Keynote Speakers

Ph. D. Elena L. Grigorenko
Learning in a changing society: academic and behavioral difficulties among school-age children and adolescents

Elena L. Grigorenko is Professor of Child Studies and Psychology at Yale and Professor of Psychology at Moscow
State University. Elena’s research is directed on individual differences in child development, with a focus on the role
of the biological make-up of the child and his/her parents in the child’s development; the impact of large-scale
societal changes on child development and the role of the physical setting in which the child grows. She seeks to
study the developmental niche as a holistic complex, contextual system.

Ph. D. Mark Greenberg
Promoting social and emotional development: Building resilience in children

Mark Greenberg holds The Bennett Endowed Chair in Prevention Research in Penn State’s College of Health and Human
Development, and is the Director of the Prevention Research Center for the Promotion of Human Development. In his
research he has been examining the effectiveness of school-based curricula (The PATHS Curriculum) to improve the social,
emotional, and cognitive competence of elementary-aged children.

Ph.D. Karine Verschueren
Young children’s relational experiences in the classroom: their antecedents and consequences for development

Karine Verschueren received her Ph.D. in developmental psychology in 1996 and is currently the Director of the
Centre for School Psychology at the University of Leuven, Belgium. In her research she examines the development
and functioning of children and adolescents within the context of school, and the risk and protective factors
situated in the child and its family environment (e.g., child temperament, child-parent attachment), as well as in
the school environment (e.g., teaching style).

Ph.D. Fons van de Vijver
Acculturation and Multiculturalism in the Classroom

Fons van de Vijver is a professor at Tilburg University, the Netherlands, and in the North-West University, South
Africa.
Important themes from the acculturation literature that will be highlighted are the ethnic hierarchy of
immigrant groups and the mainstream group in a country (with its ramifications for inter group relationships
and contacts), acculturation preferences of children, the relation of acculturation preferences and educational
outcomes, and implicit theories of development of mainstream and immigrant mothers in the Netherlands. It is
concluded that acculturation by immigrant children is an important topic for future research.