Mission
Our mission is to offer future generations the best opportunities for personal growth, happiness and mental health. We generate the theoretical knowledge, applications and professional skills to optimize influential environmental factors. Here, we emphasize the immediate environment, such as the family context, and more structural ecological factors, such as poverty and the availability of youth care. We do this through combined and action- and application-oriented research into and together with young people. Understanding and solving development problems happens through synergy between different disciplines and with both feet in society.
Research
The multi-, inter- and transdisciplinary research that we conduct is in line with the unique position that pedagogical sciences have within the behavioural sciences. Our research falls within four core domains:
Everyday Parenting Issues
Youth Resilience
Social Inequality, Inclusion and Diversity
Youth Assistance and Youth Protection
These domains continuously cross-pollinate. We use various innovative methods to answer the complex issues within these domains and are actively working on further methodological developments. In particular, we excel in participatory research and co-creation, intensive longitudinal (experience sampling) and N=1 research and systematic behavioural observation.
Click on a research topic to learn more about our research:
- Participation, community-based initiatives and social entrepreneurship
- Effective media literacy education programs (Movez Lab)
- Intimate relationships, love and sexuality (Love Lab)
- Erasmus SYNC Lab
- Family Solidarity
- Family and inequality
- Youth and Family
- Mental Health of the Youth
- Urban Diversity
- Vital cities and citizens
- Beter beleid met gedragswetenschappen
- Nudging for Healthy Behaviour (BRICS Lab)
- Applied Research Methods and Statistics
- Design as research method
- Measuring Daily Life
Education
Our team plays a significant role in providing education within the bachelor's degree (including Academic PABO) and pre-master's programs in Educational Sciences and the master's specializations in Special Education and Parenting Issues in a Diverse Society. Within the courses, importance is attached to acquiring academic and professional skills. Our team is well-balanced in terms of content, which means we can ensure a good match between the expertise of teachers and education. Thanks to close links with the professional field, we can tailor our education to current issues and combine practice knowledge with research insights.
Impact
Both our research and our education are impact-driven. To deliver this impact, we have structural collaborations with influential stakeholders in the social domain, including the Municipality of Rotterdam and practical institutions in education and research. We supply and evaluate new products and interventions in collaboration with them (including eHealth applications, educational interventions and interventions in practice aimed at professionals), whereby external parties guarantee implementation. In addition, successful science communication and dissemination to the general public and essential stakeholders takes place through strategic partnerships (e.g. NRC education section, Healthy Start initiative).