Andrea M. Maccarini holds a Ph.D. in Sociology and Social Policy (University of Bologna), and is currently a Full Professor of Sociology at the Department Associate Chair and Program Director for graduate studies in Social Work at the University of Padova, Department of Political Science, Law and International Studies. At the University of Padova he is also head of the Social Sciences classes at the Galilean School of Higher Studies. He is on the teaching board of the Ph.D. in Sociology and Social Research at the University of Bologna, and has been a Visiting Scholar at various universities, including the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), Boston University, and the Humboldt-Universität Berlin. He is a board member of IACR (International Association for Critical Realism) and collaborator of the Center for Social Ontology. He is also a bureau member and Associate Chair of OECD-Ceri (Center for Educational Reform and Innovation), and a member of the editorial board for various journals of sociology and the related social sciences. His current research interests lie in the following fields: a) social theory: He has been a co-author in the Social Morphogenesis series recently published by Springer, and writes extensively in this domain; b) education: he has published extensively both in the field of education policy and on socialization processes and identity building. He is currently coordinating the Italian part of an OECD-led investigation on character skills among adolescents in various countries. He is collaborating in field research on the generation of ‘millennials’ and their personal and social identity; c) cultural change: he is currently writing on the connection between war, violence and human rights in the XXI century. He is also working on a book about post-human cultural trends, reflexivity and socialization processes.