dr. M.I. (Marjolein) Deunk

Biography

Marjolein Deunk studied developmental and educational psychology at the University of Groningen (1997-2003). In addition she followed the European Master in Clinical Linguistics at the Universities of Groningen and Postdam, Germany. As a PhD-student at the Center for Language and Cognition Groningen, she studied the activities and interactions of young children in preschool. A Fulbright scholarship gave her the opportunity to spend a Fall semester at the Harvard Graduate School of Education as a visiting scholar. Her dissertation, named ‘Discourse Practices in Preschool. Young Children’s Participation in Everyday Classroom Activities‘, appeared in 2009. Marjolein is currently working at GION. As daily supervisor within TIER (Top Institute for Evidence Based Education Research) she was involved in reserach of two PhD-students on the effect and use of goals and performance standards on comprehensive reading and mathematics proficiency of students in primary school. She also worked on differentiation practices in Primary Education and on a study on educational quality and leadership in small schools and in strongly improved schools.

As a daily supervisor, Marjolein has been involved in a project on teacher-child interactions in Chilean Kindergarten classrooms (resulting in a dissertation that has been awarded 'cum laude') and in an ongoing project on the interactions of teachers with mono- and multilingual Kindergartners. She also works on the reach of whole-group activities in preschool classrooms by analyzing both the meaninfgulness of group interactions and the participation and engagement of all the children in the group as well as the way the teacher creates this learning activity in interaction with the children.

Marjolein other research line concerns cultural diversity in education. She works among others on project ViTaS, which focusses on intercultural competences of futur elementary school teachers.