Centre for Cultural Psychology (Aalborg University)
CCP is dedicated to research on complex psychological functioning within dynamic social contexts. Cultural Psychology is a globally expanding field with a focus on the mutual constitution of people and society, which involves exploring the entanglement of Culture, Communication and Mind in situated human lives.
The Centre originated with a large Niels Bohr grant from the Danish National Research Foundation. It is the first Centre for Cultural Psychology in Europe and currently directed by Carolin Demuth, Brady Wagoner and Bo Allesøe Christensen. Jaan Valsiner and Svend Brinkmann are serving as senior advisors.
Research
Today CCP plays an active role in promoting cutting-edge international research on the mutual constitution of culture and mind, preparing students for work in addressing the challenges of an increasing globalized and multicultural society, and advising societal stakeholders on social innovation.
Specifically, CCP researchers are currently involved in the following research areas:
- Connecting new technology and social practices
- Developmental dynamics, identity and educational practices in changing societies
- Children’s upbringing conditions, inclusion, and well-being
- Memory, history and forgetting in complex social contexts
- Public responses to global health challenges, such as the COVID-19 pandemic
- Raising environmental consciousness in the anthropocene
How to get involved?
The centre hosts researchers from various theoretical and methodological traditions related to the field of Cultural Psychology including Semiotics, Socio-historical approaches, Social Representations, Visual Methods, Discursive Psychology and Narrative Approaches, Ethnomethodology and Multimodal Interaction Analysis.
The activities of the Centre include research projects, conferences, seminars and discussion groups, guest lecturers and various publication outlets (viz., journals, book series etc.). The Centre is an open arena for meetings and cooperation across disciplinary and institutional boundaries, aiming to stimulate the cross-fertilization between academic perspectives.
The centre also organizes the annual transdisciplinary Winter/Summer school “Culture, Psychology & Qualitative Research” in collaboration the Sigmund Freud University Berlin, Sigmund Freud University Vienna and the University of Münster: https://www.communication.aau.dk/research/research-centres/ccp#annual-transdisciplinary-winter/summer-school-%E2%80%9Cculture,-psychology-&-qualitative-research%E2%80%9D
CCP is connected to the Masters Programme Cultural Psychology and Educational Practice (https://www.psykologi.aau.dk/uddannelsen/kandidatuddannelsen/professionsprogrammer/vis/cultural-psychology-and-educational-practice–cpep-.cid502108) as well as to the Research Group Cultural Psychology: https://www.communication.aau.dk/research/research-centres/ccp/research-group-cultural-psychology
Moreover, it offers various Ph.D. trainings in cultural psychology, e.g.: (https://www.communication.aau.dk/the-centre-for-cultural-psychology-offers-the-following-2-phd-courses-this-year-n133636).
The centre is also the central node in a vast international network of scholars in cultural psychology and related fields, serving as a platform for international exchange with scholars in Asia, Latin America, the US and throughout Europe. This includes also an annual visit of Cultural Psychology students from Ritsumeikan University (Japan) and mutual teacher’s exchange between CCP Aalborg and Ritsumeikan University.
We welcome interested scholars of various backgrounds to join our activities and contribute to fruitful discussions aimed at advancing the field.
Representative
Carolin Demuth is Associate Professor in Cultural and Developmental Psychology at Aalborg University. She holds a diploma in psychology and a doctorate (scholarship of the state of Lower Saxony) from the University of Osnabrück, Germany. In 2012, she was awarded a 3-months DAAD fellowship as visiting scholar at Clark University, Worcester, USA where she worked closely with Jaan Valsiner and Michael Bamberg. In 2024, she was invited as guest professor at Ritsumeikan University, Japan to teach a one semester course in Cultural Psychology. She is co-director of the Centre for Cultural Psychology and director of the Research Group Cultural Psychology at Aalborg University. She is Associate Editor of Frontiers in Psychology: Cultural Psychology and serves as regular reviewer in Culture & Psychology. She is also on various editorial boards of international peer review journals with a focus on qualitative methods. She is co-founder and past president of the Association of European Qualitative Researchers in Psychology (EQuiP). Her research interests focus on the dialogical interplay of self, culture and discourse. She studies every day social interactions in which children participate and come to orient themselves within cultural meaning systems, as well as narrative identity across the live span. In 2025, she was awarded the ‘Ernst Boesch Prize for Services to the Promotion and Dissemmination of Cultural Psychology’ by the ‘Society for Cultural Psychology and the Hans Kilian and Lotte Köhler Centre’.
Books/book chapters (selection):
- Demuth, C. (2024). Quality in Qualitative Research across Cultural Communities. In: U. Flick (ed.) The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Research Quality. Pp. 515-530. London: Sage
- Demuth, C. (2022) Applying Multimodal Interaction Analysis to Research in Cultural Psychology. In: M. Watzlawik & S. Salden (eds). Courageous Methods in Cultural Psychology. Pp. 131-155. Springer Series Theory and History in the Social and Human Sciences, edited by Jaan Valsiner.
- Demuth, C. & Fasulo, A. (2022) Qualitative Research Design across Different Cultural Communities. In: Flick. U. (Ed.) (2022) The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Research Design – Two Volume Set. Pp. 430-451, London: Sage.
Articles and paper presentations (selection):
- Demuth, C. & Gergen, K. (2025). Social Constructionist Psychology. Qualitative Studies 10 (1), 1-22
- Valsiner, J.; Demuth, C., Wagoner, B. & Allesøe Christiansen, B. (2021). The future of Cultural Psychology: a conversation with Jaan Valsiner. Europe’s Journal of Psychology Vol. 17(4), 322–329, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.7575
- Demuth, C. (2017) Generalization from Single Cases and the Concept of Double Dialogicality. Integrative Psychological & Behavioral Science. 52(1), 77-93
- Demuth, C. (2015). New Directions in Qualitative Research in Psychology. Integrative Psychological & Behavioral Science, 49(2), 125-133. 10.1007/s12124-015-9303-9
- Demuth, C. (2013). Socializing infants towards a cultural understanding of expressing negative affect: A Bakhtinian informed discursive psychology approach. Mind, Culture, and Activity. 20(1), 39-61,
- Demuth, C. (2011). Das Potential eines dialogischen Verständnisses von Sprache für die empirische Entwicklungspsychologie. In: Martin Dege (Hrsg). Das Kritische Potential der Sprache (Special Issue). Journal für Psychologie 19(1)
