International Research Network on Equity in Youth Education and Training

His book, Dropping Out: Why Students Drop Out of High School and What Can Be Done About It (Harvard University Press, 2011) was called a “masterpiece” by the Washington Post and nominated for the AERA Outstanding Book Award.  He currently directs the California Dropout Research Project, which produces reports and policy briefs about the dropout problem in California.

In 2013 he was made a Fellow of the American Educational Research Association and received the Elizabeth G. Cohen Distinguished Career in Applied Sociology of Education Award, Sociology of Education SIG, American Educational Research Association.  In 2016 he was elected to the National Academy of Education. 

He has undertaken a range of high-impact policy research projects for governments, systems and schools and has extensive experience on a wide range of international and national projects on school funding, performance of schools and school systems, influences on student achievement and outcomes, quality of school programs, and school to work transition.

 Stephen is director of The International Study of City Youth (ISCY) which follows 40,000 Year 10 students in 15 cities around the world to understand how their school experiences and achievements influence their careers and life more broadly. The study compares how well different education systems prepare young people for life beyond school giving particular consideration to school arrangements in each city, including programs and courses, curriculum and assessment practices, types and locations of schools, and the structure of education and training opportunities beyond school.

Her research interests are interethnic relations in tracking, discrimination, educational achievement, early school leaving, educational policies, primary and secondary education and ethnography. She was the research coordinator of the RESL.eu project, that aims to reduce the number of Early School Leavers in Europe. She published international and national articles in peer-reviewed journals (e.g., Teaching and Teacher Education,  British Educational Research Journal, European Journal of Education, etc.) and books, such as the comparative book based on the RESL.eu project ‘Early School-Leaving in the European Union’ published by Routledge.

He has been involved in various expert advisory roles for the European Commission, including for its School Policy Working Groups and was a member of the Irish Senate and Parliament Expert Advisory Group on early school leaving. He is a member of the Coordinating Committee of the European Commission’s Network of Experts on the Social Aspects of Education and Training (NESET 2014-19).

With over 90 publications in areas of education, psychology, philosophy, law, anthropology and social policy, he has given keynote lectures and invited presentations in 28 countries, including for 10 different countries’ official ministries. He led a 12 country comparative research study on access to education in Europe and a 10 city study on parental involvement for early school leaving prevention. He has been an advisor to the Irish Department of Education and Skills for its DEIS Action Plan 2017 on social inclusion.

Her work and contribution has been recognized by numerous national and international awards including the 2016 Mid-Career Award from the Second Language Research Special Interest Group (SIG), American Educational Research Association (AERA), the 2013 and 2006 Ed Fry Book Award of the Literary Research Association (LRA), the 2010 AERA Early Career Award, and the 2008 Social Context of Education Division Early Career Award of AERA. Her recent works include Superdiversity and Teacher Education (2021, Routledge), Languages, Identities, Power and Cross-Cultural Pedagogies in Transnational Literacy Education (2019, Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press), and Educating Chinese-heritage Students in the Global-Local Nexus: Identities, Challenges, and Opportunities (2017, Routledge).

For more of Li’s work and projects, please see https://lled.educ.ubc.ca/profiles/guofang-li/

She joined Cedefop in 2004, and has managed various research projects in the field of designing vocational education and training (VET) provision, and supporting youth at risk and low skilled adults through VET. Leading Cedefop’s project on VET policies for social inclusion and labour market integration, Irene is the creator of Cedefop “VET toolkit for tackling early leaving” (www.cedefop.europa.eu/TEL-toolkit) and project manager of Cedefop related research within the Department of Learning and Employability. Before joining Cedefop, Irene worked as education consultant at the World Bank, Washington DC contributing to the development of the Bank’s new strategy on secondary education and managed education development and research projects in transitional Balkan countries.

Irene holds a PhD in Comparative Education Policy from the Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona (UAB) in Spain and two M.Sc. diplomas - International Studies and Developmental Cooperation for the Alleviation of Poverty and Applied Linguistics from Spanish Universities. Irene has published widely in peer-reviewed academic journals and international handbooks within the fields of curriculum policy, learning outcomes, teachers training, innovative pedagogies, key competences, learners’ assessment and early school leaving.

He developed metrics for assessing the impact of schooling, first in Undemocratic Schooling and later in For the Common Weal. Applying these measures, he was able to show the contribution of the public high school system to the economic well-being of the community.

He pioneered the social analysis of curriculum access and achievement in school systems across Australia. Using examinations data for each Australia state, he mapped the links between who studied what subjects, how well they achieved, and their social origins and gender. This work formed the basis of his theory of structural inequality, elaborated in Academic Success and Social Power. 

Prof. Carrasco founded the EMIGRA research group and the CER Migracions and is the UAB representative of the ResMi Network of Excellence on Migration Studies (2017-2019) financed by the Ministry of Economy and Competence she participates in Committee on Education and Social Mobility of the European network IMISCOE. She is part of the editorial board of Ethnography and Education (Oxford) and the book series Focus on International Migration (UAB). Prof. Carrasco joined the ACT.NOW platform in 2018, in the expert group DESC Network (Diversity, Education and Social Cohesion) that gathers academics, NGOs and professionals working on education and social rights of refugee and migrant children and youth in the MENAT region and the European receiving countries

Jen has wide-ranging experience in education policy and research, with a particular interest in education systems, and the research–policy interface. As a senior policy fellow in the Victorian Department of Education and Training, she worked in early childhood policy and regulation, as well as in system-wide strategic policy management roles.  As a Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne and Victoria University, Jen’s work focused on measuring how well education systems meet the needs of all learners, including contributing to several reports for government on measurement of school performance, reporting on system-wide indicators, from early childhood to tertiary education, and co-ordinating international data collection for the International Study of City Youth.

Before joining the School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University in 2004 as a Professorial Fellow, Sally Power was based at the Institute of Education, University of London, where she was Head of the School of Educational Foundations and Policy Studies. Her research interests focus on the relationship between education, inequality and civic participation. She is particularly interested in social class differentiation, as well as the relative success and failure of education policies designed to promote greater equality of opportunity and engagement.

Following her PhD research on the phenomena of street children, Özden has played a leading role in the establishment of the first University Centre in Turkey that is dedicated to address the rehabilitation and protection needs of street children. Dr. Bademci has developed and coordinated several projects in states schools to provide psychosocial support in collaboration with various departments of the university, to the students who are at risk of school leaving including Roma children. In 2017, Dr Bademci was granted with UK Alumni Social Impact Award.

In 2009-2013 he was appointed as ambassador Education and Youth Policy by the ministry of Education, Culture and Science, the ministry of Health, Welfare and Sports and the Association of Netherlands Municipalities. Between 2000 and 2010 he was head of Education and Youth Care of the Netherlands Youth Institute and director of major national innovative educational and youth policy programmes on education and behaviour support teams in schools, schools and safety, and inter-professional support programmes for (vulnerable) children and youth in schools. Between 2013- 2016 he was leading the Dutch Higher Education consortium on Teacher Education and Inclusion, and between 2015 and 2018 he was one of the leading researchers in the research consortium evaluating the Dutch version of more inclusive education. He has written/edited over fifty books and numerous articles on topics like services integration (education, health and human services),equity and inclusive education, intensive counselling, non-attendance and drop out, multi-service schools, prevention, behaviour and education support teams, rebound programmes, local youth policy, and safe and healthy schools.

She conducts comparative research into educational disadvantage and inequalities, especially as they appear between schools, and the systems, structures and policies that shape them. Laura uses a variety of research methodologies and conducts both empirical and conceptual research. Specific research interests include educational marketization, school segregation and stratification, between-school inequalities, and social class and education.

Laura draws on the disciplines of comparative/international education, sociology of education, and education policy to examine different topics. She aims to conduct research that can guide policy making for the purpose of improving educational equity.

His area of research focus includes; social problems in education, Social change in education, social deviances/social disorganizations in education with particular focus on students’ secret cult in Nigeria. He has published widely in these areas with about 143 publications to his credit. Winner of the Fafunwa Educational Foundation Award as best Ph.D Thesis Award In Nigerian Universities Faculties of Education, 2006, he has also received awards as Best Accomplished African Educational Researcher (Awarded by Association for the Development of Education in Africa- ADEA/African Development Institute- ADI /Korea Trust Fund) : 2011/2012 and Outstanding Educator in Nigeria 2013 by the Nigerian Education Times

She has designed, conducted and published numerous studies on education and inequality and is specialized in the fields of educational pathways, dropout in education, school development, best practices in dropout prevention and professionalization. Erna Nairz-Wirth is a national and international expert in the field of early school leaving and an editorial board member of the European Toolkit for Schools. She has been an expert partner and consortium member of the FP7 project RESL.eu – Reducing Early School Leaving in Europe and an active member of the Network of Experts working on the Social Dimension of Education and Training (NESET II). Recently, she received the Austrian Anton-Benya award for her scientific engagement for reduction of inequality in education and prevention of early school leaving.

His current research focuses on (1) inclusive education in China, (2) the sense of gain on education for students with disabilities, (3) social rights and social welfare for persons with disabilities. As a Principal Investigator, he is working on two research projects of Chinese Ministry of Education. Theoretically, he is drawn to various social development perspectives: Social Justice, Social Investment, Social Capital and Social support network. Methodologically, his research interest is to carry out domestic and international comparative research on education policy and disability policy.

She is a member of the Editorial Board of the ISA’s SSIS series Sage Studies in International Sociology Books, Journal of Social Science Education, International Journal of Lifelong Education and of the Bulgarian journal Sociological problems. Her research interests are in the field of education with an emphasis on higher education, university development, educational inequalities and lifelong learning and school to work transitions. Currently, Boyadjieva is a member of the Network of Experts on the Social Aspects of Education and Training (NESET 2019-22) and leads the Bulgarian team of the ENLIVEN (Encouraging Lifelong Learning for an Inclusive and Vibrant Europe) project, funded within Horizon 2020 programme.

He is Joint Honorary Chair of the European Network for Social and Emotional Competence and joint founding editor of the International Journal of Emotional Education. He has led various research projects in mental health in schools, risk and resilience in children and young people, children’s wellbeing, including the development of a resilience curriculum for early years and primary schools (RESCUR Surfing the Waves), a European Masters in Resilience in Education, and an EU analytical report on how to integrate social and emotional learning in the curriculum across the EU.

She is Founding Co-Director of the Center for Innovation in Teacher Education and Development (CITED).Professor Souto-Manning holds additional academic appointments at the University of Iceland (2017-2021), King’s College London (2017-2020), and Hunter College (2018-2019).

Mariana Souto-Manning has published eight books, including the 2016 winner of the American Educational Studies Association Critics’ Choice Award, Reading, Writing, and Talk: Inclusive Teaching Strategies for Diverse Learners, K-2 (with Jessica Martell). In addition to books and book chapters, she has authored and co-authored over sixty peer-reviewed articles in journals. She has received a number of research awards, including the 2011 American Educational Research Association Division K Innovations in Research on Diversity in Teacher Education Award and the 2017 AERA Teaching and Teacher Education (Division K) Mid-Career Award.

His research is focused primarily on the impact of social capital on the stratification process in the fields like education, transition from school to labour market with focus on gender, class- and migrant background. He has extensive experience on several international and national projects on educational outcomes of students with different class- and ethnic background, early school levers, the impact of extracurricular activities on young people’s educational and social development and education to work transition.

 She holds an MPhil in special education, and obtained her PhD from the Education University of Hong Kong.  At present, she has published 15 academic papers and presided over two major research projects. Her research and professional interests lie in inclusive education and policy, curriculum and pedagogy, Chinese core values of culture and rights.

She is one of the founders of the international research network that conducts research on the use of ILSA data-sets for national policy-making in education. Her main research areas are ILSA, citizenship education, textbook analysis, sociology of education, and theories of knowledge. In the area of equity in education she is interested in its contexts within comparative studies and ILSA in particular. 

He established and directed the Institute for Policy Studies in Education (2000-09), which had a particular focus on social justice and education: it activities included compiling the 14 state study Educational Policies to Address Social Inequalities in Europe (2007-2010) for the European Commission. He also established the Erasmus Academic Network on children’s identity and citizenship in Europe (1998-2008). Since retiring he has conducted a one-person study of young European’s constructions of political identities. Other research interests include citizenship education and social inclusion; diversity in the educational workforce; and access and achievement in education for all.  Recent publications include Understanding the Construction of Identities by New Europeans (Routledge 2015) and Finding Political Identities: Young people in a changing Europe (Palgrave Macmillan 2019).  He is currently editing Educational Research for Social Justice: Evidence and practice from the UK, for publication in 2020.

He earned his Ph.D. in Higher Education Administration, with a concentration in Educational Policy, from the University of Florida. His research focuses improving college affordability and degree completion for lower-income students, particularly those who attend community colleges. Dr McKinney is the recipient of state and national level research excellence awards.

The LLL Platform represents over 40 European wide civil society networks in the field of education, including formal, non-formal and informal learning providers and learners in adult education, and currently these networks represent more than 50 000 educational institutions and associations covering all sectors of formal, non-formal and informal learning. She is a member of the Civil Society Europe Steering Committee since 2017 and former Head of Office of the European Students’ Union (ESU) and Director of the Erasmus Student Network (ESN). She graduated in Innovative Management at the Polytechnic University of Nice Sophia Antipolis and holds a professional Master Degree in International Development and a Bachelor Degree in Political Sciences. Originally from Albania, she has studied and lived in Italy, France and currently Belgium for the last fifteen years. She has an experience of more than 10 years in education and non-profit sector at local, national and international level from a volunteer to a management perspective.

She has participated in different EC projects like WORKALO (FP5, 2001-2004) dedicated to Roma labor inclusion and INCLUD-ED (FP6, 2006-2011) centered on strategies for social cohesion from education, and  IMPACT-EV (FP7, 2014-2017), on assessing social impact of research. Her work has been published in journals like Qualitative Inquiry, Ethnicities, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Harvard Educational Review, Journal of Interpersonal Violence and more recently in Nature or PLOSONE.

He has been Director of Education at the National Agency for Education in Sweden with a responsibility for national development projects in science and technology, and has worked as a School Strategist in a Swedish municipality. He is currently an independent consult, author and lecturer in school development, professional development, use of research evidence in education, and other issues related to education. He has published several books in Sweden both for the general public and educators with a focus on equity and democracy

Her research expertise is the role of students’ and teachers’ social and emotional competences in education as well as education of disadvantaged students (e.g. students with Roma or immigrant background), including the issue of early school leaving. Currently, she is involved three European projects; in two of them she is the national project coordinator. She is author of many scientific articles and books and publishes regularly at the (inter)national conferences. She has co-edited and co-authored several chapters in the three interconnected monographs,  Early School Leaving: Contemporary European Perspectives, ESL: Cooperation  perspectives, ESL: Training Perspectives. She has collaborated in preparing national (country) reports for Eurydice and OECD. She conducts workshops for students and (pre)school teachers, focusing on their self-awareness, self-regulation and social awareness and is aiming to get these topics included in education at the system/policy level.

Her research and publications focus on equity and diversity; change paradigms in education; education policy and practice; along with curricula and pedagogy for teacher education, with innovative research in working with systems, governments, and schools to establish sustainable inclusive education and best practices for supporting all learners. Chris provides leadership in research in education reform for special and inclusive education in the Asia-Pacific region and has widespread extensive international experience in education working in the field for more than 45 years, providing regular international workshops and keynote addresses.

She obtained her PhD from The University of Hong Kong in 2012. She was the recipient of the Global SELF (Self-concept Enhancement and Learning Facilitation) Research Network Highly Commended PhD Award based on her PhD research on a longitudinal intervention to enhance academic self-concept and academic achievement among mainland low-achieving secondary students. Her research interests include self-concept, achievement emotions, student motivation, and positive youth development. She is now serving as co-director of Centre for Special Educational Needs and Inclusive Education co-working with multiple stakeholders to help social, emotional and career development needs of students with special educational needs.

She has received funding from multiple sources and has published numerous papers on school breakfast clubs and holiday provision. She is now a recognised expert in this area and in 2015, she was made a Fellow of the British Psychological Society in recognition of her research with ‘hard to reach’ populations.  More recently, she joined prestigious line up of award winners by winning a Food Heroes Award from Sustain for her research and evaluations on school breakfast clubs and holiday hunger. In 2017, the Healthy Living Lab won the British Psychology Public Engagement Award (North East) for their translational research on feeding disadvantaged children. In 2020 she was recognised, by the Big Issue, as one of the top 100 change makers for her research and policy impact on food poverty.  

 His research interests focus on educational policies, early school leaving, school-to-work transition and vocational education and training, using both qualitative and quantitative methodologies. He conducted several research programmes in France, including the Territories and Early School Leaving programme, which involved a large body of researchers from several disciplines. He organized an international comparison conference on school dropout policies in collaboration with the French Ministry of Education.

Previously a Research Fellow in the Educational Research Centre in Dublin, she led the development of a cloud-based, integrated assessment system for Irish primary and secondary students. She led Ireland’s participation in multiple ILSAs (PIRLS, TIMSS, PISA, ISUSS), and Ireland’s own national assessments.  She was a member of Northern Ireland’s Literacy and Numeracy Taskforce, and has a particular interest in targeted interventions to address poverty and social inclusion in education. She has expertise in programme evaluation, comparisons of educational systems, dropout from second and third level education, and standardised test development.

She has particular interests in young people and survey methodology.  Prior to joining the Mitchell Institute, Nina held positions at the Australian Red Cross Blood Service in donor research, headspace (the National Youth Mental Health Foundation), the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, the Brotherhood of St Laurence, and American Institutes for Research (California).