People
Mary Kellett
Spyros Spyrou
Chrystalla Ellina
Loizos Symeou
Dilek Latif
Mehves Beyidoglou
Loucas Antoniou
Dr. Mary Kellett: Mary Kellett has an international reputation as a leading pioneer in the empowerment of children and young people as researchers and has published widely in this and associated fields. She sits on a number of advisory panels and her work is the focus of many initiatives including projects in six European countries. She was recently appointed to the role of International Expert for a United Nations Development Programme for young researchers and holds a Visiting Professorship at the Institute of Education in Qatar. Mary is the Director of the Childhood and Youth Studies programme at the Open University where she is also the Founder Director of the Children’s Research Centre, a unique organisation that exists solely to support research by children and young people.
Dr. Spyros Spyrou: Spyros is director of the Center for the Study of Childhood and Adolescence and president of the Center's Board of Directors. He holds a BSc degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he studied as a CASP scholar, and an MA and Ph.D degrees in sociocultural anthropology from the State University of New York at Binghamton; he also holds a Certificate in College Teaching from the State University of New York at Binghamton. Currently, Dr. Spyrou is an assistant professor of anthropology and sociology at Cyprus College; from 2000 to 2002 he also served as head of the Department of Arts and Sciences at Cyprus College. Dr. Spyrou has taught a variety of anthropology and sociology courses in the areas of race, racism, multiculturalism, and research methods as well as courses devoted to the study of childhood, such as “The Social Worlds of Children” and “The Anthropology of Childhood” at both Cyprus College and the State University of New York at Binghamton. He has received a number of awards including an award for excellence in teaching (1996) and a Dissertation Fellowship both from the State University of New York at Binghamton. He is a member of two honour societies, Phi Beta Kappa and Beta Gamma Sigma, a member of the American Anthropological Association and the International Sociological Association, and a member of various international networks for the study of childhood, adolescence and related issues (e.g., Daphne: European Network Launching Children's Rights and Preventing Violence; Research Committee 53: Sociology of Childhood, International Sociological Association; Enter Social Health Network; Cultural Education-Cultural Sustainability Network). Dr. Spyrou is also a member of the Board of Directors of the Child Support Association and is actively involved in campaigning for children's rights both locally and internationally. He is also a member of the editorial board of the Journal of the Institute for Educational Research. His research interests include childhood, education, and identity construction (as it relates to ethnicity, race, immigration, and disability). He has worked on a number of research projects involving children and adolescents and his work has been funded by the Wenner-Gren Foundation, the State University of New York at Binghamton, the Bank of Cyprus, UNOPS, and the European Commission. In 1995 he worked on a collaborative research project studying the cultural adjustment process of Vietnamese refugee students in the U.S. while more recently he has worked on an international television program for children (Gimme6) as an educational and research consultant helping to design the program's curriculum and conducting quantitative and qualitative research. In his Ph.D. research (“Small Ethnic Worlds: Identity, Ambiguity, and Imagination in Greek Cypriot Children's Lives”), he conducted an ethnographic study of two communities examining the process of ethnic identity construction among Greek Cypriot elementary school children. Dr Spyrou is currently writing a book based on this work and conducting a research project on Greek Cypriot children's knowledge about, experiences of, and attitudes towards foreigners. He is also the scientific coordinator for a two-year project funded by the European Commission titled “Integrating Children's Perspectives in Policy-making to Combat Poverty and Social Exclusion Experienced by Single Parent Families: A Transnational, Comparative Approach.”
Email: S.Spyrou@euc.ac.cy
(with Loucas Antoniou)
2005 Mikrodouleies: Child Labour in Cyprus During the 20th Century. (In Greek)
2002 Images of “The Other”: “The Turk” in Greek Cypriot Children's Imaginations. In Race, Ethnicity and Education : 5(3): 255-272.
2001 "Those on the Other Side: Ethnic Identity and Imagination in Greek Cypriot Children's Lives." In Children and Anthropology: Perspectives for the 21st Century , Helen Schwartzman, ed, pp. 167-185. Westport, Connecticut and London: Bergin & Garvey.
2001 "One and More than One: Greek Cypriot Children and Ethnic Identity in the Flow of Everyday Life." disClosure: A Journal of Social Theory 10: 73-94.
2000 "Education, Ideology, and the National Self: The Social Practice of Identity Construction in the Classroom." The Cyprus Review 12(1):61-81.
Dr. Chrystalla Ellina: Chrystalla holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Missouri-St. Louis (US), an MA degree in Political Science from the same university, an MA (Maîtrise) in History from the University of Lyon, France and a Licence degree in History from the University of Orlèans, France. Her research interests include gender policies, international institutions, European Union social policy, research methodology, women and politics, and comparative public policy. She has worked as an Assistant Professor of Political Science at European University Cyprus (formerly known as Cyprus College), teaching classes in Research Methodology, European Studies, Comparative Politics and International Relations during the period 2001-2005. She has also worked as an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the University of Missouri-St. Louis in the United States (2000 - 01). She has served as a researcher, program coordinator and trainer in European Union programs such as the Community Initiative EQUAL, the Action Grundtvig 2 Learning Partnerships of the Socrates Program, and the program COST. She has also worked professionally as an analyst, consultant and evaluator in the United States and Cyprus. Evaluations in which she participated include a report for the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, entitled The National Cross-Site Evaluation of High-Risk Youth Programs which was awarded the 2000 Outstanding Evaluation Award of the American Evaluation Association (AEA).
Her dissertation entitled The Role of International Institutions in Promoting Women’s Rights: A Multilevel Analysis of the Politics of Gender in the European Union examined the impact of international institutions on social policymaking even in states that are resistant to change. The research was funded by an international fellowship of the American Association of University Women (AAUW) Educational Foundation (1998-99) and graduate assistantships from the University of Missouri-St. Louis. She presented her work in various conferences such as, the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association (2001) and the International Conference of Europeanists (2000). The results of her dissertation were published in book form by Routledge (Ellina, Chrystalla, 2003. Promoting Women's Rights: Policies of Gender in the European Union. New York: Routledge).
As a research associate at the Center for the Study of Childhood and Adolescence, she has worked in an evaluation (2005) of bi-communal youth camps funded by the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS). She has also served as a trainer in the project Training Teachers to Train Children in Social Research Methods: Developing Young Researchers, (2007) and with a team of co-trainers, is currently focusing in developing a Guide to Teachers on how to actively involve children in social research.
Dr. Ellina speaks Greek, English and French.
Email: Chrystalla_ellina@yahoo.com
Dr. Loizos Symeou is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Education Sciences of the European University-Cyprus, where he teaches Methodology of Educational Research and Sociology of Education at undergraduate and postgraduate courses. Since February 2007, he is the Chairperson of the Department of Education Sciences. He holds degrees from the University of Cyprus (B.Ed.), the University of Sydney (M.Ed. in Teaching Studies), and the University of Cambridge (M.Phil. in Educational Research, and PhD in Educational Research and Sociology of Education). His doctorate research is examining sociological aspects of family-school relations in Cyprus. His areas of interest include qualitative educational and pedagogical research, sociology of education, and ethics in educational and social research. His research to date explores sociological aspects of family-school relations in Cyprus and internationally, drawing on Bourdieu’s theory of ‘cultural capital’ and Coleman’s theoretical notion of ‘social capital’. Between 2000-2005 he worked as a lecturer at the Cyprus Pedagogical Institute where he taught for pre-service and in-service teachers’ training programs. He has received a number of awards for academic excellence, including ranking first among 223 graduates of the Pedagogical Academy of Cyprus in 1991 and receiving an Overseas Research Students Award (UK) and Overseas Student Bursary (Cambridge Commonwealth Trust) in 2000-2002. In 2002 he was nominated by the Cyprus Ministry of Education and Culture as Cyprus’s candidate for the European Parents Association ‘2002 Alcuin Award’ European competition with his innovative project ‘Valuing parents as co-educators: Teacher-parent partnership in the primary school classroom’. Dr Symeou is a member of international boards focusing on families’ role in education, like ERNAPE (European Research Network about Parents in Education-Member of the Scientific Committee) and I-NET (International Network of Scholars), and a member of international and local educational research associations, e.g. AERA (American Educational Research Association, Reviewer), Earli (European Association for Research on Learning and Instruction), BERA (British Educational Research Association) and the Pedagogical Company of Cyprus. Apart form the Centre of Research on Childhood and Adolescence, he is also a member of other local networks for the study of education and related issues. He has worked on a number of research projects involving teachers, parents and children. His current research relating to children and childhood involves his participation in a joint European research project investigating the intergenerational gap through the interaction with common linguistic, urban and cultural grounds. He is also the administrative coordinator of two projects: the Comenius project “Teacher In-Service Training for Roma Inclusion” 134018-2007-CY-COMENIUS-CMP, which addresses the objectives of approaching/including Roma populations through quality teacher training grounded in various European settings; and the UNDP-ACT Project: 'Exploring Europe and Ourselves: Geographies and Identities at Work' (#47351_07_010), which aims to train Cypriot teachers and educators across the divide to use European geography as a way to explore European and Cypriot identities as hybrid, multiple, changing and inclusive. Dr Symeou has published his work in academic journals and edited books.
Email: L.Symeou@euc.ac.cy and loizossymeou@hotmail.com
Some of his most recent publications that relate to children and childhood in Cyprus are:
Symeou, L. (2007). Cultural capital and family involvement in children’s education: Tales from two primary schools in Cyprus. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 28(4), 473-487.
Symeou, L. (2006). Teacher-Parent Cooperation: Strategies to engage parents in their children’s school life. Journal of School Public Relations, 27(4), 502-527.
Symeou, L. (2006). Cultural and social capital: Can we learn from Bourdieu’s and Coleman’s theoretical concepts for investigating and strengthening school-family collaboration? Cultura y Educacion, 18(3-4), 219-229).
Dr. Dilek Latif: Dilek is Senior Lecturer in the International Relations Department at the Near East University in Nicosia. Dilek holds a B.A degree from Eastern Mediterranean University (E.M.U) in Famagusta/Cyprus and an M.Sc. degree from the Middle East Technical University (M.E.T.U.) in Ankara /Turkey. In 2005, she obtained her Ph.D from the Middle East Technical University on Peace Building in Ethnically Divided Societies with a focus on Bosnia and Herzegovina. She was a Fulbright Visiting Scholar in California State University- Dominguez Hills in the Fall of 2006 and carried out research on “Peace Education: New Approaches to the Teaching of a Contested History”. In addition to the Fulbright Visiting Scholar Award, she won the Article Competition Award of the Centre for Policy Studies at the Central European University in Budapest in 2005. She was also awarded scholarships during her Masters and PhD degrees from the Ministry of Education. Between 2001 and 2004 she worked as a lecturer at the Eastern Mediterranean University and Girne American University. Dr. Latif has taught a variety of international relations and history courses such as Comparative Political Systems, Introduction to Politics, History of the Turkish Republic, the History and Politics of Cyprus as well as Research Methods. She is a member of the Association for Historical Dialogue and Research, Political Science Association Cyprus and POST Research Institute.
Her particular scholarly interest lies in the area of peace studies, focusing on strategies toward establishing peace and reconciliation in divided societies. Since 2003, she has been involved in internationally sponsored bi-communal ‘Education for Peace’ projects in Cyprus as consultant, researcher, and trainer. Dilek participated in the research team of the first bi-communal “Education for Peace I” project sponsored by UNOPS, as a technical consultant. She was invited to present the report of the project and attended the training on ‘Teaching History in a Divided Society – Methodological Problems’ at the Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research Braunschweig, Germany in February 2004. She continued to be one of the technical consultants and researchers in ‘Education for Peace II: Textual and Visual Analyses of the Lower Secondary School History Textbooks, Comparative Analysis of the Old and the New History Textbooks’, funded by UNDP-ACT and USAID, which was carried out by POST-RI in September 2006 - July 2007. Dr. Latif was one of the local trainers in the Council of Europe’s recent workshops on ‘The use of historical sources in teaching the cultural and social history of Cyprus’ held between 9-10 June 2006 in Nicosia.
Currently, she is involved with the International Peace Research Institute of Oslo (PRIO) Cyprus Centre research project “Prospects of Reconciliation in Cyprus” and the UNDP-ACT Project “Exploring Europe and Ourselves: Geographies and Identities at Work”. Dr Latif has published her work in various academic journals.
Email: dilek_latif@yahoo.com
Ms Mehves Beyidoglu Onen holds a MES in European Integration and Regionalism from the University of Graz (Austria), and ME and BA degrees in International Relations from the Eastern Mediterranean University (Cyprus). Her interest areas include peace education, youth education and civic culture, civil society and new teaching methods. Between 2004 and 2007, she worked as a consultant at the European Union Coordination Centre in the northern part of Cyprus. During this period of time, she also took part in a variety of projects on education. One such project is titled “Education for Peace I”. Through this project, Mehves screened the elementary school curricula together with her colleagues to figure out the biased references which exist in the school books, and the activities carried out in elementary schools, and she prepared a report for the reform and modernisation of the current education system. Similarly, Mehves continued to work as technical consultant at Education for Peace II. She evaluated and analyzed the history books of the first three grades of the secondary school curricula and reported on the teaching methods and the teaching materials used. Another project related to education and youth that Mehves was involved with was the “World Forum” where she was the Cypriot youth leader. For this project, she was trained as conflict resolution facilitator in San Francisco together with the other group leaders from New Zealand, South Africa, Denmark and the USA, ( countries where there are different kinds of conflicts including minority problems, poverty and inequality, and racism) through the scholarship of the Rockrose Institute, to train the young peacemakers to promote, support and advance non-violent conflict resolution through education, improved communication and a deeper understanding of justice.
Between 2001 and 2004, Mehves worked as a part-time lecturer at the Cyprus International University where she taught International Human Rights and prepared a report on consumer rights for the British High Commission. At the time of the UN Solution Plan which is known as the Annan Plan, Mehves translated the Turkish daily political news on the internet on a daily basis.
Currently Mehves works as freelance. She has a variety of ongoing projects including “Restructuring Vocational Training” run by the Education Authority of the northern part of Cyprus which aims to reform the vocational and technical education. The project is supported by the British Council. Another project where she works as a researcher is titled “Exploring Europe”. This project aims to train Cypriot teachers and educators across the divide to use European geography as a way to explore European and Cypriot identities as hybrid, multiple, changing, and inclusive.
Since the beginning of 2007, Mehves has been working as trainer and consultant under the Civil Society Capacity Building Programme. Within the framework of this programme, she gives training to the Cypriot Civil Society Organisations across the divide on a variety of issues including project cycle management, networking and partnership; monitoring and evaluation; and volunteer management. She also provides consultancy to the CSOs on writing project proposals for the European Union and the United Nations Development Program grants.
Mr. Loucas Antoniou: Loucas is currently pursuing a PhD degree in Sociology at the Department of Sociological Studies, University of Sheffield. He holds an MA degree in Applied Sociology from the University of Indianapolis and a Bachelor's degree in Social Sciences with a concentration in Sociology from Cyprus College. His PhD thesis is concerned with children's work within the household domain, the ways that it takes place and is negotiated as well as how it may influence and be influenced by family structures. In 1998, he was awarded with a partial scholarship from Cyprus College and in 2001 and 2002 he has been included in the Dean's List, second and first honor respectively. In the summer of 2001, Mr. Antoniou participated in the Future Global Leaders Program--a Conflict Resolution program--funded by the Department of State that took place at the American University in Washington DC. Since 2003, Mr. Antoniou works as a research associate at the Center for the Study of Childhood and Adolescence. In this capacity, he has been involved with different research projects. Between 2003 and 2004, he carried a social historical study on child labour in Cyprus during the colonial era which was subsequently published as a book with funds from UNOPS. During the same period he worked on a program aimed at raising awareness about issues affecting children's health and safety while currently he is working on a project focusing on the children of single parent families funded by the European Commission. Mr. Antoniou presented his work both locally and internationally at seminars and conferences and he has been active in community outreach programs with schools. His research interests include: child labour, intergenerational relations, family structures, children's rights, children's cultures, oral histories, children with special needs, social inclusion, and the social construction of gender.
Email: sop05la@sheffield.ac.uk
Mr. Antoniou's publications as they relate to children's work include:
Antoniou, Loucas
2007 An Ethnography of Children's Participation in Domestic Work in Nicosia. Childhoods Today 1:1.
Antoniou, Loucas and Spyros Spyrou
2005 Child Labour in Cyprus During the 20 th Century. Nicosia: Center for the Study of Childhood and Adolescence. (In Greek)
Antoniou, Loucas
2004 Small Hands: Children's Contributions to Minework in Cyprus During the 20 th Century.
Nicosia: Center for the Study of Childhood and Adolescence. (In Greek)
