Dutch schools increasingly serve students from diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds and thus have the opportunity to prepare future generations for living together and foster democratic citizenship. We pose that, next to the explicit curriculum, teachers’ everyday classroom behaviors can have a critical impact on students’ citizenship and that classrooms can be perceived as micro-societies that parallel society at large. This means that “good” school citizenship promotes “good” societal citizenship. In this project we will combine (extended) contact theory with social referencing theory to (1) examine how teachers’ daily classroom interactions with children of different ethnicities affect students’ individual democratic citizenship aspects (Part-project 1) and (2) the democratic nature of the peer ecology (Part-project 2). We hypothesize that teacher behaviour and student citizenship are connected through students’ individual and shared perceptions of the teacher-student relationship. We investigate commitment (i.e., feelings of belonging and willingness to invest in the group) and acceptance (i.e., liking versus disliking and tolerating others) as two core aspects of democratic citizenship and we investigate how commitment and acceptance of children on a classroom level relate to their attitudes on a societal level. The proposed study has a three-wave longitudinal design (N=70 classes, grade 6-7 primary school, N=1750 children) and uses state-of-the-art methods, including implicit measures, intensive classroom observations, self-report and sociometric measures. Furthermore, the results will be disseminated to practice, helping Dutch schools to meet their legal obligations to effectively develop students’ citizenship, and more specifically helping educators to deal effectively with classroom diversity

Children and parents have become a focal point of debates on ?new social risks? and ?new public policies? in European welfare states. Policymakers and experts, also those from UNICEF, OECD and the EU, have converged in defining such risks, engaged in mutual policy learning and outlined measures to better safeguard children, activate their poten-tial, promote their well-being and ensure equal opportunities. At the same time, we wit-ness a new or renewed interventionist, also ?prevention?-ist, policy stance towards chil-dren to tackle earlier risks of exclusion and poor parenting. Parents are expected to offer their children ?grade A? parenting, yet are increasingly suspected of falling short of meet-ing public expectations. The boundaries between what has been seen as ?family? or ?pri-vate? versus ?public affairs? are being redrawn by discourses and ?evidence based? meas-ures to fight children-related risks. The central research question is: do logics and practices of child-centred policies con-verge or diverge in France, Germany, the Netherlands, UK and Sweden given on the one hand their historically different family and institutional systems and on the other hand their increasing tendency to import programmes from abroad and the international con-sensus on what are ?good? policies for children and parents? While debates on ?new risks? and the ?need for child-centred social investment strategies? have converged, policy responses to the new challenges have so far varied across coun-tries. Such variations, it is hypothesised, result from path-dependent institutional set-tings, public ?sentiments? and policy ?cultures?. They require further elaboration, if mutual learning of what works in securing children?s and families? well-being is to be encouraged. ORA offers the unrivalled opportunity to study policies for children in countries which rep-resent different ?worlds of family policy?: France, Germany, the Netherlands and the UK. The study will also be informed by the Swedish experience, thereby including a case clas-sified as a ?forerunner? of children?s rights and investment in children. We are interested in comparing variations of ideas about children?s proper status in society (?private? versus ?public? children), ?good? parenting, experts? political influence, and different forms and timing of policy change. Research objectives are: (1) to identify and offer a taxonomy of recent child-related in-tervention programmes, drawing out their underlying ideas, and their proponents in the countries under investigation; (2) to explain and specify the driving forces and timing of ?new? policies; (3) to elaborate how intervention and prevention programmes have been implemented and transformed by everyday practices (evaluation); and (4) to identify processes of policy learning across countries. Research in each country is based on a combination of methods and a variety of data: historical accounts of (evidence based) intervention and prevention programs in each country; interviews with (micro- and meso-level) key actors involved in agenda setting, programme design, implementation and evaluation; survey data on changing attitudes towards family life, parenting, the role of the state, also on feelings of (in)security; analyses of policy documents. [Word count: 475]

Does interest in elite culture (such as museums, theatres, classical concerts, ballet) connect or divide people of different socioeconomic backgrounds? This project examines to what extent elite cultural interest affects the socioeconomic status of people’s social network and to what extent this affects outcomes of social inequality and social cohesion.

Youth play a crucial role in the societal transition to more sustainable diets. In the FLY-project, we study what youth - in particular those belonging to lower socio-economic groups - think about eating sustainably, and their perceived barriers and facilitators for transitioning towards a more sustainable diet. In high schools, we discuss these issues with young people and investigate (changes in) their diets over time as well as potential underlying mechanisms. Together with youth, we co-create and test intervention strategies that can support youth in the transition to more sustainable diets, with a focus on the role of group processes.

Peers play a crucial role in the development of children and adolescents, influencing a wide range of behaviors. Much emphasis has been put on peers as a risk factor; however, little is known about whether and how peers might protect against antisocial development or promote positive development. Recent methodological advances allow examination of peer processes (referring to influence and selection) in a statistically suitable way. However, influence and selection dynamics are encapsulated in contexts, such as classes and schools. Unfortunately, little is known about how contextual factors affect selection and influence processes. This proposal responds to this gap by examining to what extent contextual factors promote or hinder the development of antisocial behavior (bullying, aggression), prosocial behavior (defending, helping), and academic performance. This proposal offers an excellent opportunity to expand two databases of extraordinary quality for relatively low additional costs with four (KiVa) and six (SNARE) extra waves.