Dr. Maria Kontos received the Ph.D. at Frankfurt/M University, with a doctoral thesis on the issue of migration politics in Europe. The focus of her work is on the issue of ethnic, women´s and social entrepreneurship. She worked in research projects on the gender aspects of migrants’ integration in the labour market and ethnic business. Moreover, she has worked on issues of Greek migration, migrant women in Greece, and Greek migration policy.
She is lecturer for sociology at the University of Frankfurt on the issues of migration, women’s integration in the labour market, self-employment, and the biographical method. She was charged with the coordination of the TSER-project “Self-employment activities of women and minorities: their success or failure in relation to social citizenship policies”. She has published several articles on women in ethnic business, on ethnic entrepreneurship and intrinsic motivation, on biographical and motivational resources for self-employment projects on the biographical method and on Greek migration.
Recent publications related to the research theme:

Demands of Women in Migration. Greek women in the framework of the Greek migrant movement in the Federal Republic of Germany. In: Center for Women´s Studies and Research Diotima (ed.) The Gender of Rights. Power, Women and the Notion of Citizenship. Athens 1999, Nefeli, p. 277-292 (In Greek)

Bildungsprozesse, Abbrüche und die Motivation zur Selbständigkeit. Überlegungen zum Konzept biographischer Ressourcen. In: "Selbständigkeitsprojekte" Hessische Blätter für Volksbildung, 1/2000, p. 44-57

Migration als Emanzipationsprojekt? Vergleiche im Generationen- und Geschlechterverhältnis. In: Dausien, B., Calloni, M., Friese, M., (eds) Migration, Biographie, Geschlecht. Beiträge zur Arbeits- und Lebenswelt von Frauen in Europa. IBL-Reihe, Bremen 2000, p. 169-199

Von der "mithelfenden Familienangehörigen" zur selbständig erwerbstätigen Migrantin. Ein sozialer Transformationsprozess in der Migration. In: Büttner, Christian and Meyer, Berthold (ed.) Integration durch Partizipation. „Ausländische Mitbürger“ in demokratischen Gesellschaften, Campus, Frankfurt/Main / New York, 2001, p.163-186

Sammenlignede overvejelser over kodifikationsmetoden i Grounded Theory og i den biografiske metode (Grounded Theory und biographische Methode in der soziologischen Forschung) . In Dansk Sociologie 3/2001 (In Danish), S. 31-52

Co-editor with Ursula Apitzsch: “Self-employment, gender and Migration. Women in Non-Privileged Self-employment” International Review of Sociology, Special Issue, 1/2003
Considering the concept of entrepreneurial resources in ethnic business: Motivation as biographical resource? In: U. Apitzsch, M. Kontos (eds) “Self-employment, Gender and Migration. Women in Non-Privileged Self-employment” Sonderband der International Review of Sociology, 1/2003, p. 183-204

Considerations on the biographical embeddedness of ethnic entrepreneurship. In: Ursula Apitzsch, et al. (Ed.) Biographical Methods and Professional Practice. An international perspective, Polity Press, London 2004, p. 57-72

Ethnic Entrepreneurship and Self-employment policies in Germany. In: Monder Ram and David Smallbone (eds) Ethnic Minority Enterprise: Policy in Practice. Special Issue of the Journal Entrepreneurship and Regional Development 2/2003, 119-136
Erwerbswirtschaftliche Selbständigkeit von Migrantinnen. Motivation und Lernprozesse
In U. Apitzsch, M. Jansen (Eds.) Migration, Biographie und Geschlechterverhältnisse, Münster, Westfälisches Dampfboot 2003, (p. 111-142)

Biographical Analysis of Quality of Life Processes in Migration, in Wolfgang Glatzer, Susanne von Below, Matthias Stoffregen (eds.) Challenges for Quality of Life in the Contemporary World. Advances in quality-of-life studies, theory and research, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht/Boston/London, p. 139-150

Übergänge von der abhängigen zur selbständigen Arbeit in der Migration. Sozialstrukturelle und biographische Aspekte,
In: Th. Geisen (Ed.) Arbeitsmigration. WanderarbeiterInnen auf dem Weltmarkt für Arbeitskraft IKO-verlag für interkulturelle Kommunikation, Frankfurt a.M., London (forthcomming)

Transkulturelle Aspekte der Unternehmensgründung von Frauen
In B. Blättl-Mink (Ed.) Frauen, Gründung, Förderung. Transfer zwischen Wissenschaft und Praxis der Förderung, (forthcomming)

Enterprising Greek Migrant Women
In Evangelia Tastsoglou (Ed.) En/gendering Greek Diaspora Communities; Work, Community and Identity in the Greek Diaspora Edwin Mellen Press (forthcoming)