Spotlight Topics

Karen Phalet has published extensively regarding migrant background adolescents in the context of schools, focusing also on intergroup contact and conflict, acculturation and identity, and emotion and motivation. One of her most recent projects (2018-2022) is BELONGING, funded by the National Science Foundation (FWO Flanders-Belgium). This four-year project addresses “Cultural diversity and social belonging: The formation of social ties and identities in intercultural networks and interactions”

Onnie Rogers is a developmental psychologist whose research curiosities converge at the intersection of psychology, human development, and education. She is interested in social and educational inequities and the mechanisms through which macro-level disparities are both perpetuated and disrupted at the micro-level of identities and relationships. Her research investigates identity development among racially diverse children and adolescents in urban contexts. She asks how our social groups—and the cultural stereotypes that accompany them—shape how we see ourselves and interact with others.

Ylva Svensson is an assistant professor in child and youth psychology at University West and Gothenburg University, Sweden. She earned her Ph.D. in developmental psychology in 2012, and her current research focuses on social integration and ethnic identity formation.

Martyn Barrett’s work focuses on the development of intercultural, democratic and global competence; young people’s political and civic engagement, active participation and global citizenship; the development of national and ethnic identifications, prejudice, stereotyping and intergroup attitudes; and young people’s ethnic, national and political enculturation. He has worked as an expert for the Council of Europe on the development of intercultural and democratic competence since 2006, and led a Council of Europe flagship project entitled “Competences for Democratic Culture” from 2013-2018. He helped to develop the conceptual framework and assessments of global competence for use in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) in 2018. One of his most recent books is Youth Civic and Political Engagement (2019, Routledge).

Laura Taylor’s research is framed by an intergroup developmental approach to study risk and resilience processes for children, families, and communities in settings of protracted conflict. Her work has implications for youth outcomes, such as aggression, prosocial behaviours and social identity, as well as broader psychosocial processes, such as shared education and intergroup relations, which may fuel or constrain conflict.

Ilira Aliai is the Educational Coordinator of the Project “Living Diversity in Germany and Israel”. She studied German language and literature in Athens and Berlin and later continued her studies with a Master in Cultural Management at Panteion University in Athens. There she dealt with identity and diversity issues in migration literature.

Mohini Lokhande is a Senior Researcher with the Expert Council’s Research Unit. She is currently heading a large research project training in-service teachers on the theory and administration of self-affirmation brief writing interventions. She was also a Researcher and Visiting Lecturer at the University of Jena and Ludwigsburg University.

Linda Tropp’s prolific work focuses on how members of different groups experience contact with each other, and how group differences in status affect cross-group relations. She has worked with national organizations on court cases relevant to racial integration, on national initiatives to improve interracial relations in schools, and with nongovernmental organizations to evaluate applied programs designed to reduce racial conflict. She has co-edited several books such as Moving Beyond Prejudice Reduction: Pathways to Positive Intergroup Relations (2011), the Oxford Handbook of Intergroup Conflict (2018), and Making Research Matter: A Psychologist’s Guide to Public Engagement (forthcoming).

Angelo Camufingo is a German-Angolan freelance anti-racism and education speaker, consultant, trainer and activist. Formerly working in the Anti-Racism Department of the Student Committee at the University of Potsdam (AStA), he is currently part of the Education Policy & Teaching Office there and in the process of completing his Master of Education. His research interests include marginalized realities specifically racialized ones, anti-colonial and discrimination-critical/anti-discriminatory teaching and auto-ethnographic work on power structures, knowledge, emotions and colonial continuities.

Picture credit: Dennis Krischke