Free University Berlin

Elisabeth Resa, M.A., is a PhD student at the department of Early Childhood Education at the Freie Universität Berlin (Germany) since the beginning of 2015. Before that she worked as a student research assistant at the same department and as a research assistant at PädQUIS – Pädagogische Qualitäts-Informations-Systeme GmbH supporting the national investigation on education and care for under-threes. Her main research interests lie in quality and effects of early childhood education and care, language education in daycare centers and child language and literacy competencies as well as early educational inequalities. She wrote her Master thesis on the question how the rate of children with a migration background in early child care on group and center level relates to the quality of language environment. Within the context of the FP7 project CARE she coordinated the German part of the stakeholder study, a survey among parents, caregivers and policymakers focusing on values, beliefs, and experiences of people who have an interest in early education and care from different perspectives. Her methodological expertise lies in quantitative as well as qualitative research methods, such as online surveys, personal interviews and focus groups.

Dr. Franziska Wilke is a researcher at the group of Early Childhood Education at Freie Universität Berlin since 2013. Before, she worked as a research assistant in the contexts of Empirical Educational Research (Department of Pedagogy and Psychology) and elementary-school pedagogy (Universität Potsdam). She was also a scholarship-holder in the framework program of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research that supports the Empirical Educational Research. Her main research interests concern the effects of home environment and institutional care on children’s development and educational disparities in early childhood. This was also the topic of her PhD thesis. She currently leads the follow-up study on the evaluation of the home-based approach “Chancenreich” to improve the home environment of disadvantaged families in Germany. She is also a researcher of the CARE project where she was involved in the multiple case studies on early childhood practice. Her methodological expertise lies in quantitative methods.

Hande Erdem Möbius is a PhD student and research fellow at the department of Early Childhood Education at the Freie Universität Berlin (Germany) since the beginning of 2017. She holds a master´s degree in Sociology – European Societies from the Freie Universität Berlin and a bachelor´s degree in Sociology and Psychology (double major) from the Istanbul Bilgi University. She worked as a research assistant in several international projects. Her main research interests are migration, identity studies, intergenerational relations, social inequality and parental involvement in education.

Within the context of ISOTIS, she is a data collection coordinator and qualitative research trainer in the German part of the study. She contributes development and implementation of the quantitative and qualitative interviews as well as parent and family support programs. She is mainly involved in analyzing the data from immigrant families with focusing on their resources, experiences, aspirations and support needs.

Hannah Ulferts is a postdoctoral researcher at the department of Early Childhood Education at the Freie Universität Berlin. In a meta-analysis for the European Project CARE she studied the impact of quality and quantity of Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) on children’s language/literacy and math development. She also conducted several secondary analyses of existent longitudinal and cross-sectional studies (e.g., SOEP, BiKS) and conducted a study on reading motivation and competences of 5th graders. Currently she is involved in evaluation studies on early support programs for disadvantaged families in Germany (e.g., BRISE, AQuaFam). Her main research interests are effects of ECEC quality and quantity on children’s cognitive and socioemotional development, cumulative long-term effects of continuous support programs for disadvantage families (from children’s birth to primary school), as well as preschool teachers’ competences and professional development and quality components of early math education.

Juliane Schünke is a PhD student and research fellow at the department of Early Childhood Education at Freie Universität Berlin (Germany) since October 2016. She holds a master`s degree in Pedagogy and studied at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich and at University of Vienna. She worked as a student research assistant at German Youth Institute (DJI) in Munich and Leibniz Institute for Research and Information in Education (DIPF) in Berlin. Her main research interests are family support programs, parental self-efficacy and parent-child relationships.

Katrin M. Wolf is a researcher at the department of Early childhood education at the Freie Universität Berlin. Her main research interests are concepts and effects of early language training, the quality and effects of early childhood education, and the development & prevention of educational inequalities. She has worked in several empirical research projects and as a consultant for early childhood education. Her methodological expertise lies in quantitative methods.

Mareike Trauernicht is a PhD student and research fellow at the department of Early Childhood Education at Free University Berlin (Germany) since November 2017. She holds a master´s degree in Psychology and studied at Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, Portland State University (Oregon), and Freie Universität Berlin. She worked as a student research assistant at Max-Planck-Institute of Human Development in the field of adaptive rationality and in a research project about resilience at Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg. Her main research interests are prosocial behavior, social networks, and family support. As part of ISOTIS she is involved with WP3 and WP6, especially in multiple case studies and in developing an ICT-based professionalization programme.

Theresia Hummel is a PhD student at the department of Early Childhood Education at the Freie Universität Berlin (Germany) since the beginning of 2017. Before she worked as a data collector at the same department for the project “Easy Steps into Science” and using data from this evaluation she wrote her Master thesis on the question how scientific beliefs relate to professional development and science activities in daily routines. She studied educational and social sciences at Humbold-Universität zu Berlin and at Freie Universität Berlin.
Her main research interests are quality and effects of educational partnership in preschool centers, parental involvement and ways to support families. As part of ISOTIS she´s involved in WP2, WP3 and WP4, especially in the inventories and multiple case studies.

Prof. Dr. Yvonne Anders is a full professor of education with a focus on early childhood education at Freie Universität Berlin since 2012. As of 2013 she is also a research professor at the German Institute for Economic Research in Berlin. Earlier she worked as a researcher at several universities and research institutes (e.g. University of Bamberg, Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin, Institute of Education of the University of London, University of Münster). Her key areas of research are the quality of Early Childhood Education and Care and its impact on children’s development, professional competencies of ECEC staff, and international comparative analyses of ECEC quality and its impact. She has been a principal investigator of several research projects. Some examples are the evaluation of the governmental initiative “Core daycare centres for language and integration” (2012-2014), the evaluation of the model program KIDZ phase V (2012-2015), the study “Easy Steps into Science” (2013-2016), the evaluation study AQuaFam “Approaches for promoting the home learning environment” (2013-2017) and the evaluation of the governmental initiative “language daycare centres”.