Sociology - VUB

20/10/2026

(English below) Zaterdag 21 november 2026 organiseren we aan de VUB een studiedag over relationele ethiek en kinderrechten in de jeugdzorg.

Twee thema’s, één vraag: hoe behandelen we kinderen met waardigheid, ook in de moeilijkste omstandigheden?

📖 Voor onze kinderen (Nederlands, met vertaling naar het Frans)
🌍 Stemmen uit Palestina (enkel in het Engels)
📅 Zaterdag 21 november 2026, van 9u30 tot 16u30
📍 VUB-campus Etterbeek, Gebouw Q, Aula QB, Pleinlaan 2, 1050 Brussel
💶 Inschrijven kan via [email protected]
* 65 euro: lunch, het boek Voor onze kinderen en verzending inbegrepen
* 40 euro: lunch inbegrepen

Meer info: https://brispo.research.vub.be/en/studiedag-relationele-ethiek-en-kinderrechten-in-de-jeugdzorg
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On Saturday 21 November 2026, we are holding a study day at VUB on relational ethics and children’s rights in youth care.

Two themes, one question: how do we treat children with dignity, even in the hardest circumstances?

📖 Voor onze kinderen (in Dutch, with French translation)
🌍 Voices from Palestine (English only)
📅 Saturday 21 November 2026, 9.30am to 4.30pm
📍 VUB Etterbeek campus, Building Q, Aula QB, Pleinlaan 2, 1050 Brussels
💶 To register, email [email protected]
* €65: lunch, the book Voor onze kinderen and postage included
* €40: lunch included

More information: https://brispo.research.vub.be/en/studiedag-relationele-ethiek-en-kinderrechten-in-de-jeugdzorg

The event will be held in Dutch and English. // Het evenement vindt plaats in het Nederlands en Engels.

19/10/2026

𝗜𝘀 𝗯𝗲𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗼𝘄𝗻 𝗯𝗼𝘀𝘀 𝗴𝗼𝗼𝗱 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗵𝗲𝗮𝗹𝘁𝗵? 🤔 The answer depends on what kind of self-employed you are, what health outcome we’re investigating, your socio-demographic profile, how your career unfolds,...

💡🔬 𝗕𝗥𝗜𝗦𝗣𝗢 𝗥𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗷𝗲𝗰𝘁 𝗦𝗽𝗼𝘁𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁!
Time for another project in our BRISPO Spotlight series! Each month, we highlight one of ongoing research projects. This month, we present an FWO Junior Postdoctoral Fellowship, now two years into its three-year run, on self-employment and health.

📌 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗷𝗲𝗰𝘁: Self-employment variety and health consequences: A comprehensive study of career trajectories and household dynamics
𝗥𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵𝗲𝗿: Jessie Gevaert
𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗺𝗼𝘁𝗼𝗿(𝘀): Christophe Vanroelen
𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗷𝗲𝗰𝘁 𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲: 2024-2027 | [Research Foundation Flanders - FWO]
𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗷𝗲𝗰𝘁 𝘀𝘂𝗺𝗺𝗮𝗿𝘆: “Self-employment” sounds like one category, but covers very different realities: solo self-employed, employers, short self-employment stints, or lifelong entrepreneurs, stable businesses and precarious arrangements. This project investigates how these different forms and career trajectories shape self-employed’s health in Belgium and in Sweden.

✅ 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 the project has 𝗮𝗰𝗵𝗶𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗱 𝘀𝗼 𝗳𝗮𝗿
📄 A peer-reviewed article in Social Science & Medicine, in collaboration with co-authors from Karolinska Institutet thanks to a Forte visiting researcher grant: “Not all self-employment is equal: using Swedish administrative data, we identified four types of self-employment, each with a different cardiovascular health risk” 🔗 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2025.118182

📚 A forthcoming book chapter, "From Margins to Mainstream? OHS Challenges in the Solo Self-Employed Workforce", co-authored with Melody Almroth, Constanze Eib, and Peter van der Zwan, in the Springer Handbook “Occupational Health in a New World of Work”.

🎤 A poster presentation on gender, gender identities and depression in self-employment at the “Health in Entrepreneurship Research Forum” at Paris School of Business!

🤝 And a series of related publications, adjacent to the project's theme relating to a.o. in-work poverty and mental health (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2025.116745) and digital labour platform workers (https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-025-23916-5).

🔜 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁'𝘀 𝗻𝗲𝘅𝘁?
Our application for access to the KSZ-BCSS (Crossroads Bank for Social Security) data has been approved. Jessie is now working with these data on further empirical analyses of self-employment careers and health in Belgium. Stay tuned!

𝗠𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗶𝗻𝗳𝗼: https://brispo.research.vub.be/en/self-employment-variety-and-health-consequences-a-comprehensive-study-of-career-trajectories-and

📢 𝗙𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗼𝘄 𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗕𝗥𝗜𝗦𝗣𝗢 𝗥𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗷𝗲𝗰𝘁 𝗦𝗽𝗼𝘁𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝘀𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗱𝗶𝘀𝗰𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵 𝘀𝗵𝗮𝗽𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗶𝗻𝘀𝘁𝗶𝘁𝘂𝘁𝗲'𝘀 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸.

09/10/2026

Big news from BRISPO! 🎉 Bryce Bettens and Maya Borrizée have both been awarded Research Foundation Flanders - FWO PhD Fellowships. Congratulations!

📍 Bryce (supervisor: Prof. Sylvie Gadeyne) will study how migrants' health and mortality change from arrival to later life. He will link population registers, census data and GP data from Intego to compare disease and survival across migration waves, countries of origin and generations.

📍 Maya (supervisors: Prof. Dieter Vandebroeck and Prof. Jessy Siongers) will look at how children take part in acquiring taste. Her fieldwork covers shoe stores, parent interviews and card games with children aged 5-11, and she asks how class and gender shape fashion taste.

You can find more information here:

Congratulations to Bryce Bettens and Maya Borrizée, who were both granted FWO PhD Fellowships!

28/09/2026

📢 Deadline for the IMISCOE Annual Conference at VUB extended to 12 October 2026

The conference titled "United for Human Rights and Global Equity" will take place in Brussels, on 6-9 July 2027, and will be hosted by the Brussels Institute for Social and Population Studies (BRISPO) and the Brussels Interdisciplinary Research Centre on Migration and Minorities (BIRMM) at Vrije Universiteit Brussel.

Researchers working on migration, human rights, and global equity now have time until 12 October 2026 to submit individual papers and panel or workshop proposals.

Full call for papers:
www.imiscoe.org/events/imiscoe-events/2688-24th-imiscoe-annual-conference

24/09/2026

🔴 Join us 18–20 Nov at UCLouvain for the Joint IneqKill & Quetelet Conference: *How Inequality Kills*

Explore health inequalities across time & space with Johan Mackenbach (keynote), Debarati Guha-Sapir & Sean Clouston (roundtable) alongside presentations from scholars across demography, history, sociology, economics, and epidemiology.

Registration is still open! 📍Louvain-la-Neuve 🇧🇪 https://uclouvain.be/fr/instituts-recherche/iacchos/chaire-quetelet-2026
[email protected]

Inscrivez-vous ici !Register here!

16/09/2026

𝗡𝗲𝘄𝗩𝗼𝗶𝗰𝗲𝘀 𝘀𝘂𝗿𝘃𝗲𝘆: 𝗙𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁 𝗥𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱 𝗥𝗮𝗳𝗳𝗹𝗲 𝗥𝗲𝘀𝘂𝗹𝘁𝘀 𝗔𝗻𝗻𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗰𝗲𝗱!
We have just announced the results of the second-round NewVoices survey raffle. The survey was conducted among newcomers in Belgium.
The winning codes are now available on our website: https://brispo.research.vub.be/en/newvoices-survey-second-round-raffle-results-announced-cloned
If you took part in the study, please check whether your code appears on the list of winners and follow the instructions on the BRISPO website for information on how to claim your €200 voucher.
𝗜𝗳 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗱𝗶𝗱 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝘁𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝗽𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝘂𝗿𝘃𝗲𝘆 𝗯𝘂𝘁 𝗺𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝗕𝗲𝗹𝗴𝗶𝘂𝗺 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝟭𝟬 𝘆𝗲𝗮𝗿𝘀, 𝘄𝗲 𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝘁𝗼 𝗽𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗶𝗽𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝘁𝘂𝗱𝘆 (https://vub.fra1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_9mebFhk6MHSmf4i).

The winning numerical codes are listed below. If your code appears on the list, congratulations - you have won a €200 voucher.

15/09/2026

💡🔬 𝗕𝗥𝗜𝗦𝗣𝗢 𝗥𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗷𝗲𝗰𝘁 𝗦𝗽𝗼𝘁𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁!
It's time for another project featured in our BRISPO Spotlight series! Each month, we highlight one of the ongoing research projects carried out within BRISPO. This month, we present a PhD project "From blue collar to no collar? Understanding joblessness as a class position across Europe" asking a question class analysis has long overlooked: what does it mean to be jobless, not just unemployed, but structurally excluded from the labour market?

𝗥𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵𝗲𝗿:
Richard Carrère
𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗺𝗼𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘀:
Prof. Pieter-Paul Verhaeghe, Prof. Eva Van Belle
📅 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗷𝗲𝗰𝘁 𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲:
2024-2028 | Research Foundation Flanders - FWO PhD project

🌍 Across Europe, a substantial share of working-age adults are without paid employment, yet this fact remains under-theorised within social class research. Individuals who are unemployed, inactive, sick or disabled, or engaged in care work are typically recoded to their last occupation, assigned their household reference person's class position, or excluded from analyses altogether. This project starts from the premise that joblessness is not only shaped by social class but also reshapes class positions in turn, and sets out to trace how, and through which mechanisms, this happens.

The first strand assesses the causal effect of unemployment on mental health and subjective well-being, drawing on longitudinal data from the UK and Germany. Crucially, it examines how social class generates heterogeneity in these effects, disentangling the mechanisms that unfold over the life course and structure unequal penalties. The second strand zooms out to the macro level, asking how the penalties associated with joblessness vary across European societies depending on welfare arrangements and deservingness discourses (that is, how symbolic structures shape differing wellbeing and material penalties for unemployed and jobless individuals). Finally, drawing on Belgian administrative data, the project builds a fuller picture of how periods of labour market activity and inactivity are patterned across gender and occupational position.

Together, these strands aim to build a framework linking social class to non-work, shedding new light on patterns of stratification and inequality in Europe.

𝗠𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗶𝗻𝗳𝗼: https://brispo.research.vub.be/en/from-blue-collar-to-no-collar-understanding-joblessness-as-a-class-position-across-europe
📢 𝗙𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗼𝘄 𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗕𝗥𝗜𝗦𝗣𝗢 𝗥𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗷𝗲𝗰𝘁 𝗦𝗽𝗼𝘁𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝘀𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗱𝗶𝘀𝗰𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵 𝘀𝗵𝗮𝗽𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗶𝗻𝘀𝘁𝗶𝘁𝘂𝘁𝗲'𝘀 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸.

People without paid employment are a significant share of working-age adults in Europe. Yet, thejobless have been remarkably absent from class analysis. This is

19/08/2026

𝗙𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗖𝗮𝗺𝗽 𝘁𝗼 𝗖𝗮𝗺𝗽𝘂𝘀 𝗦𝘂𝗿𝘃𝗲𝘆: 𝗶𝗣𝗮𝗱 𝗟𝗼𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘆 𝗪𝗶𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗿𝘀
As part of the From Camp to Campus project, we have held the first round of the prize draw among respondents to our survey. Three iPads have been awarded, and a second prize draw will be held at a later stage.

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝘄𝗶𝗻𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗰𝗼𝗱𝗲𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲:
292879
670506
831104

If your code is one of the winning codes, please visit our website for detailed instructions on how to claim your prize: https://brispo.research.vub.be/en/from-camp-to-campus-survey-ipad-lottery-winners

18/08/2026

David De Coninck, Lise-Lore Steeman, Pieter-Paul Verhaeghe (BRISPO), Jan Van Bavel & Leen d'Haenens found in their new study, published in Ethnic and Racial Studies, that discrimination not only reflects failed tolerance but also moral reasoning that treats fairness as something migrants must earn. The findings bridge deservingness research with work on culturalist and color-blind racism, suggesting that reducing discrimination requires contesting the moral logics that legitimize it.
Link to the study:

Public acceptance of discrimination is typically treated as a reflection of prejudice. We argue it is better understood as a moral judgment about deservingness – a grammar through which exclusion i...

16/07/2026

𝐇𝐨𝐰 𝐝𝐨 𝐀𝐈 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐝𝐢𝐠𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐥 𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐚 𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐞 𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐨𝐟 𝐦𝐢𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧?

A new article by Tuba Bircan and Anna Triandafyllidou has been published in The Conversation, discussing how artificial intelligence increasingly uses digital data sources - from mobile phone records and satellite imagery to social media activity and administrative data - to analyse migration. These technologies create new possibilities for understanding migration patterns, but they also shape what becomes visible and what remains missing. AI does not observe migration directly; it learns from the data it receives, including the assumptions and limitations embedded in those datasets.

Key messages:

- AI does not observe migration directly; it learns from existing data sources and their underlying assumptions.

- Digital trace data can complement traditional migration statistics but cannot replace information on lived experiences and motivations.

- Responsible AI governance requires combining multiple data sources rather than relying on any single dataset.

𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐥𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧:
https://theconversation.com/how-ai-and-digital-data-shape-our-understanding-of-migration-284932

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐢𝐞𝐜𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐛𝐚𝐬𝐞𝐝 𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐩𝐞𝐞𝐫-𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰𝐞𝐝 𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐥𝐞:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15562948.2026.2689658

As Canada advances its national AI strategy, we must ask what digital migration data reveal, and what they leave unseen.