Professor Nele McElvany Appointed to Federal Youth Advisory Board
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At the constituent session of the Federal Youth Advisory Board, Dr. Petra Bahr, State Secretary at the Federal Ministry for Education, Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth (BMBFSFJ), officially appointed the 15 board members. “The Federal Government relies on sound expertise from academia and practice to further develop its policies for children, adolescents and young adults systematically and effectively. In this context, the Federal Youth Advisory Board serves as an important source of ideas and advice across departmental boundaries,” explained Bahr. “We look forward to trenchant recommendations, for example on how to upgrade early learning and improve educational transitions.”
Alongside Professor McElvany, 14 other experts from academia, politics, administrative bodies and professional practice are also members of the Federal Youth Advisory Board. They will primarily deliver advice on processes of social change and the question of how these affect the realities of life for children, adolescents and young adults. As a representative of the academic community, Professor McElvany’s committee work will focus on questions related to the education of children and adolescents between six and 18 years of age. In addition to the question of how child and youth welfare can be expediently dovetailed with educational issues, the committee will also provide input on educational equity, educational transitions, democracy education and media literacy. Here, the panel of experts attaches particular importance to including young people’s views in its consultations.
The Federal Youth Advisory Board is appointed anew at the start of each parliamentary term. Members are assisted by the Child and Youth Policy Unit at the DJI (German Youth Institute), with which TU Dortmund University is collaborating within a research alliance.
- Professor Yvonne Anders, Goethe University Frankfurt
- Enrico Birkner, State Youth Welfare Office, Free State of Saxony (Vice Chair)
- Peggy Eckert, Deutsche Kinder- und Jugendstiftung Sachsen (German Foundation for Children and Youth in Saxony)
- Professor Fabian Hofmann, Fliedner Fachhochschule Düsseldorf University of Applied Sciences in der Kaiserswerther Diakonie
- Professor Nina Kolleck, University of Potsdam
- Professor Nele McElvany, TU Dortmund University
- Christian Patzelt, Deutsche Jugendfeuerwehr (German Youth Fire Department)
- Daniel Poli, IJAB – International Youth Service of the Federal Republic of Germany
- Professor Elisabeth Richter, Medical School Hamburg
- Matthias Selle, District Councilor for Education and Social Affairs, Osnabrück
- Petra Spoo-Ludwig, Ministry of Labor, Social Affairs, Women and Health, Saarland
- Daniel Thomsen, Youth, Family and Education Department, North Friesland District
- Professor Haci-Halil Uslucan, Centre for Studies on Turkey and Integration Research, University of Duisburg-Essen
- Claudia Völcker, Child and Youth Welfare, Deaconesses Speyer (Vice Chair)
- Professor Ivo Züchner, Marburg University (Chair)
About Professor Nele McElvany
Professor Nele McElvany, a psychologist, was appointed as Professor for Empirical Educational Research at the Department of Educational Sciences and Psychology in 2009. Prior to that, she spent seven years as a research associate at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin. She has been Executive Director of the Center for Research on Education and School Development (IFS) since 2014 and Vice President Research since 2020. Her main research interest is the reading skills of children and adolescents. In this capacity, she heads, for example, the international education study PIRLS/IGLU in Germany.