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NRO grants Marijn van Dijk and Gijs Huitsing for research into language acquisition and well-being among young refugee pupils and an effective anti-bullying program for secondary education

05 September 2018

The Netherlands Initiative for Education Research (NRO) has awarded two grants to researchers of the faculty BSS in the context of the 'Long-term practical education research program'. Developmental psychologist Marijn van Dijk receives the grant for her research proposal 'Young refugee pupils in primary education; language acquisition and well-being'. Gijs Huitsing (sociology) receives the NRO grant for his research 'An effective anti-bullying program for secondary education'.

Marijn van Dijk: 'Young refugee pupils in primary education; language acquisition and well-being'

Young refugee students are a vulnerable group in primary education and teachers find it difficult to meet these children’s educational needs. First, there is a lack of recent and integrated tools for teaching Dutch as a second language (“Dutch L2”), particularly for the first grades of primary education. Second, teachers report that young refugee students often have difficulties to initiate adequate learning behavior. These teachers observe more conflicts and less task-directed behavior in international classes than in regular classes, leading to less optimal learning behavior, and they often suspect underlying distress or trauma. For this reason, they express the need to monitor and stimulate well-being in this particular group of students.

The aim of this project is to combine and further developed materials in a Dutch L2 package for grades 1-2 (of the Dutch school system) and to investigate its effectiveness. Both language and social-emotional well-being are of crucial importance for child development and school learning, and have an intricate relationship.

Gijs Huitsing: An effective anti-bullying program for secondary education

Bullying in schools is a complex problem with severe short- and long-term negative consequences for victims and bullies. Validated school-wide anti-bullying programs for secondary education are lacking in the Netherlands. The central question of this project is whether the problem of bullying in Dutch secondary schools can be prevented and solved through a combined theoretical and empirical elaboration of the KiVa anti-bullying program for secondary education. The goal is to further develop, pilot, and implement the program in cooperation with partners from practice and secondary schools.


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Last modified:05 September 2018 11.23 a.m.
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