ASSR :: Scholars at ASSR :: PhD Students

Judith Elshout

Judith Elshout (1982) studied Sociology at the University of Amsterdam and obtained her Master’s degree (cum laude) in 2008. Her master thesis entitled ‘McFitness en de geest van het calvinisme: een kwalitatief onderzoek naar fitnesscentra en hoogopgeleide fitnessers in Amsterdam’, discusses the motivation of individuals to workout, and studies the development of the fitness activity and fitness centers. 

Since 2009 Judith participates in the research program ‘Responsible, Engaged Citizens and Inviting, bridging Institutions’. The program is funded by VSB Fonds and supervised by Prof. Dr. Evelien Tonkens and Prof. Dr. Jan Willem Duyvendak. Her PhD-project ‘Sources of Self-Respect in a Meritocracy’ focuses on the possible impact of the structure of meritocratic society on the self-respect of people who occupy a low position on the meritocratic ladder. The research will take place in three deprived urban neighborhoods. The purpose of the study is to find out on what characteristics people who occupy a low position on the meritocratic ladder base their self-respect. The second goal is to study whether the meritocratic ideology plays a role in individual’s self-respect.