Prof. E.J.P.G. Denessen (Eddie)

Eddie Denessen got his PhD in 1999 on sociocultural differences in attitudes towards education in the Netherlands. He focused on the relations between social class backgrounds, religious and political values with perceptions of ‘good education’. These relations can help to understand processes of choice, selection, segregation, inclusion and exclusion in schools.

After his PhD, he developed his expertise in various related domains, such as educational inequalities, teacher expectations, differentiation in schools and classrooms, school choice, cultural ethnic segregation, and parental involvement in education. He has published several empirical research papers, book chapters, conference papers, and a review study on parental involvement, the effects on student outcomes and school and teacher effects on parents’ involvement that was funded by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research.
In his research, he applies multidisciplinary analyses of education, with a focus on the societal effects of day-to-day education practices. His work is rooted in theories on educational inequalities, scientific pragmatism and sociocultural and critical theory. In his empirical work he employs quantitative and qualitative research methods.

Since 2018, he is chair of the Education & Society division of the Dutch Education Research Association and member of the steering committee of the European research Network About Parents and Education (ERNAPE).

From 2016 to 2023, Eddie Denessen held a chair by special appointment as professor of Socio-cultural Diversity and Differentiation in Education at Leiden University