Ines Schäfer has been working as a predoctoral researcher since June 2023 in the project “Reconfiguration and Internalization of Social Structure (RISS)" at the Institute of Sociology at Goethe University Frankfurt am Main. From April 2021 until July 2023, she has been working in the project "Is Europe Growing Together? Convergence and Divergence of Political Attitudes in Europe" (WEZ) at the Institute of Sociology at Goethe University Frankfurt am Main.

Ines studied sociology in the Bachelor's programme at the University of Bremen and completed a semester abroad at the Université de Lausanne in Switzerland. In March 2021, she completed her Master's degree in Sociology with a focus on European societies at the Free University of Berlin. During her Master's studies, she worked as a student assistant at the Chair of Political Sociology, also at the Free University of Berlin, where she contributed to projects on Corona and civil society, protest events in Germany, political parties in Europe and cleavages in post-crisis Europe, among others. In her Master's thesis, she dealt with politicisation and Europeanisation dynamics in France and Germany in the course of European integration. 

Currently, Ines Schäfer is researching the polarisation of public opinion in a European comparison as part of her dissertation. She is investigating the alignment of various issue attitudes (including economic redistribution, gender relations, immigration/cultural diversity and European integration) in order to identify potential social divides and political conflict lines. Within the RISS project, Ines Schäfer is part of the CoRE team and is responsible for data management and preparation, the technical report as well as coordination and planning tasks. The RISS project is a large-scale research project that focusses on linking social structure analysis and political sociology. The project is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). Further information on the project can be found here: Goethe-Universität — Prof. Dr. Daniela Grunow - Research (uni-frankfurt.de) and on the project homepage: https://www.goethe-university-frankfurt.de/125206870/RISS_Home?locale=en.    

Schäfer, I., Khoudja, Y. & Grunow, D. (2024). Gender attitudes and the new cultural divide in Europe. Social Science Research. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssresearch.2024.103042  

Schäfer, I. (2023): 'Ever more politicized and Europeanized? Public debates over European integration in France and Germany'. In:Houde, A.-M., Laloux, T., Le Corre Juratic, M., Mercenier, H., Pennetrau, D., and A. Versailles (eds.), The politicization of the European Union: from processes to consequences. Brussels: Éditions de l'Université de Bruxelles, pp. 107–127. https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/59861  

Schäfer, I. (2022): Ever More Politicized and Europeanized? Public Debates Over European Integration in France and Germany. Sociology Blog of the MA program "Sociology - European Societies". Available from: https://blogs.fu-berlin.de/sociology/2022/01/10/ever-more-politicized- and-europeanized-public-debates-over-european-integration-in-france-and-germany/ [10.01.2022].

Hutter, S., Teune, S., Daphi, P., Nikolas, A., Schäfer, I., Sommer, M., Steinhilper E. and S. Zajak (2021): Die Zivilgesellschaft in der Krise. Einblicke aus einer Organisationsbefragung zu den Herausforderungen der COVID-19 Pandemie. Forschungsjournal Soziale Bewegungen. https://doi.org/10.1515/fjsb-2021-0024

Hutter, S. and I. Schäfer (2021): 'Cleavage Politics and European Integration'. In: Brack, N. and S. Gürkan (eds.), Theorising the Crises of the European Union. London: Routledge, pp. 63–80.

Hutter, S. and I. Schäfer (2020): Politischer Protest im wiedervereinigten Deutschland. Dossier: Lange Wege der deutschen Einheit. bpb – Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung. Available from: https://www.bpb.de/geschichte/deutsche-einheit/lange-wege-der-deutschen- einheit/47408/politischer-protest [02.06.2020].

Schäfer, I. (2019): 'Olivier Rozenberg: Les députés français et l'Europe. Tristes hémicycles?', In: Deutsch-Französisches Institut (dfi) (ed.), Frankreich Jahrbuch 2018. Wiesbaden: Springer VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, pp. 177–182.