CuDOS-teamThe CuDOS team members are always happy to share their research interests.https://www.ugent.be/ps/sociologie/en/research/cudos/teamhttps://www.ugent.be/++resource++plone-logo.svg
CuDOS-team
The CuDOS team members are always happy to share their research interests.
Jannick obtained his PhD in Sociology at Ghent University (2013) on the topic of school effects on student misbehavior.
Jannick's research deals with inequality of educational opportunity in relation to contextual effects, originating from schools and educational systems. Specifically, he focuses on wellbeing and life satisfaction of students, on antischool attitudes and behavior, and on students' progression through the educational system. He further researches determinants and outcomes of grade retention, friendships, bullying/victimization, and teacher expectations.
Jannick teaches several courses, ranging from the sociology of social problems, basic and advanced sociological theory, sociology of education and quantitative techniques.
John obtained his PhD in Sociology at Ghent University (1999) on the topic of family formation and partner choice in ethnic minorities in Belgium.
John's research focuses on culture and art participation, art and cultural education, lifestyles, sexual behaviour, and family formation in ethnic minorities. He coordinated several large interuniversity research projects and was responsible for the organization of numerous large-scale surveys. His main expertise lies in cultural sociology, policy relevant research and advanced quantitative techniques (such as multilevel modelling, latent class analysis, structural equation models and life course analysis). He is involved in the development of large-scale survey data collection infrastructure, The Social Study.
John teachers several courses in statistics and demography, from bachelor to master level.
Henk obtained his PhD in Sociology at Ghent University (2006) with a dissertation on survey nonresponse in audience research.
Henk's research lies at the intersection of cultural sociology and social inequality. He studies how artistic value is produced and justified, with particular attention to expert panels, evaluation criteria, and government subsidies for the arts. He also analyzes love, intimacy, and sexual practices as structured fields governed by distinct institutional logics, combining cultural theory with advanced statistical techniques such as Multiple Correspondence Analysis. Other lines of research are using LLMs to study political discourse between 1945 and now, and the qualitative historical study of discourse on food and eating.
Peter obtained his PhD in Sociology at Warwick University (UK, 2005) on the topic of ethnic discrimination in secondary schools in Flanders and England.
Peter's research focuses on race/ethnic identities and inequalities in education, particularly on different forms of racism, discrimination, stereotyping and prejudice. In addition, Peter teaches and conducts research on qualitative research methods, with a focus on comparing different approaches to Qualitative Data Analysis. Theoretically, Peter has been influenced by various sociological and social-psychological approaches, in particular Bourdieu's theory of practice, symbolic interactionism, ecological approaches and social-psychological theories on in-out group relations.
Peter teaches several introduction and advanced courses on qualitative research methods.
Mieke obtained her PhD in Sociology at Ghent University.
Mieke's research interests cover diverse topics within the sociology of education, particularly the effects of structural and compositional school features on diverse outcomes for students and teachers, with a focus on equal opportunities. In addition, she supervises research on sexual minorities. In both research lines, gender takes an important place.
Mieke has been invited to keynote or lecture at several international conferences and universities abroad, such as St.-Petersburg, Barcelona, Paris, Amsterdam, Lancaster (UK), San Francisco, Frankfurt, Dortmund, Fribourg (Switzerland). From 2009 until 2015 she was the president of the Flemish Sociological Association, and from 2017 to 2019 she coordinated the Research Network 10 (Sociology of Education) of the European Sociological Association (ESA). She is a Fellow of the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and the arts, Class of Humanities. In 2022-2023, she was granted the Belgian Francqui-chair at the University of Antwerp.
Mieke teaches several courses among which sociological perspectives and sociology of education.
Dieter earned his PhD in Sociology at Ghent University in 2022 with a dissertation on populist communication and ideology.
As a sociologist of public opinion, Dieter investigates two interconnected areas: how belief systems and social divisions emerge, shaping the distribution of opinions across society, and how persuasive communication influences what people think and feel. Central to his work is the question: how do existing beliefs enable or constrain social and attitudinal change, and how can communication catalyze that change? To explore this, he has studied pressing social issues - migration, climate change, welfare policy, polarization, populism, and offensive humor - and has recently focused on the dynamics of mis- and disinformation.
Dieter teaches courses in statistics and quantitative research design.
Jessy obtained her PhD in Sociology at VUB (Vrije Universiteit Brussel) in 2007 with a dissertation on thintergenerational transmission of tastes and values.
Jessy's research concentrates on cultural participation and social inequalities, with a particular focus on youth and education. As coordinator of the interuniversity Centre of Cultural Research (Kenniscentrum Cultuuronderzoek), she has led several large-scale population and audience studies. Her expertise spans cultural sociology, sociology of education, and youth studies, covering topics such as barriers to cultural participation, audience research in cultural institutions, youth engagement, arts and cultural education, and the careers of creative professionals.
Jessy teaches Cultural Management and Data Analysis at the Department of Educational Sciences at VUB. In Ghent, she is lecturer in Postgraduate Heritage and Society.
Timo obtained his PhD in Sociology at Ghent University (2022)n focusing on the non-cognitive outcomes of grade retention.
Timo has obtained an FWO Junior Postdoc Fellowship during which he studies the determinants of grade retention, with a particular focus on sociodemographic characteristics such as ethnicity and socio-economic status. More generally, his work focuses on how our educational system can reproduce and strengthen social inequality. Methodologically, Timo uses a mixed-methods approach with a focus on cross-national multilevel analysis, quasi-experimental video vignettes, and in-depth interviews.
Timo is Guest Professor at the Multidisciplinary Institute for Teacher Education (MILO) at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), where he teaches Sociology of Education and Educational Policies. in Ghent, he teaches several courses in sociology.
Amelie obtained her PhD in Sociology at Ghent University (2021) on the topic of family formation and partner choice in ethnic minorities in Belgium.
Amelie's research interest covers on the one hand social demographical topics such as family formation, migration and integration and population studies; and survey methodological issues regarding panel data on the other hand. She is involved in The Social Study, a large-scale data collection infrastructure that facilitates high-quality survey research that requires a diverse and accurate representation of the Belgian population. As panel manager, Amelie is responsible for the daily operations of the panel and for the development of survey methodological research.
Amelie teaches several courses in statistics from bachelor to master level.
Mart obtained his PhD in Sociology at Ghent University in 2014 with a dissertation on gender and the intergenerational transmission of cultural participation patterns and gender.
Mart is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Sociology and is also affiliated with the Department of Social Work and Social Pedagogy. His research focuses on gender, cultural participation, taste patterns, and careers of creative professionals. He has collaborated with partners in the cultural sector, bridging academic research and practical applications in policy. Mart is also involved in youth research, with a specific focus on artistic practices. He uses both quantitative and qualitative research methods, depending on the topic.
Jan obtained his master in Sociology at Ghent University in 2019. He wrote a master thesis on (re)memorialisation practices by the Documentation center of Cambodia as they reframed the Khmer Rouge genocide to fit modern nation-building demands.
In his PhD, Jan investigates discourses of food and morality. A first line of research endeavours a frame-analysis on eight editions of the iconic Flemish cookbook 'Ons Kookboek', allowing for a diachronical view of almost 100 years of culinary history. A second line of research makes a similar analysis on a corpus of marketing folders (1984-2024) by Belgium's biggest sugar producer 'Tiense suiker' to analyse the various and historically variable ways in which compromises of worth are woven into the story of sugar in order to smoothen its contested image. All this under the generous supervision of Prof. Dr. Henk Roose.
Jan assists in several courses in the bachelor of Sociology.
Klara obtained a master of Science in Sociology at Ghent University in 2024 with a major in sociology of education and cultural sociology. She wrote her master thesis on the impact of comprehensive education on high-performing secondary school students.
In October 2024, Klara started her PhD at CuDOS. She is working on the TESSA (Testing the Effects of School Strategies and Actions) project. The aim of this project is constructing a quantitative dataset containing information on strategies and actions applied by primary schools in Flanders to improve pupils' educational performance - such as grade repetition, ability grouping, testing - and information on teachers' attitudes towards these practices and pupils' school related wellbeing, with special attention for existing inequalities in the impact of these strategies. She is working under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Jannick Demanet and Prof. Dr. Mieke Van Houtte.
Erin obtained a master of Science in Sociology (with a focus on Culture and Diversity) in 2023 at KU Leuven, where her thesis explore the consumption of organic food and the notion of the eco-habitus. In 2024, she obtained a Master of Arts in Cultural and Creative Industries at King's College London, with a dissertation on the subversion of gender through fashion in Vogue Magazine.
Erin started her doctoral research in October 2024 under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Henk Roose. She is working on a sociological-historical analysis of selection and justification practices of the Committee for Visual Arts in Flanders through the lens of the Sociology of Valuation and Evaluation and Pragmatic Sociology. Through a mixed-methods approach, her research explores how these expert panels have established and legitimized the artistic value of artists and their art from 1965 to present. In a first stage of her doctoral project, she is analyzing 50 years' worth of committee reports containing the decision on grant proposals to shed light on historic shifts and changes and potential overlaps in the conceptions of worth in the artistic and political field.
Eef holds a Licentiate in Political and Social Sciences: Communication Sciences & Teacher Education (1997) at Ghent University, a Master of Sciences in Educational Sciences (2017), and a Master of Arts in Cultural and Arts Sciences (2024).
Eef's doctoral research examines cultural and arts education and participation among young people with a migration background, with a particular focus on the experiences of OKAN students (newcomers in non-Dutch-speaking education). She employs visual methods, such as Illustration Elicitation, to explore how young people themselves engage with and give meaning to cultural and leisure activities.
Eef teaches in the Educational Master Cultural Sciences at Ghent University and the University of Antwerp, with a focus on courses in cultural and arts education.
Wenlei obtained her master's degree in Sociology at Northwest A&F University, where she investigated the acculturation experiences of ethnic minority students in Xinjiang Province in China.
Wenlei's academic work is situated at the intersection of culture, ethnicity, gender and family formation, with a particular emphasis on migration and social integration. Her doctoral research is funded by the China Scholarship Council. Wenlei examines partner selection among Chinese Diasporas in Belgium, exploring how intimate choices and family formation practices both reflect and shape broader processes of social intergation. Employing a mixed-methods approach that integrates quantitative and qualitative research, her work contributes to a deeper understanding of integration dynamics and the role of intimate life in fostering social cohesion. This approach helps explain how social and cultural factors, together with unequal opportunities, influence the different ways Chinese men and women choose partners, highlighting the connection between personal decisions and wider social conditions in the diaspora. Her research is supervised by Prof. Dr. John Lievens.
Elke obtained her Master of Science in Sociology at Ghent University with a major in Political Sociology and credit course 'Gender and Globalisation'. Her master thesis concerned the partner choice of Turkish Flemish women in Flanders and the link with emancipation.
Elke started working as a researcher at the Centre for Cultural Research in 2023. The Centre for Culture Research serves as the scientific support point for policy-relevant cultural research in Flanders. During her studies she developed an interest in social inequality, the groups affected by it and the barriers associated with it. Within the Centre of Culture Research she focuses on cultural participation in Flanders, conducting further research on the current participation survey (for example studying Flemish cultural lifestyles over a period of time) and audience research.
Augustijn obtained a Master of Science in Sociology at Ghent University in 2024 and completed the university's interdisciplinary "Quetelet" program the year before. His master thesis was about the evolution of gender differences in study choice over time.
Augustijn is interested in politics, historical comparative methods and nonreactive research. For his doctoral research he examines how discussion about immigration in the Belgian Chamber of Representatives have evolved over the course of the past 85 years. More specifically, he explores how and to what extend discussions about immigration have come to differentiate political parties more now than in the past. To process this large volume of data, he leverages text embeddings and machine learning. Augustijn is conducting his research under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Ronan Van Rossem and Prof. Dr. Henk Roose.
Marie obtained her Master of Science in Sociology (English Master) at Ghent University in 2023. During her master, she explored the sociology of nonhuman animals by writing a master thesis on dog agency and writing an article on the socialisation of dairy cows.
Marie's doctoral research focuses on animals in education, specifically on the phenomenon of classroom animals in primary education in Flanders. To obtain a comprehensive view of this phenomenon, she focuses on all actors present in the classroom: the teacher, the pupils and the nonhuman animals themselves. Her research is qualitative, including among others focus groups and interviews, participant observations and participatory drawing sessions. She is working under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Jannick Demanet and Prof. Dr. Mieke Van Houtte.
Marie assist in several courses in both the bachelor and master in Sociology.
Boteng obtained a Master of Science in Sociology at Ghent University. His master thesis focused on the intersectional experiences of ethnic minorities as queer.
Boteng's doctoral research investigates social attitudes toward homosexuality with a particular focus on Chinese migrants in Belgium. He is also interested in integration of mixed-methods approaches, such as large-scale survey analyses with in-depth qualitative interviews, to uncover how demographic, cultural and political factors shape attitude formation and change. He is conducting this research under the supervision of Prof. Dr. John Lievens.
