Sanne Akkerman is Professor of Educational and Learning Sciences. Her research focuses on the question how students and professionals cross social, organizational, and disciplinary boundaries, with a PhD (2006, judicium cum laude) on this topic, and two literature syntheses on boundary crossing (Akkerman & Bakker, 2011; Bronkhorst & Akkerman, 2016).
Akkerman is currently finalizing an ERC Grant (Lost in Transition? Multiple Interests in contexts of Education, Leisure and Work) in which she and her team examined challenges faced by adolescents’ in 1) pursuing multiple and often diverging interests across disciplinary and leisure domains, 2) receiving potentially conflicting social support in school, peer and home contexts, and 3) subsequent challenges in making school and career choices. A central instrument in this research is a smartphone application that functions as a socalled diary method (or socalled Experience Sampling Method) to capture the everyday interest experiences.
Ongoing projects focus on emerging community and public engagement initiatives in universities and their transformative potential for academic relevance (cf. Akkerman, Bakker, Penuel, 2021). She has been awarded a Comenius Leadership Project for the 乐鱼后台 to establish a new transdisciplinary educational program called UniCity in which students, researchers and citizens collaboratively investigate societal developments, combining insights from boundary crossing and interest research.
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Chair
Educational Sciences