Jeroen J.H. Dekker is Emeritus Professor of History and Philosophy of Education at the University of Groningen. His research deals with the longue durée (16th-20th centuries) social and cultural history of education, parenting, and childhood.
Professor in Groningen
Since 2024 he is Emeritus Professor of History and Philosophy of Education. Before he was Honorary Professor and until 2018 Full Professor of History and Philosophy of Education, Chair of the Department of Education and Program Leader of the research program Education in culture. He was until 2017 President of the Board of the University of Applied Educational Sciences for Teacher Training (SPO), is former Chair of the Tenure Track Committee / The Faculty Promotion Commitee of the Faculty of Behavioural and Social Sciences, former Member of the Supervisory Board of the Groningen University Fund (GUF), and former Member of the Advisory Board of ADNG (Dutch Documentation Centre for the Dutch Behavioural Sciences).
(Senior) Lecturer in Maastricht and Utrecht
Before his appointment in Groningen, he was Senior Lecturer in History and Head of the History Department at the University of Maastricht, and Lecturer in History of Education at the University of Utrecht.
Education
He graduated in history (BA; MA and PhD cum laude) and in philosophy (BA, abridged) at the University of Utrecht and next participated in the weekly seminar of Jacques Revel at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris.
Visiting professor
He was a visiting fellow at the MPIB (Max-Planck-Institut für Bildungsforschung, Zentrum für die Geschichte der Gefühle / The Centre for the History of Emotions) in Berlin, a visiting professor at the European Institute of Columbia University in New York, at the History and Civilisation Department of the European University Institute in Florence, and at the University of Sassari in Italy.
President of ISCHE and member of other academic societies
He was Secretary (1994-1997) and President (1997-2000) of the International Association for the History of Education (ISCHE) of which he is a Honorary Member, and one of the conveners of the Standing Working Group ‘Growing up in out-of-home care: Histories of children and youth in foster families and residential homes’, a former President and Honorary Member of the Belgian-Dutch Society for the History of Education, and a former President of the Groningen Research School for the Study of the Humanities. He is Member of the Board of the Dutch-Belgian Postgraduate School for Theory and History of Education (Philip A. Kohnstamm-Network), Member of the International Society for Cultural History, member of the Leuven Research Community on Philosophy and History of the Discipline of Education, and chair of the Board of the Foundation Stichting Paedagogica Historica.
Journal Editor and member of Editorial Boards
He is Honorary Editor of Paedagogica Historica, International Journal of the History of Education, Member of the Editorial Board of History of Education: Journal of the History of Education Society, Member of the Editorial Board of Groningen Studies in Cultural Change, of the Advisory Board of Historia y Memoria de la Educación, of the Editorial Board of Pedagogiek (until 2015) and member of the scientific committee of Annali di storia dell’Educazione e delle Istituzioni Educative (Annals of the History of Education and Educational Institutions). He is editor of Volume 3, Renaissance, of the Bloomsbury Cultural History of Education.