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Research Nieuwenhuis Institute for Educational Research About us

About the Nieuwenhuis Institute

The Nieuwenhuis Institute for Educational Research (NI) encompasses all research of the Department of Pedagogy and Educational Sciences and the Department of Teacher Education. Our research has four interrelated objectives:

  1. Increasing the knowledge base of education. The term education includes the education of children in schools and life-long educational development, as well as the parenting of children in the home context or in out-of-home living arrangements;
  2. Contributing to the prevention and solution of problems within educational practice and informing and training (future) professionals;
  3. Evaluating and informing educational policy making;
  4. Informing the general public on the outcomes and implications of our research.

Our theory-related research focuses on the understanding of educational processes in schools, classrooms and families, on the study of the social world of youth, and on the study of risk/protective factors at micro-, meso-, and macro-level that influence outcomes of education in children, schools, teachers and families.

In our practiced-based research, we focus on specific issues and problems in educational practices in families, schools, the peer group and society. We try to make the dynamics and mechanisms underlying these problems understandable by applying relevant and knowledge-based theories and help our stakeholders to develop, implement and evaluate interventions to solve problems.

In our policy-oriented research, we evaluate transformations and changes in local, national and international policies of education and reflect on policy options that make use of the knowledge base of education.

The Institute is named after professor Hendrik Nieuwenhuis (1904-1993), the first professor of General Pedagogy at the University of Groningen.

Last modified:19 March 2021 4.00 p.m.