After graduating from the University of Amsterdam, I worked at the Province of North Holland as a civic servant in charge of projects aimed at the reduction of CO2 emission.

I resumed my academic career at the Institute of Education, where in December 2003 I started as a post-doc with an independent research agenda. Publishing from my doctoral research on language policies, history textbooks and understandings of national identity in Ukraine and beyond, I gradually shifted my research interests to such themes as civic values, political socialization and the relation with inequality and social cohesion, inspired by the research of Andy Green and other colleagues at the Institute. I began to examine these issues in a cross-national comparative manner, using the databases of well-known international surveys such as the WVS, EVS, Eurobarometer, ISSP and the IEA Civic Education Study.

My research interests now cover the following topics:

- Tracking and inequalities of political engagement;
- Ethnically mixed schooling and tolerance;
- Social cohesion, civic attitudes and their determinants;
- Diversity, multiculturalism and social solidarity;
- Ethnic conflicts, nation-building, civic and ethnic identities