University Of Birmingham

Graduate Student, Arts and Law

PhD Student in Modern Greek Studies

Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies

Thesis Title: Teaching the Canon: Literature and classroom politics in early Greek Secondary Education (provisional)

About

My research addresses the perennial question of what constitutes legitimate knowledge in literature teaching within the Greek educational context. It seeks to understand the mechanisms underpinning the selection and negotiation of the school content by all the role-holders in this process. Point of departure for my research is the latest Educational Reform in 2001/2003 and the subsequent alterations of the educational material, but also of the approach to knowledge (shift from a subject-based to a theme-based perspective). My research data consist of the institutional texts (Curriculum and Literature textbooks for Early Secondary Education) and the classroom practice (teachers’ questions inside the classroom and questions set for homework) as observed in two Greek Junior High Schools for a period of a school year (2007 – 2008). The contribution of the thesis rests on the consideration of both the educational policy and the classroom practice in the filtration but also in the renegotiation of the content of the school knowledge.
As for my educational background, I was awarded a Master of Philosophy (B) in Modern Greek Studies by the University of Birmingham in 2005; the title of my dissertation was “The teaching of Modern Greek Fiction in Secondary Education in Greece (1999-2004): School Practice and New Perspectives" and it was funded by the Greek State Scholarship Foundation. My undergraduate studies have been in Early Childhood Education and in Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies (Department of Philology) at the National and Kapodestrian University of Athens.
I am qualified to teach in HE and I have taught Modern Greek as a Foreign Language to a group of Beginners at the University of Birmingham (MOMD). Moreover, I am specialised in teaching blind and partially-sighted students – in this capacity, I have designed assistive educational material for the teaching of Modern Greek language and English in Primary and Secondary education. I have also designed and introduced a book boost programme at Public Libraries in Athens, I have worked as an English teacher, Modern Greek language and literature teacher and a freelance translator from English into Greek.
Being always a student, I am keen on learning new things and engaging myself in exciting training programmes related to education. In my free time, I dream of a better education for all and I am an amateur storyteller.