SCIENTIFIC ORGANIZING COMMITTEE

Sanne Akkerman (Utrecht University)

Aleksandar Baucal (University of Belgrade): is professor at the Department of Psychology at the University of Belgrade. His main field of interest is the socio-cultural developmental psychology and studies of development of new competencies through symmetric (collaborative peer learning) and asymmetric (learning with adults) social interaction. Aleksandar Baucal's contribution is related to improvement of traditional pre-post test research design by integration with the Item Response Theory (IRT) and involvement of qualitative case studies. The enhanced pre-post test design enables researchers to measure developmental effects of collaborative learning and to understand different ways how new competencies can be developed through social interaction.
Email: abaucal@f.bg.ac.rs

Guida de Abreu (Oxford Brooks University) is Professor in Cultural Psychology at Oxford Brookes University, UK. During the EARLI conference in Budapest in 2007, with Professor Ed Elbers, she founded SIG 21 on Learning and Teaching in Culturally Diverse Settings. Her main interests focus on theoretical and empirical work in cultural-developmental psychology. Using qualitative methodologies she investigates learning and identity development in culturally diverse settings, including the perspectives of children, young people, parents and teachers. She is particularly interested on examining experiences, meanings and representations of transitions between home and school cultures. She collaborates with researchers from many countries and this has resulted in publications such as Transitions between Contexts of Mathematical Practices (Abreu, Bishop, & Presmeg, 2002) and a special issue of the European Journal of Psychology of Education on the social mediation of learning in multiethnic schools (edited by Abreu & Elbers, 2005).

Email: gabreu@brookes.ac.uk

Alessio Surian (University of Padova): is working as lecturer and researcher at the FISPPA (Filosophy, Sociology, Pedagogy, Applied Psychology) Department of the University of Padova (Italy) where he teaches interpersonal communication, group dynamics and educational planning. He is part of the Stede Master Mundus faculty, http://www.em-stede.eu/ . Since September 2011 is co-cordinator of EARLI SIG 21. He is an expert of the Intercultural Cities network supported by the Council of Europe and the European Commission. In Italy he has been investigating youth and teachers attitudes towards diversity in formal and nonformal education activities. In Argentina and Latin America he has been collaborating with the University of Buenos Aires in participatory action-research on housing rights.

Tania Zittoun (University of Neuchâtel): is professor of psychology and education at the University of Neuchâtel. A sociocultural developmental psychologist, she is interested in learning in a variety of situations - formal and informal - and all through the lifecourse. She is coordinator of SIG 10 since 2009. Her recent books include Transitions. Development through symbolic resources (2006) and, co-edited with S. Salvatore, Cultural psychology and psychoanalysis in dialogue (2011). She is an Associate Editor of Culture & Psychology.
Email: tania.zittoun@unine.ch