Vacancies Sector Plan Social Sciences

Resilience in youth

What conditions must be met for children and adolescents to grow up healthily and happily? How do individual factors such as personality traits or genetic predisposition support positive development, and what is the role of external factors such as a person's social network in this? Why do we see positive development in some young people, despite risks and setbacks? Individual and contextual perspectives, as well as normative and atypical developmental trajectories, must be studied to elucidate the mechanisms and processes underlying resilience. A person-environment perspective applied to healthy young people but also to young people for whom many risk factors are present helps us to understand why some young people do well despite risks or setbacks. This, in turn, can help us to recognise risks early and to develop effective interventions that promote resilience in young people. The key questions guiding our work in this theme are:

• How do individual and contextual conditions interact in shaping child to early adult development?
• What are risks and protective factors for growing up healthily and happily? Why do some young people develop very well despite risks? What role do parents and peers play in strengthening individual resilience?
• How can young people be supported to grow into adults who participate successfully in a rapidly changing world and under various forms of adversity?
• How can young people make optimal use of the opportunities available to them, and how can inequalities be avoided in the process?

A better understanding of how dynamic interactions between young people and their environments drive development helps us support children and adolescents in their growth into adults who make valuable contributions to today's and tomorrow's societies. This perspective requires collaboration across disciplinary boundaries so that the individual - traditionally the focus of Psychology - and the social context - the focus of Sociology, are well represented, as is expertise on what it takes to grow up healthily and happily, the core of the Pedagogical sciences. To this end, we therefore bring together researchers from the departments of Sociology, Pedagogical and Educational Sciences, and Psychology.

In addition to participating in existing teaching in the departments and in the interdisciplinary Research Master, the newly appointed assistant professors will be encouraged to organise summer or winter schools on the theme (Resilience in Youth), aiming to enthuse more students from our own faculty, as well as from related disciplines, for the Research Master and the Master's programmes.

Apart from making fundamental contributions to youth development research, we also aim to build bridges - within Dutch academia by capitalising on our collaboration in consortia (e.g. CID and GUTS, two NWO Gravity grant programmes), with research centres such as the NSCR and NIDI, with other partners in the knowledge chain such as NHL/Stenden and Hanze Universities of Applied Sciences, and with the wider public by investing in collaboration with primary and secondary schools, mental health institutions and organisations for youth with disabilities.

Social transition and behavioural change

Our society faces profound changes due to climate change, international conflicts, migration, digitalisation, an ageing population, an increase in polarisation and a decline in trust in the democratic rule of law. In recent decades, governments, civil society,businesses and academics have devised many new policies and interventions, ranging from national policy changes and regional cooperation structures to experiments with new organisational forms and alternative approaches to the governance of local communities and the leadership of work teams. But changing social structures proves time and again more difficult than expected, partly because of phenomena such as polarisation and social unrest. Realising sustainable social change makes it necessary for institutions to take into account the growing behavioural insight, and for (intervention) research to take more account of the institutional-organisational context.

Our research therefore focuses not only on better understanding behaviour and behavioural change, but also on understanding why and under what circumstances similar policies and interventions do not generate the intended effects, on providing insight to increase the likelihood of successful sustainable transition. The focus is also on how intended effects of transitions can be sustained in the long term. Questions central to the theme are: How do dynamics at different levels of social aggregation (system, organisation, group and individual) influence each other? What does this mean for the way interventions at these levels can be positioned in relation to each other? How can administrative processes at different levels of (internal) governance, innovation policy, organisational change and behavioural interventions be meaningfully aligned to drive transition? How can we ensure that trust in the democratic rule of law is maintained during these transitions? What processes of inclusion and exclusion take place in different phases of transitions? How can we ensure that transitions and behavioural change take place?

In terms of education, we expect candidates to engage in the implementation and coordination of the various educational programmes that address issues of social transition and behavioural change from different disciplines, in particular Psychology, Pedagogy and Sociology. They will also contribute to promoting cross-programme models of transdisciplinary education.

Besides contributing to the regular teaching programmes within the Faculty's various programmes, the newly recruited UDs will also strengthen teaching in other ways within this theme. Firstly, they will contribute to the Faculty's educational innovation process initiated in 2018, in which strong efforts have been made to develop new, cross-programme models of transdisciplinary education around the theme of sustainable social transitions and behavioural change. These models are

• The Societal Challenges Labs (SCLs), an innovative didactic concept for transdisciplinary education in undergraduate and graduate courses available. SCLs are based on problem-based project learning around the development of evidence-based advice for solving a policy problem provided by external stakeholders (experts, policymakers, experts by experience).

• The Transdisciplinary PhD Training Programme Sustainable Cooperation has a thematic focus on societal resilience and focuses on the interaction between institutional transitions and behavioural change. Participating in this programme are the national research schools of psychology (KLI), sociology (ICS), history (Posthumus) and philosophy (OZSW).

• The Professional Learning Community (PLC) Teaching Transdisciplinarity is a cross-disciplinary platform and network for teachers who use transdisciplinary issues and approaches in their teaching. The PLC organises meetings where best practices are shared and new didactic developments are discussed. Also, participants develop joint teaching initiatives, such as summer/winter schools, master classes.

Secondly, the UDs will contribute to knowledge development in the outlined domain. This will focus on themes and issues that transcend disciplinary perspectives, related to the analysis of resilience and sustainability issues in a wide range of policy domains, in particular work, inclusion, health and well-being, education and energy.

Mental disorders

Demand for mental health care is rising and access to care is under pressure. A lot of specialised care goes to mild problems, while people with serious problems often do not get the help they need and (risk) falling out of society. It is more important than ever to promote inclusion and prevent mental health problems as much as possible on the one hand, and to provide tailor-made care ('stepped care' or 'matched care') on the other: light where possible, intensive where necessary. Moreover, this calls for social reflection and exploration of possibilities to stimulate social changes, enabling people with (severe) mental problems to get better support in their wider social network. This topical issue requires integration of sociological, (ortho)pedagogical, educational, and labour, clinical, organisational, neuro-- and developmental psychological knowledge.

Sometimes psychological dysregulation is a logical response to stressful experiences, but it can also lead to serious disabling symptoms. Here, it is important to include the context and processes that may contribute to the onset and persistence of psychological symptoms in the conceptualisation of the problem, in addition to the pattern of symptoms. Within the Behavioural and Social Sciences of the University of Groningen, research will therefore be conducted on the theme of Mental Disorders from a broad and integrated perspective in the coming years.We are looking for university lecturers who want to conduct research into questions such as:

• What factors influence the onset, persistence and recurrence of mental distress and dysregulation?
• What is the state of education around mental health classifications and drug and other treatments?
• How do we promote inclusion in education, the labour market and society of children and adults with mental disorders?
• How do education and work affect the onset and progression of mental health problems?
• How should work be organised so that people with mental health problems can participate?
• What can people themselves do to cope with mental health problems?
• What interventions are effective for severe mental health disruption?
• How do we promote the use of effective interventions in (mental health) institutions?
• How can we best support healthcare providers working with severely dysregulated people?

Regarding education, we expect candidates to engage in the implementation and coordination of the various educational programmes that deal with issues surrounding mental disorders from different disciplines, in particular Psychology, Pedagogy and Sociology. They will also contribute to promoting cross-programme models of transdisciplinary education. Candidates who have gained practical experience in mental health or youth care, or who have also completed a post-master's degree in GZ or professional association training, are (also) encouraged to apply.

Education Sciences

When the dust of the global pandemic settles, what will education look like, what should it look like and what kind of education is needed in specific regions? One thing we have learnt from distance learning, school closures and rapid digitalisation is that human contact is the beating heart of education. The role of the teacher in the school is irreplaceable. However, today's societal problems of equity, literacy, inclusive education and teacher shortages call for a rethinking of the role of teachers. What is needed to ensure a bright future for education? How can we adequately prepare teachers and schools for this irreplaceable role in the context of these societal challenges? And to what extent is the current way schools and education are organised conducive to such a new role for teachers? What are the implications for the way teachers' work is organised in schools? And finally, does the current qualification structure and teacher education fit well with the challenges we face in education? How can universities, HBO and MBO, in collaboration with (special) primary and secondary education, contribute to this discussion and ensure improvement of the quality of education?

The proposed research provides important substantive input for the goals set in the SSH sector plan for strengthening the sustainable basis of Education Sciences and Teacher Education.

The outlined theme forms the dot on the horizon for the further spending plans for Education Sciences and Teacher Education for 2023 and beyond. The social challenges and educational issues outlined fall into a number of subthemes that can be studied in the coming years by the UDs and postdocs to be appointed (e.g. the role of teachers in promoting equality of opportunity, literacy, inclusive education, as well as more specific issues around motivating pupils and digitisation in education). In doing so, we also look for connection to the Northern Educational Research Agenda, to be published in 2022, for which urgent issues in education (primary education, secondary education and vocational education) in the Northern region (Groningen, Friesland, Drenthe) have been collected from the professional field. The starting point for strengthening the sustainable basis of Educational Sciences and Teacher Training is the pursuit of quality improvement in education and thus that learners (pupils, students) benefit.

The departments involved within the Faculty of BSS bear joint responsibility for mutual coordination and cooperation in the research to be set up around these themes (among other things, carried out by the UDs to be appointed), as well as the embedding of the knowledge and insights gained in the teacher training programmes housed at the RUG. In concrete terms, this means that the UDs are partly deployed in existing education to reduce the workload, but also play an important role in the elaboration and implementation of the desired curriculum revisions (in line with the above discipline-oriented investments) in the bachelor's and master's degree programmes in pedagogic and educational sciences and the teacher training programmes on the basis of interdisciplinary cooperation between educational sciences, (ortho)pedagogy and the teacher training within the RUG.