Elif Naz Altas Kushan
BIOGRAPHY
Elif Naz Altaş-Kuşhan is a PhD candidate in Early Childhood Education at Middle East Technical University (METU) and serves as a research assistant in the Department of Elementary Education at TED University. She received her Bachelor’s degree from METU in 2018 and completed her Master’s degree at the same university in 2022, with a thesis investigating the self-care behaviors of preschool children.
In addition to her academic career, Altaş-Kuşhan has extensive practical teaching experience, having worked at KIDYA Preschool and completed an Erasmus internship in the Czech Republic, where she worked in multicultural classrooms. These experiences have formed the foundation of her primary research interests: diversity, refugee education, and funds of knowledge.
Altaş-Kuşhan’s research spans a wide range of topics, including early literacy, family-child-teacher dynamics in plurilingual and multicultural settings, and mathematics education in early childhood. Having served as a scholar in projects funded by TÜBİTAK (The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Türkiye), she has presented her research at national and international conferences, including the EECERA 2022 and EECERA 2024 congresses. She has also participated in international academic programs such as the EERA Summer School 2025. With publications in journals indexed in SSCI and ESCI, Altaş-Kuşhan also serves as an instructor in the Global Teaching and Learning Certificate Program (IB PYP) at TED University.
Alongside her academic pursuits, she actively volunteers at the Türkiye Zeka Vakfı (Turkey Intelligence Foundation), where she takes an active role in congresses for in-service teachers and organizes workshops for children. Currently, Elif Naz Altaş-Kuşhan is conducting research examining the literacy practices of refugee preschoolers within the Turkish formal education system. Through her work at Glasgow, she aims to enrich this in-depth research conducted in the Turkish context by integrating diverse international perspectives.