The Experiences of Students with Mobility Disabilities in Cypriot Higher Education Institutions: Listening to their voices

This article explores the experiences of students with mobility disabilities in Cypriot higher education institutions. In order to obtain relevant information, in‐depth semi‐structured interviews were conducted with 10 Cypriot students with different forms of mobility disabilities, who attended different Cypriot higher education institutions and a variety of courses. This study yielded interesting results in terms of provision (e.g., accommodation for examinations and assignments, note‐taking services, tutorials, counselling services) as well as lecturers’ and students’ attitudes towards disability, raising interesting issues of social inclusion and rights. The quality of their experiences was affected by physical access, provision availability, positive responses by fellow students without disabilities, and the level of awareness among the members of the academic staff or the rest of the staff (e.g., cleaners, administrative officers, and accommodation staff). The findings of this study have implications at an institutional level for rethinking and refining policy and practice on disability.     

Can autonomy be imposed? Examining teacher (re)positioning during the ongoing curriculum change in Cyprus

For the past few years, the Republic of Cyprus has been pursuing a major educational reform across all levels of mandatory education, focusing especially on curriculum change, for the implementation of which in-service teachers have undergone a series of professional development seminars. Individual and focus group interviews with in-service elementary teachers, regarding their sense of professionalism within this curriculum change process, revealed that teachers positioned themselves largely onto different points on a continuum. These are conceptualized as positions veering between teachers’ sense of minimum and maximum autonomy over their participation in the development and introduction of the new official curriculum. Framed by a traditionally centralized context, these positions were discursively negotiated in contradictory ways which allowed multiple positionings by each teacher. The paper concludes with the implications of these findings for understanding teacher professionalism and positioning, as well as for considering how this might relate to curriculum change and implementation processes.     

Teachers’ professional identity in super-diverse school settings: teachers as agents of intercultural education

ABSTRACT

This research study focuses on the ways in which teachers’ professional identity is being shaped and influenced in ‘super-diverse’ school settings. For the purposes of this research, we used the Cyprus educational system as our case study to investigate how teachers experience the enactment of intercultural education at the school level. To this end, 20 interviews were carried out along with 11 female and 9 male teachers of 10 primary schools, which presented diverse profiles of their student populations. Research data revealed that teachers’ professional identity and its underpinning constructs such as emotions, job satisfaction, professional commitment, autonomy and confidence were constantly challenged and negotiated within the changing educational setting. Contextual and professional factors such as work intensification, lack of training and resources, lack of respect and negligence of teachers’ previous experiences, ideologies, values and beliefs were found to affect teachers’ identity and consequently intercultural policy enactment. Therefore, the case is made that the complexity of professional identity needs to be taken into account by policymakers because teachers are the ones who embrace, reinterpret and develop the curriculum. The way and degree to which teachers understand, adjust, perceive and enact on educational policies are affected by the extent to which these policies interact with and challenge existing identities.     

Pedagogy,social status and inclusion in Cypriot schools

This paper reports on a study conducted in five primary schools in Cyprus, focusing in detail on one of them. The purpose of the research was to explore the social status of pupils identified as having special educational needs within mainstream settings. One of the key findings was that pedagogy influences the social status of these pupils. Therefore, this paper examines the dynamic relationship between pedagogy, social status and inclusion. A major intention for inclusion in Cyprus is to promote social interactions and relationships between pupils, identified as having special educational needs, and their peers. Thus, the research examined how far this aspiration is being fulfilled and set out to understand the role pedagogy might play in enhancing or impeding the social status and inclusion of these pupils. The findings suggest that the teaching arrangements and pedagogical approaches employed by teachers are central in shaping the social status and inclusion of all pupils and particularly those who have been identified as having special educational needs.     

Enriching the subject of Greek Literature with the experience of the ‘other’: an approach that fosters citizenship education in Cyprus

This article reports on a research project that explored the potential to integrate autobiographical work emphasising personal experiences of exclusion and marginalisation into the Greek Literature curriculum followed in Greek-Cypriot schools. Given the difficulties encountered in Cyprus in promoting changes in attitudes towards diversity, we discuss the autobiographical poems of the disabled Turkish-Cypriot poet Orkun Bozkurt with the aim of strengthening efforts to foster citizenship education in Cyprus. One aspect of the study involved the analysis and comparison of Bozkurt's poems with those traditionally employed in the Greek Literature curriculum. By taking this analysis as a baseline, we designed and implemented an intervention programme that aimed at changing the attitudes of adult students towards the ‘Other’. Our findings suggest that changes in attitudes are possible, provided that traditional teaching methods and materials are enriched with alternative materials that represent typically underrepresented groups of people, and also that the teaching methods adopted encourage active involvement and critical thinking among students.     

Exploring the validity of a teachers’ self-efficacy scale in five countries

The purpose of this article was twofold. The first purpose was to test the validity of the Teachers’ Sense of Self-Efficacy Scale (TSES) in five settings—Canada, Cyprus, Korea, Singapore, and the United States. The second purpose was, by extension, to establish the importance of the teacher self-efficacy construct across diverse teaching conditions. Multi-group confirmatory factor analysis was used to better understand the measurement invariance of the scale across countries, after which the relationship between the TSES, its three factors, and job satisfaction was explored. The TSES showed convincing evidence of reliability and measurement invariance across the five countries, and the relationship between the TSES and job satisfaction was similar across settings. The study provides general evidence that teachers’ self-efficacy is a valid construct across culturally diverse settings and specific evidence that teachers’ self-efficacy showed a similar relationship with teachers’ job satisfaction in five contrasting settings.     

Experiencing multiculturalism in Greek‐Cypriot primary schools

Within the context of a monocultural and monolingual education system, this paper seeks to explore and compare the experiences of Cypriot and non‐Cypriot pupils in Greek‐Cypriot primary schools with culturally diverse pupil populations. The concept of multiculturalism has been introduced only very recently in Cyprus and there has been little research on pupils’ experience and understanding of multiculturalism. Using a narrative approach, this inquiry seeks to provide an understanding of the experience of studying in multicultural primary school classrooms. The pupils of two classrooms, aged between 10 and 12, describe their experience through terms such as new knowledge, religion, language, racism and stereotypes.     

Cosmopolitan Trade Centre or Bone of Contention? Alexandria and the Crusades, 487–857/1095–1453

Abstract

This article examines the position of Alexandria during the crusading period (487–857/1095–1453), seeking to open up the question indicated in the title for discussion. Did Alexandria's importance as a trade centre have an impact on whether or not it became the target of military attacks by the Franks? What other forms of contention was it a focus for during the period? While not claiming to provide conclusive answers, we seek at least to provide a starting point for discussion of this complex issue.     

Immigrant pupils in elementary classrooms of Cyprus: how teachers view them as learners of mathematics

Research in diverse mathematics classrooms suggests that pupils’ learning is influenced by both linguistic and cultural factors. In recent years, the demographics of Cypriot (mathematics) classrooms have become very diverse. In 2003, the Ministry of Education and Culture introduced the Zones of Educational Priorities, a UNESCO strategy for positive discrimination, to support schools with high proportions of immigrant pupils. This paper examines how elementary teachers in such schools see their immigrant pupils as learners of mathematics. The findings confirm two main factors identified in the literature (language and culture), yet the Cypriot teachers in this study share some particular views on how these features impact mathematics learning. Some recommendations for policy-making and future research are discussed at the end of this paper.     

东地中海地区局势对土耳其外交政策的影响分析

在过去的数十年间,东地中海国家土耳其、塞浦路斯和以色列之间外交关系的不断升温预示东地中海地区强权政治时代的到来。在这些国家中,土耳其以其在地区层面上不断上升的自信和地区称霸的野心使其成为在地区政治中有着重要影响力的国家。随着经济和社会的发展,土耳其在诸如塞浦路斯海洋开发权的争议问题的解决上发挥着越来越大的作用,同时,土耳其的政治家和外交官们更加关注土耳其在解决地区问题上的角色,当面对地区竞争和挑战时,土耳其应该正视其世俗的穆斯林民主政体和作为一个负责任地区大国的角色,而不仅仅是对别国进行敌视。只有与竞争对手进行合作和建设性的对话,实行更为温和、平衡的外交政策,才有助于其实现地区强国的梦想。