After graduating as a Teacher of English as a Second Language, and several years of teaching in vocational education, I completed the Master Educational Sciences at the University of Amsterdam. My Master's thesis focused on (the effects of) citizenship education policy in the Netherlands, England and Sweden.
On 3 April 2019 I succesfully defended my PhD dissertation titled 'Assessment of Citizenship Competences'. A main part of my dissertation was the development a new assessment approach to assess students' citizenship competences. The study focused on supporting both formative and summative assessment, and providing insight into students' own conceptions of citizenship. The assessment instrument I developed in which we used rubrics to assess citizenship competences is freely available to schools and teachers.
I am currently an assistant professor at the department of child development and education, in which I am involved in several studies of students' citizenship competences in primary education, secondary education, and tertiary vocational education. I also teach several courses, most natably on citizenship education and education policy.