Team and contact Youth Education & Life Skills

The researchers affiliated with our community come from a wide and diverse range of backgrounds. These include educationalists, pedagogues, social geographers, doctors, historians, scientists and more. This enables us to examine issues from a variety of perspectives.

The Youth Education & Life Skills team consists of the following core members:

Chairs

  • prof. dr. Sanne Akkerman

  • Sanne focuses on the power of young people’s multiple interests and identity development within and across different social contexts, and on how mutual dialogue, local community-building and institutional partnerships can contribute to this.

  • dr. Tjitske de Groot PhD

  • My work focuses on the question of how contact between people can help to reduce prejudice, discrimination and polarisation. I conduct qualitative research into what that contact looks like in practice, both offline and online, and how it can be structured so that it works for everyone.

  • dr. S. (Saro) Lozano Parra

  • (from 1 September 2026)
    Saro Lozano Parra is a lecturer in citizenship and education and works at the Faculty of Humanities in the Department of History and Art History, and at the Graduate School of Teaching. Through his teaching and research, he hopes to contribute to the development of young people and their democratic education, always in dialogue with others and with the world around them.

Postdoc onderzoeker

  • dr. Pascale van Zantvliet

  • I have joined the community working on youth education and life skills as a postdoctoral researcher and project assistant. I am passionate about education and have taught at secondary school, higher professional education and university level. I look forward to fostering (new) partnerships between researchers, professionals and young people in the field of youth education and life skills, and in doing so to contribute to inspiring and valuable education.

Contact

Wil je meer weten, actief deelnemen aan onze community of subsidie aanvragen voor een project? Stuur dan een e-mail naar: youtheducation.lifeskills@uu.nl.