welfare, law and society, cultural genocide, and celebrity society. His influential publications include the monograph Norbert Elias (Routledge, 2005), Children and the State: Social Control and the Formation of Australian Child Welfare (Allen & Unwin, 1992), Celebrity Society (Routledge, 2012), the co-authored textbook Sociology: Themes and Perspectives (Pearson, 2000), and articles such as 'The barbarism of civilization: cultural genocide and the “stolen generations”' (British Journal of Sociology, 1999), 'Rethinking cultural genocide: Aboriginal child removal and settler-colonial state formation' (Oceania, 2004), and 'The “best interests of the child” and parental separation: on the “civilizing of parents”' (Modern Law Review, 2005). His scholarship has significantly impacted understandings of Australian Indigenous child removal policies, self-formation, and modernity. Van Krieken has held leadership positions in the International Sociological Association, including executive committee member from 2006 to 2010 and vice-president for finance and membership from 2010 to 2014. He serves on the editorial board of Contemporary Sociology and has previously been on the boards of Law & Social Inquiry and Childhood.