Project coordinator

Professor, Dr

Phone number (direct): +31 30 253 4931
Phone number (department): +31 30 253 4601

E-mail: P.P.M.Leseman@uu.nl

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Paul Leseman was trained as a psychologist. He is the author of a research review paper on efficacy of early childhood care and education for low income and immigrant children, commissioned by the OECD in 2002, and author of a research review on early childhood care and education, commissioned by Eurydice/European Commission in 2009. He frequently acts as an advisor to the Dutch government on day care and preschool education, works with local municipalities to improve preschool education and teacher professionalization, and supports organisations of child day care to increase the quality of care. He was involved as external advisor and evaluator in the EU Comenius Program TODDLER on early years professional education. He was a policy advisor on early childhood care and education to the Taskforce Early Childhood Education and Care of the European Commission. He was advisor to the German Robert Bosch Stiftung and dean of the postgraduate summer school Research and Study Program on Education in Early Childhood of the RBS. Currently he is principal investigator of the Dutch national cohort study Pre-COOL into the effects of early childhood care and education on children’s development and school achievement, starting in 2010. Research publications concern emergent literacy and numeracy, bilingual development, development of executive functions and self-regulation, and effectiveness of home- and center-based preschool education programs.

Paul Leseman is a professor of education, coordinator of the two-year international research master program Educational Sciences and coordinator of the interdisciplinary research focus area Education for Learning Societies at Utrecht University.

PhD student

Utrecht University

Email: y.e.akgunduz@uu.nl

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Emre Akgunduz is a final year PhD student at the Utrecht University School of Economics. His research field is labour economics with a focus on female labour force participation, child care and child care quality.

Professor, Dr

Utrecht University

E-mail: J.Plantenga@uu.nl

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Prof. Dr. Janneke Plantenga is professor of Economics at Utrecht University School of Economics, with a specific focus on Economics of the Welfare State. Her research interest focuses on labour market flexibilisation, the reconciliation of work and family and the (European) social policy. She has written widely on redistribution of unpaid work, changing working time patterns, child care issues and modernising social security. Plantenga has been the main author of the position paper Child Care in a Changing World, commissioned by the Ministry of Social Affairs and employment, 2004, and was co-author of the development of a methodology for the collection of harmonised statistics on child care for Eurostat, 2004. In addition she has published several reports on reconciliation of work and family life, participation effects of child care subsidies, the economics of parental leave and the market for child care. She is the Dutch expert and coordinator of the European Network of Experts on Gender Equality (ENEGE). Plantenga collaborates with Leseman and Van Aken in an integrated multidisciplinary programme of research into the personal, educational and economic benefits of ECEC in The Netherlands, with special funding from Utrecht University.

Prof. Dr. 

Prof. Dr. Marcel van Aken is  professor of developmental psychology at Utrecht University and has specialized in personality development and longitudinal designs. His research focuses on personality development in children, adolescents, and young adults, more specifically the way that transactional relations between personality characteristics and the social environment of a person (i.e., family, peers) interact during development, with successful or less successful development as a result. He is involved with several (international) longitudinal data-sets (sometimes as PI, sometimes as associate). He has been a participant in various Erasmus networks, is member of the Executive Committee of the International Society for the Study of Behavioral Development, and the editor of the journal of that society, the International Journal of Behavioral Development. Van Aken collaborates with Leseman and Plantenga in an integrated multidisciplinary programme of research into the personal, educational and economic benefits of ECEC in The Netherlands, with special funding from Utrecht University.

Dr.

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Dr. Jerry Andriessen is an experienced researcher and project manager, with more than 100 journal and book publications on children’s writing, collaborative learning, ICT in education, argumentation and arguing to learn. Coordinated the LEAD - 6th framework project, and participated as local project leader in 8 other EU-projects since 2000. Was project manager in 3 EU-funded STREPS and scientific coordinator in one integrated project. Participated in the design of 3 ICT environments for supporting argumentation (Digalo, Drew, and CoFFEE). Expert in qualitative and quantitative techniques for analyzing interactions during collaborative learning activities. Experienced in teacher training workshops. 

PhD

E-mail: P.L.slot@uu.nl

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Pauline Slot is a postdoctoral researcher at the department of Educational and Learning Science of Utrecht University. She was involved in the national cohort study pre-COOL into the quality and effects of daycare and preschool education in The Netherlands. Her research interests concern structural quality characteristics, including professional development and organizational climate, curriculum, and process quality of early childhood education and care settings and relations with child development, particularly pre-academic skills, executive functions, self-regulation, and well-being.

Postdoctoral researcher & Lecturer

E-mail: m.l.broekhuizen@uu.nl

Martine Broekhuizen is a postdoctoral researcher at the department of Educational and Learning Sciences of Utrecht University. She recently finished her PhD thesis in which she investigated individual and contextual differences to the effects of early child care quality on children’s socio-emotional development. More in general, her research interests include ECEC quality, parenting beliefs and behaviors, child temperament and socio-emotional development, and child adjustment to the transition to elementary school. Within CARE she will be involved in a study in 9 European countries into the values, beliefs and concerns of parents, teachers and policy representatives regarding ECEC. This study will address the topics of developmental and educational goals, curriculum, quality, inclusiveness of ECEC and perspectives on child well-being, and attempts to identify cross-cultural commonalities and differences.