Mariëtte de Haan is full professor intercultural education at the Department of Education & Pedagogy at Utrecht University since 2018. She held an Endowed Chair on issues of Youth and Education in the multicultural society at Utrecht University between 2008 and 2017. She started her career at the Educational Research Department at Utrecht University (UU) while also coordinating a research based collaboration with the Universidad Nacional in Costa Rica. In this early phase, literacy and equity in national and international contexts was a main focus. For her PhD research (Learning as Cultural Practice, 1999), a collaboration between the UU and the Department of Educational Research (DIE) in Mexico was established, and her fieldwork with the Mazahuas, a Mexican Native American group allowed her to develop a focus on cultural diversity in learning and socialization practices.
Overall, her work focuses on processes of learning and socialisation in both formal and informal educational settings with an emphasis on cultural diversity and the dynamics of processes of socialisation in changing social worlds. A current theme that is addressed in this research is how, in cases of recent migration, informal learning and socialisation patterns take on new forms in response to new cultural ‘contact zones’ and different rhythms of ‘acculturation’ between generations. In 'the reconstruction of parenting after migration' (2011) she shows, for instance, how immigrant parents reshape their parenting practices in the Dutch context while making use of multiple cultural traditions. See for instance, the projects De Pedagogische Gemeenschap in de Multi etnische wijk (in Dutch) or Shabab-van-nu for examples of this line of research.
Additionally, formal (multi-ethnic) educational settings are studied in which the focus is on diversity in the construction of knowledge, the discursive and interactive construction of ethnicity, and diversity in forms of reasoning (e.g. Reshaping diversity in a local classroom, 2005). Since she adopted project leadership of UNION, a city wide initiative to counter radicalisation and polarisation in Utrecht schools, this line of research has been shifting to issues of polarisation in Dutch schools.
A recurring theme in her research is how institutional learning relates to community or family learning and how normative traditions of learning and education relate to more spontaneously created environments for learning. For instance, what spontaneous forms of teaching-learning do students develop while being in school, but not necessarily acting according to the normative traditions of school (The authoring of school, 2005)? Or how do new practices of learning that youth develop online relate to traditional formal practices of education (Challenging our ideals of Connectivity, 2014)?
De Haan adopts a vision on learning and development in which individual and collective processes of development and learning are closely connected. Educational practices must be seen as developing within and contributing to the conditions of the wider socio-cultural communities they are part of, such as those associated with the knowledge society. Institutional education should therefore constantly be aware of the conditions under which young people learn or knowledge is produced outside of education (Onderwijs in de toekomst, The future of education, 2007).
Academic career
2018 - Full Professor of Intercultural Education at the Department of Education & Pedagogy at Utrecht University
2008 - 2017 Professor of Intercultural Education, Special Professorial Chair on account of ‘Het Haagsche Genootschap’ at the Langeveld Institute for the Study of Education and Development in Childhood and Adolescence, Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, Utrecht University
2005 - Associate Professorat the Langeveld Institute for the Study of Education and Development in Childhood and Adolescence, Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Utrecht University.
1999 – 2005 Senior Researcher at the Department of General Social Sciences Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Utrecht University (NWO post-doc grant).
1992 – 1997 Ph D Researcher at the Department of General Social Sciences, Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Utrecht University.
1988 - 1992 Junior Researcher at Department Educational Sciences/ISOR and Department of Psychonomy, Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Utrecht University.