Dr. Dirk Michel-Schertges, is Associate Professor at the Department of Education, Faculty of Arts at Aarhus University in Copenhagen, Denmark. He holds an MA in Social Sciences and a Doctorate in Educational and Social Sciences from the University of Wuppertal, Germany. His primarily interests include the (re-)construction of identity formations in the light of contemporary processes of alienation within the cultural contexts of aesthetic education/Bildung, art, educational policy, educational/pedagogical and social theory, political socialization, political education, social inequality, and biographical and historical approaches to the concept of Bildung. He is, inter alia, board member of the Research Committee 36 “Alienation Theory and Research” and RC 37 “Sociology of Arts” in the International Sociological Association.