In June 2012 two UCU graduates, Anca Minescu and Mieke Maliepaard, received a PhD in social science from Utrecht University.
Anca Minescu, graduated in Social Sciences at UCU in 2002 (summa cum laude), wrote a thesis entitled ‘relative group position and intergroup attitudes in Russia’. Her thesis presents a series of studies on intergroup relations of Russians and so-called titular groups in various republics of the Russian Federation. She found that aspects of relative group position such as group size or structural power arrangements played a crucial role in the mutual attitudes between Russians and titular groups.
Mieke Maliepaard, graduated in Social Sciences at UCU in 2004 (summa cum laude), wrote a thesis, entitled ‘religious trends and social integration: Muslim minorities in the Netherlands’, Mieke analysed survey data and found remarkable stability in Muslims’ religious identification, practice and attitudes across generation and over time. However, embeddedness in the ethnic community was associated with stronger religiosity, whereas engaging in close ties with Dutch majority group members was associated with lower levels of religiosity.
After UCU, both Anca and Mieke followed the Research Master MERM (Migration and Ethnic Relations) at the Graduate school of Social and Behavioural Sciences at Utrecht University, after which they conducted a PhD study at ERCOMER (European Research Centre on Ethnic Relations and Multiculturalism) and ICS (Interuniversity Center for Social Science Theory and Methodology) at Utrecht University. UCU teachers Hagendoorn and Poppe and former UCU teachers Phalet, Lubbers and Raub were involved in supervison.
Anca is currently assistant professor at the Department of Psychology at the University of Limerick in Ireland and Mieke is a postdoctoral researcher at ERCOMER at Utrecht University.
More information on both PhD theses and on the Research Master MERM at Utrecht University can be found at the ERCOMER website: http://www.ercomer.eu.