Program Development Learning Group

Ileana Seda-Santana (co-chair)

Ileana obtained a PhD in Education at the University of Illinois, U.S.A, in 1988 and has been a school teacher and teacher educator. For more than 25 years she has been dedicated to research and teaching in higher education in Puerto Rico, the United States and México. Author and lecturer on topics of literacy, learning, instruction and assessment for different populations. Currently, professor in the Graduate Division of the School of Psychology of The Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Her publications comprise book chapters including ‘Literacies Within Classrooms: Whose and for What Purpose?’ (in Understanding literacy development: A global view, LEA, 2006), ‘Literacy research in Latin America’ (in Handbook of Reading Research III, LEA, 2000) and edited books such as Comprender para Aprender (Castillo, 2007). She is a member of Mexico’s National System of Researchers of the Council of Science and Technology (CONACyT), a University representative on various committees and councils of the Secretariat of Public Education in Mexico and an expert participant in The Instituto Nacional de Evaluación Educativa. She is also Member of the Grupo de Trabajo de Infancia Indígena y Educación and Project Director of Bridges to Grow: Strengthening the Care Environment of Children From Birth Through Eight Years Of Age, both sponsored by the Bernard van Leer Foundation.

Michel Vandenbroeck (co-chair)

Michel works at the Department of Social Welfare Studies, Ghent University, Belgium, where he teaches early childhood care and education and family pedagogy. He obtained his PhD in 2004 with a research on the societal functions of child care and a genealogical study of Belgian child care. He is president of the VBJK, Research and Resource Centre for Early Childhood Care and Education in Flanders. He was one of the founding members of the European DECET network (Diversity in Early Childhood Education and Training). He has published several articles and chapters on diversity and social inclusion in early childhood education, including The View of the Yeti (Van Leer Foundation, 2001), translated into Greek and French. Together with Gilles Brougère he has recently published Repenser l’éducation préscolaire (Peter Lang, 2007). Michel is a member of the editorial board of the European Early Childhood Education Research Journal and the International Journal of Educational Policy, Research and Practice: Reconceptualizing Childhood Studies.

Zvi Bekerman

John Bennett

Karina Davis

Silvia Helena Koller

Mugyeong Moon

Rebeca Puche Navarro

Rita Swinnen

Zorica Trikić