Sevda Bekman

Sevda Bekman  received her  doctorate degree from the  University of London in the area of Child Development. She is a professor  at the  Faculty of Education of Boğazici University, Istanbul, Turkey . She is also a founding member and a consultant to AÇEV ( Mother-Child Education Foundation). Her main interest lies in the area of early childhood intervention and her main contribution to the area has been in the development of intervention programs for children who are developmentally vulnerable and for their parents. She has also directed and contributed to various  research studies investigating the effectiveness of intervention programs. She has worked as a consultant for different national and international agencies. Sevda Bekman  has various articles published in national and international journals  and written a book summarising her work in the area of intervention entitled “A Fair Chance” .

Prof. Bekman joined the Department of Educational Sciences in the Faculty of Education at Boğaziçi University in 1988 and continued there until 1998. She then moved to the Department of Primary Education. During her career she has taught courses, conducted various research projects, provided national and international training and supervision services and worked as a consultant to national and international programs and projects in the area of early childhood development and education. She has numerous publications in both Turkish and English. Prof. Bekman has developed five early childhood education programs, three for mothers and fathers of young children and two for preschool children. These programs are currently being applied on a nationwide basis with the collaboration of the Turkish Ministry of National Education and several NGOs.  Prof. Bekman has also held a visiting position as Nehru Chair Professor in Human Development and Familiy Studies in the Faculty of Home Science at Maharaja Sayajiro University in Baroda, India. As her academic work concentrates on early childhood intervention, Prof. Bekman’s research concentrates on  investigating the effectiveness of home and center-based early childhood education programs that target children in poverty.