UPF will award an honorary doctorate to Raewyn Connell, professor emerita at the University of Sydney (Australia), a relevant reference in the fight for justice, equality and peace and against gender-based violence. The University bestows its highest distinction in recognition of her studies and research on the construction of class and gender hierarchies and masculinities, and as a transgender woman, she contributes to promoting parity in institutional action and increasing diversity in the profiles of awardees.  

The investiture ceremony to make Raewyn Connell an honorary doctor will take place on 17 April 2023, at 9.30 am, in the auditorium of the Ciutadella campus, at a ceremony in which the awardee will be connected online from Sydney (projected onto a large screen above the stage). The event will be streamed via the University’s website and can be followed on social networks, with the hashtag #ConnellHonorisUPF.

Maria Rodó de Zárate, a professor with the Department of Political and Social Sciences, along with Joel Cantó, Shahrzad Goudarzi and Maria Martí, members of the Gender and Inequalities Research Group (GRETA), will give the laudatio speech

Laia de Nadal, UPF rector, will be presiding over the investiture ceremony of Raewyn Connell, for whom Tània Verge, minister of Equality and Feminisms of the Catalan Government and professor at the UPF Department of Political and Social Sciences will be acting as her patron. Maria Rodó de Zárate, a professor with the Department of Political and Social Sciences, along with Joel Cantó, Shahrzad Goudarzi and Maria Martí, members of the Gender and Inequalities Research Group (GRETA), will give the laudatio speech. Once awarded her honorary doctorate, Raewyn Connell will make her acceptance speech. The event, which will include musical performances and audiovisual projections, will conclude with the speech by Laia de Nadal and the rendition of Gaudeamus Igitur by the UPF Choir.

The UPF Board of Governors, on the proposal of the Board of the Department of Political and Social Sciences and the Board of the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences, approved the awarding of the title of honorary doctor by UPF to Raewyn Connell on 9 December 2020. She will be the 20th person UPF has made doctor honoris causa, the highest distinction that the University grants in recognition of a person’s scientific or university training or their values that can be seen to identify with the institution.

A long academic career in which she has held the chairs of Sociology and Education at the University of Sydney

Raewyn Connell (Sydney, 1944), who comes from a family uniting Melbourne’s professional bourgeoisie with rural settlers, graduated from the University of Melbourne and earned a PhD in Sociology from the University of Sydney. She actively participated in the student movement and the New Left of the 1960s, and then worked as a university professor and researcher.

In 1976 she became a full professor of Sociology (in a founding chair) at Macquarie University, where she inaugurated a new department that sought to embody academic democracy, as well as new perspectives in the field. In the early 1990s she moved to the University of California, Santa Cruz, USA, and then returned to lead a chair in Education at the University of Sydney, where she is currently a professor emerita. Throughout her career she has held visiting posts at the universities of Toronto, Harvard and Ruhr-Universität Bochum.

As a sociologist, Raewyn Connell became known for her research into large-scale class dynamics (Ruling Class, Ruling Culture, 1977; Class Structure in Australian History, 1980), and on how class and gender hierarchies are made and re-made in the daily lives of schools (Making the Difference, 1982; Teachers’ Work, 1985). She developed a social theory of gender relations (Gender and Power, 1987; Gender: in World Perspective, 2002/2015), which stresses that gender is a dynamic, large-scale social structure, not just a matter of personal identity.

Creator of the concept of “hegemonic masculinity”

Raewyn Connell is known internationally for her studies on masculinity. She was one of the founders of this field of research and the book Masculinities (1995, 2005) is the best known in this field. She coined the concept of “hegemonic masculinity”, which has been especially influential and sparked great debate, around which she has written about its applications in education, health and the reduction of violence.

Much of her research is based on biographical interviews, but she has also published studies on surveys, historical research, institutional analyses, and social theory. A compilation of her work, which combines several research projects, is Confronting Equality (2011). In 2019 she published The Good University, an attempt to explain how universities work, what has happened to them under the corporate regime, and what alternatives there have been in the past and could be in the future. On the other hand, is scheduled to publish in early May 2023 Raewyn Connell. Research, Politics, Social Change (published by Melbourne University Press), which aims to be a compendium of her work as a researcher over 40 years.

With long-term involvement in the labour movement, Raewyn Connell has been involved in various political and social causes, including the pacifist and feminist movements and support for public education. As a teacher, she has emphasized student control of learning processes and collaborative approaches to knowledge. She has been an advisor on United Nations initiatives on gender equality and peace-making, a member of the Australian Sociological Association (TASA), and president of its predecessor SAANZ. In 2010, the TASA created the biennial Raewyn Connell Award for Best Australian book of sociology.

Raewyn Connell is a fellow of the Australian Academy of Social Sciences and has received the American Sociological Association award for her contribution to the study of sex and gender, and the Australian Sociological Association award for her distinguished services to sociology in Australia. Retired from her professorship at the University of Sydney on 31 July 2014, she is a transgender woman who made the formal transition in the later stages of her life.