Her national and international research focuses on aspects of the curriculum and quality of Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) provisions. Particularly, she is interested in the relations between structural quality characteristics, for instance the role of continuous professional development, and process quality. She also looks into the effects of ECEC curriculum and quality on children's developmental outcomes, specifically language, self-regulation, and executive functioning skills. She is especially interested in the nature, causes and impact of early emerging social and educational inequalities in the context of socioeconomic, cultural and diversity. She studies issues of cultural and linguistic diversity and inclusiveness in the (pre)school classroom and the role of professionals. Her international work includes the development of curriculum and professional development interventions aimed to improve ECEC quality and inclusive practices. She collaborates with colleagues from Denmark (prof. Dorthe Bleses), Germany (prof. Yvonne Anders and prof. Ulla Licandro), Greece (prof. Konstantinos Petrogiannis and Effie Penderi), Norway (Helga Norheim), Poland (Olga Wyslowska and Krzystof Bulkowski), Portugal (Cecilia Aguiar, Joana Cadima and Gil Nata), United States (prof. Laura Justice and Kelly Purtell) and United Arabic Emirates (Antje von Suchodoletz).
She acts as consultant or advisor at the local level (several municipalities), national level (Ministries of Education and of Social Affairs, The Advisory Council of Education) and the international level (EU DG for Education and Culture, EU ECEC working group, OECD, Irish Ministry of Children, Equality, Diversity, Integration and Youth, and Oregon State Department of Education).
Currently, she is project leader of the Dutch study into quality of child care (LKK) funded by the Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment. She is also involved in the ongoing national pre-COOL project. She was involved in the European H2020 ISOTIS project and the European FP7 CARE project. She is Early Childhood Domain Chair of Dynamics of Youth
Blogs voor EarlyYearsBlog.nl:
15-09-2023 Wie doet er al aan 'Singeren'? Vergroten van spelbetrokkenheid van jonge kinderen
01-10-2021 Meer bewegen is gezond voor lichaam en geest
20-08-2021 Waarom is wachten zo moeilijk voor peuters?
21-01-2021 Baby's in de kinderopvang: wat draagt bij aan een hogere kwaliteit?
21-8-2020 Als mijn kind maar gelukkig is
8-6-2020 Discriminatie: samen kunnen we hier iets aan doen
22-5-2020 Kansenongelijkheid aanpakken in de groep
16-3-2020 Het opvangen van kinderen nu we geconfronteerd worden met corona
28-02-2020 Inspirerend en kleurrijk voorbeeld uit Brussel inclusieve kinderopvang ten top
8-11-2019 Alle talen welkom
5-7-2019 Kinderen met een zorgbehoefte in de kinderopvang
24-5-2019 Hoe eerder hoe beter
10-5-2019 Investeren in de kinderopvang loont!
26-10-2018 Diversiteit en inclusie. Hoe zorg je ervoor dat ieder kind erbij hoort
8-10-2018 Culturele diversiteit en vooroordelen
29-09-2018 Drie redenen om onze blogs te lezen
Webinars:
12-04-2021 Een kansrijke start voor baby's en dreumesen