Johanna Mierendorff is Professor of Social Pedagogy with a focus on early childhood education and care at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg.
After studying educational science at the Technical University of Berlin, she received a scholarship from the German Research Foundation in the research training group " Course of Life and Social Policy" at the University of Bremen. From 1995 - 1996 research assistant at the Collaborative Research Center 186 of the University of Bremen in the project: "Transitions to Work" (project management Prof. Walter Heinz). From 1996 to 1999 she was research assistant in the DFG project "Social Welfare Dynamics in the New Federal States" at the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU). From 2000 to 2007 she was research assistant in the department of 'Social Pedagogy/Social Policy' at MLU. From 2007 to 2008 she held the substitute professorship in 'Social Pedagogy' at the University of Trier. In 2009 she habilitated at the University of Hildesheim. Since 2009, she has been a Professor of Social Pedagogy with a focus on early childhood education at MLU. From 2018 to 2022, she was Vice Rector for Human Resources Development and Structure at MLU.
Her research interests are: Change of childhood, changing elementary education, social inequality in childhood: child poverty and segregation processes in elementary education.