Klaus Boehnke
Klaus Boehnke (born April 23, 1951, in Oldenburg, Germany) is a German psychologist and social scientist. Since 2002 he has taught at Constructor University in Bremen (formerly the International University Bremen and Jacobs University Bremen). From 2017 to February 2022 he was Deputy Director of the Center for Sociocultural Research at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow.
He studied English, Russian and Psychology in Saarbrücken, Bochum and Berlin, and completed teacher training in Berlin in 1975. He earned a psychology degree from Berlin University of Technology in 1980, supervised by Jürgen Bortz. In 1985 he received his Doctor of Philosophy in psychology under Rainer K. Silbereisen, and in 1992 he completed habilitation at the Free University of Berlin, earning the right to teach psychology (mentored by Hans Merkens).
Boehnde began his career as a research associate at Berlin University of Technology and then worked as an assistant/associate professor at the Free University of Berlin. He was a DAAD guest lecturer at Humboldt University from 1990 to 1992. In 1993 he joined Chemnitz University of Technology as a professor of Socialization Research and Empirical Social Research. In 2002 he left civil service to become a professor of social science methodology at the private International University Bremen (now Constructor University).
He has taught and visited widely as a guest lecturer, including at the Australian National University (1987), the University of Toronto (1997/98), and the National University of Singapore (2008/9). He served as Secretary General (2000–2008) and then President (2018–2020) of the International Association for Cross-Cultural Psychology (IACCP). He was President of the IAAP Division of Political Psychology (2004–2010) and chaired the German Peace Psychology Association (2005–2013).
Boehnke has received several awards, such as the Fukuhara Award from the International Council of Psychology, a Distinguished Contributions to the International Advancement of Psychology Award, and the Ralph K. White Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Psychological Association. His research focuses on political socialization, social cohesion and value transmission across cultures. He has published about 14 monographs, 7 edited volumes, around 170 peer-reviewed articles, and many book chapters.
He comes from a middle-class family. His father worked in pharmaceutical wholesale, his mother was a high school teacher, and his brother is a family doctor. He is married to Mandy Boehnke, Vice President of Universität Bremen, and they have four children.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 15:18 (CET).