Making sense of the world around us depends on the fundamental ability to parse the world into distinct objects and keep track of them. This process is defined as object individuation. Research indicates that it is not always easy for infants.

In nearly every Dutch primary and secondary school classroom, at least one child is bullied. The common perception is that the most popular child in the class is often the bully, while less popular children are more likely to be bullied. Is this image accurate? Bullying researcher Mitch van Geel knows…

The Brain and Education lab is a research group in the Institute of Education and Child Studies at Leiden University in the Netherlands. We use a Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience approach to study the development of complex cognitive processes involved in learning and academic skills such as reading…

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The Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences brings together high-quality research and outstanding mono- and multidisciplinary teaching.

Along with your application, you will need to submit a variety of documents.

Do you want to apply for this master’s programme at Leiden University? Find out how to apply by following the step-by step guide below.

The Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences provides its ca. 5000 students with a thorough education in the social and behavioural sciences. The student population is very diverse and international in nature.

Thanks to the virtual girl Sweetie created by Terre des Hommes, more than a thousand men who had webcam sex have been identified worldwide. They thought they were chatting with a ten-year-old girl. Whether that is punishable by law depends on the country, Leiden legal experts conclude.

The programme group Clinical Neurodevelopmental Sciences is one of the six groups within the Institute of Child and Education Studies at Leiden University. The group participates in all stages of the education programme: the bachelor's, master's and research master's programme.  The group is particularly…

On Thursday 17 November 2016 a delegation from the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Social affairs and UNICEF Tunisia paid a visit to Leiden Law School, organised by the International Juvenile Justice Observatory.

Leiden University has written an advisory report at the request of the Ministry of Justice and Security on a legislative bill to improve legal protection in youth protection. The report acknowledges the improvements that the proposed legislation would bring, but also provides criticism.

Across cultures, parents help their children master the social and linguistic codes needed in adult life. Recent research on language socialization found important cross-cultural differences, pointing out the need for more diversity for a full understanding of this process. Deaf communities form…

Do you want to apply for this master’s programme at Leiden University? Find out how to apply for your programme by following the step-by step guide in the application and admission section.

The Master’s specialisation Educational Science offers students cutting-edge insights into how individuals develop and learn and how education can be optimized to include every learner.

The Resilience Center Leiden investigates how stress impacts the mental health of young people. For that, the team studies a multitude of factors, such as childhood experiences, the social environment, psychological factors, and neurobiological factors. With this multidimensional approach, we aim to…

PhD candidates Mies Grijns and Hoko Horii were interviewed about their research on Child Marriage in Indonesia in the ‘Jakarta Globe’, a daily online English language newspaper in Indonesia.

What causes depression in a child and how can they get over it? Leiden Professor of Psychology Bernet Elzinga and behavioural scientist Carine Kielstra recently hosted a webinar on the subject of depression in teenagers. The level of interest was overwhelming.

The programme of Parenting and Child Development consists of four substantive courses devoted to the following subjects:

Mozambican politician and child rights activist Graça Machel will receive an honorary doctorate from Leiden University for her commitment to the rights of women and children in Africa and elsewhere. She will be awarded the honorary doctorate on the Dies Natalis, the University’s foundation day, on 8…

The Department of Child Law collaborated on a study on missing children in the European Union for the European Commission. The outcomes of the study aim to help to improve the mechanisms involved when children are missing in EU Member States.

If you have a question, there are various ways to get in touch with us.

Within the Graduate School you can conduct your PhD research in a wide range of subjects across the Social and Behavioural Sciences, with five distinct research areas offered by its Institutes.

Within 3 months of the start of the PhD project, your supervisors and you will draw up a Training and Supervision Plan in consultation with you and the other members of the supervision team. 

Are you interested in the neurocognitive and biological roots of learning, behaviour and emotions in children? If so, the programme in Applied Neuroscience in Human Development might be the specialisation you are looking for.

Our previous meta-analysis (Swart et al., 2019) had shown that feedback targeting text comprehension given when students perform a reading task positively influences learning from text. So far, differences in the effects of feedback were explained by design features, such as the timing and richness…

Sweetie 2.0 is a research project commissioned by Terre des Hommes on online child sex tourism and criminal law.

The transition period in which men become fathers might provide an important window of opportunity for parenting interventions that may produce long-term positive effects on paternal care and, consequently, child development. Existing prenatal programs traditionally focus on maternal and infant health…

The Dutch cabinet faces a challenging task. On 1 December, they are expected to present a plan for the accommodation of child asylum seekers at locations where there are adequate arrangements in place for education, healthcare and indoor and outdoor play facilities. Mark Klaassen, Assistant Professor…

Dr. Stephanie Rap, Denise Verkroost, LL.M. and prof. Mariëlle Bruning conducted a research on the participation of children in youth care in the Netherlands. In 2016 the first part, a legal desk-research on the possibilities for children to participate in youth care procedures and decision-making in…