Ulla Licandro is Professor of Heterogeneity and Diversity Under Special Consideration of Inclusive Educational Contexts at the Department of Special Needs Education and Rehabilitation. Prior to joining UOL, Prof. Licandro completed her studies in Germany (TU Dortmund), Hungary (ELTE Budapest) and the United States (University of Iowa) and was a pre- and postdoctoral researcher at Leibniz University Hannover as well as a visiting scholar at Ohio State University.

Prof. Licandro’s research focuses on language acquisition and interaction in educational settings. Of particular interest are ways of diagnosing and supporting language acquisition at the interface of multilingualism, social disadvantages, and impairments in order to establish and improve participation for all.

Martin Butler is Professor of American Literary and Cultural Studies at the University of Oldenburg, Germany. His research centers on popular culture and its mobilities, with a particular focus on popular music in a range of different historical and regional contexts. He is also interested in cultural representations of migration and diversity and in cultures of participation, specifically in new media environments.

Tina Grummel, Project manager, University of Oldenburg, Germany

Prof. Heloise Sathorar is Executive Dean of the Faculty of Education at the Nelson Mandela University. She is also the Head of Department for Secondary School Education (PGCE and BEd SP & FET) in the Faculty of Education. Her research interest includes critical pedagogy, teacher education, higher education and critical community engagement. She has also done research in Accounting Education, and Entrepreneurship Education. Her most recent work is: Decolonizing the colonized mindset: Reflecting on lecturer dispositions to decolonize teacher education (JOE).

I am a lecturer in the Faculty of Education at Nelson Mandela University, South Africa.

My academic interests are in the field of Inclusive Education, as well as Barriers to Learning. I have a distinct interest in learner support within the educational domain. I am also interested in the support available for teachers in the education setting and different educational contexts, especially in their accommodation of learners presenting with barriers to learning. Community schools and their approach to engagement, participation, and collaboration with multiple stakeholders, together with the underlying principles thereof, is another field of interest and research.

Nadia Gerritsen is a Teacher Educator of English Foreign Language learning at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. She specializes in the application of intercultural competence and engagement theories in the EFL classroom. Her research interests include promoting linguistic and cultural diversity in teacher education and language classrooms. 

Dr. Josh L. Prada is Assistant Professor in Applied Linguistics and Multilingualism at the Centre for Language and Cognition, University of Groningen (The Netherlands). His specialisms are in the broad, interdisciplinary field of multilingualism, with particular attention to the trajectories and experiences of minoritised multilingual community members in schooling and in society. Prada’s research cuts across the mind-body-space continuum, centring translanguaging and trans-perspectives as a lens to critically engage with the socio-cognitive and neuromotor aspects of meaning-making and its interfaces with identity and ideological construction. He has published widely in the field of heritage language education, with emphases on teacher development, curriculum design, pedagogical innovation, and socio-emotional dynamics. Among his current projects, Josh is co-PI of CELEBRATE, a multi-year programme seeking to advance high-impact critical curricular interventions in schools serving high volumes of multilingual learners (supported by a $3 million US Department of Education grant). Josh serves as Reviews Editor of the International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, and Associate Editor of Spanish as a Heritage Language, and has given keynotes, workshops and invited academic talks around the world, including in Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, France, Morocco, Norway, and the United States, among others.

Robert-Jan Smit (M.Ed.) is a teacher educator in the teacher trainer programme bachelor and master of English, at the Dutch NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences (Leeuwarden/Groningen). The subjects he teaches range from Arts in Context to Applied Linguistics, and from Discourse Analysis to Teaching Writing. He also supervises bachelor theses. Robert-Jan has 21 years of experience teaching English at a Dutch secondary school. Of those 21 years, 15 were spent teaching and developing the subject of English within the framework of the International Baccalaureate’s Middle Years Programme (IB-MYP) in the bilingual department. Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) is a field of strong interest.