Language, Literacy and Education

Language, Literacy, and Education

Faculty working in this area has been researching issues relating to language, literacy and education in and out of school, with special emphasis placed on language arts, literacy theory and pedagogy, and applied and social linguistics. These broad research interests and related activities are theoretically informed by sociocultural approaches to literacy, multimodality, critical discourse studies, applied linguistics, and sociolinguistics. Special emphasis is placed on the study of language and literacy as objects of research and instruction across a variety of localized and historicized contexts. Through ethnographic and case study research projects and discourse analysis, official policy discourse has been critically examined and literacy practices in primary school classrooms have been investigated, focusing on teachers and learners but also on materials and curricula. Additional projects focused on the performance of literate identities in their conjunction with institutional and socio-political contexts, and on multimodality as textual as well as lived and embodied. The main challenge for the research team is to combine the multi-disciplinary understanding of language and literacy within the educational and broader social context and simultaneously examine the specificities of global trends in language and literacy research and education in the local sociopolitical and sociolinguistic context.

Faculty Members:
Elena Ioannidou, Associate Professor
Stavroula Kontovourki, Associate Professor

Research Interests:
Elena Ioannidou
Sociolinguistics and education, language variation, language and identity, language policy, literacy as a social practice, critical literacy, multilingualism and multilingual education, linguistic ethnography, discourse analysis.

Stavroula Kontovourki
Literacy and language arts education, literacy studies, embodiment, multimodal and digital literacies, and the enactment of literacy curricula, teachers’ professionalism, and educational change

Research Projects:
Current Funded Programs:
Title: Digifolk (Digitizing the folktales of the city – Sharing the wisdom of the other)
Funding: Erasmus+
Duration: November 2021- December 2024 (24 months)
Project manager: Elena Ioannidou (local coordinator)
Description: DigiFolk aims to collect and digitize folktales from ethnic, religious and racial groups residing in the cities participating in the project (Nicosia, Belgrade, Ankara and Groningen) and to make them easily accessible and free for all. Specifically, the research team collects, analyzes and disseminates folk myths and stories from marginalized groups living in the 4 cities. Through the collection and analysis of stories, the project prepares historical maps and tours of the cities in which the stories of the groups are placed and presented. Through the collection, organization, digitization and dissemination of the cultural products of these communities, DigiFolk aims to give voice to minority communities in European societies. By promoting their stories, DigiFolk aims to make a contribution to addressing the problem of entrenched prejudices in European societies, prejudices produced in part due to exposure only to narratives that favor dominant cultures and degrade those that are, either willingly or unwantedly, exemplary. The ultimate goal of DigiFolk is to present, through a diverse set of stories, our common humanity and our collective EU cultural identity. In this context, the project responds to the general objective of Erasmus+ “to raise awareness and understand the context of the European Union, in particular with regard to common values, the principles of unity and diversity, as well as their cultural identity, cultural sensitivity and social and historical heritage.”

Past Funded Programs:
Title: Responsible Innovation with Technology for Children (RITEC) – Phase II
Funding: LEGO Foundation, via the University of Sheffield
Duration: 2022 – 2024
Local Coordinators: Stavroula Kontovourki, with Theoni Neokleous
Description: The RITEC project (Responsible Innovation in Technology for Children) was funded by the LEGO Foundation and driven by the LEGO Group and UNICEF Innocenti, in close partnership with New York University, City University of New York, Western Sydney University, University of Sheffield and the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence. It was an initiative designed in four Phases to investigate the relationship between digital play experiences and children’s well-being. During Phase II, which ran between 2020 and 2024, a team of scholars led by Dr. Fiona Scott at The University of Sheffield have been delivering innovative, international research focused on children’s digital play and well-being, and delivered in-depth case study research with 50 families, across four countries. As part of this Phase, in which the University of Cyprus participated, cases of 10 families in Cyprus were constructed utilizing data generated through multiple participant observations, videorecordings of children’s digital play, interviews with children and their families, and artifact collection. Findings suggest the different forms children’s digital play may take and the varied functions it may serve, especially as mediated in family practices and in relation to their wellbeing. More information may be found here.

Title: Disciplinary knowledge and teacher professionalism in Greek-Cypriot education: A study of Language Arts and Social Studies curricula as historicized and localized re-constructions (DisCurLASS)
Funding: University of Cyprus Internal Research Grants
Duration: April 2021-July 2023
Project Coordinators: Stavroula Kontovourki & Stavroula Philippou
Description: The purpose of this study is to examine how particular subject areas in Greek-Cypriot public elementary education have been historically and locally constructed and also embodied in teachers’ conceptualizations of school knowledge and of themselves as professionals. In particular, and building on previous joint research, we focus on Language Arts and Social Studies (History, Geography, Health Education), as subject areas that have had a central position in school curricula for children’s education as citizens and literate subjects, and explore those in teachers’ life histories and as localized in institutional and sociopolitical contexts. We thus attend to the ways in which disciplinary knowledge in the particular subject areas has been, at different points in time, a) formulated by and formulating teachers’ experiences as learners and teachers of the subjects in focus and their established ideas of worthwhile school knowledge, and b) materialized in educational policy, including official curricula, programs of study, and instructional materials. Accordingly, the research study draws on biographical and archival research to contribute to the study of disciplinary knowledge in Language Arts and Social Studies, as embedded at the intersection of teachers’ personal/professional biographies, localized meanings of disciplines and schooling changing over time, and broader institutional and sociopolitical contexts.

Title: O.L.A. “OPEN LEARNIG FOR ALL – enhancing digital Open Educational Resources for inclusion against stereotypes”
Funding: Erasmus +
Duration: March 2021- February 2023 (24 months)
Local Coordinator: Elena Ioannidou
Description: OLA is a 2-year Erasmus+ European project (2021-2023) coordinated by CNR-IRPPS that, following the crisis generated by the COVID-19 pandemics, aims at giving an impetus to “open educational resources” and “open educational practices”, as an opportunity to reduce the digital divide in the European educational context, building a more inclusive society. Open educational resources – intended as free digital educational resources, collaboratively developed by teacher networks with other social actors – already exist, but are still a fragmented reality, not enough widespread and valued at institutional level. OLA project aims at promoting their development and diffusion by means of: MOOC courses for teachers; creation of guidelines about open educational resources for teachers and editors; participative building an open access online platform usable by teachers to develop and spread multimedia educational scenarios. A central issue transversal to the project is paying attention to recognizing stereotypes – starting from, but not limited to gender – and values implicitly conveyed by school textbooks and multimedia online resources, so as to promote a wider concept of “digital competences”, including not only strictly technological competences, but also the capability of using online platforms and information sources critically and responsibly, as a premise for exercising a conscious and informed citizenship. By the end of the project, 80 interdisciplinary scenarios related to STEAM subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Mathematics) will be developed, 50 of which will be tested in the 5 partner countries: Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Romania and Spain.

Title: Educational Material on the Past and the Present Linguistic Diversity in Cyprus
Funding: AHDR (Association of Historical Dialogue and Research)
Duration: January 2021-March 2022 (15 months)
Scientific consultant: Elena Ioannidou
Project team: Cise Cavusoglu , Ioanna Charalambous, David Hands, Elena Ioannidou, Elisavet Kiourti, Ozge Ozogul Anthi Papadopoulou
Description: The project aims for the production of supplementary educational materials for educators and young people in both sides of the divide in order to help foster multiperspectivity, historical understanding and critical thinking amongst educators and students. In this context, the AHDR is undertaking the research and production of an educational manual containing background research and theoretical component, curriculum and classroom recommendations, and 6 lesson plans on past and current linguistic diversity and language practices in Cyprus. Linguistic diversity, language policy and practices in the past and present will be explored in both communities across the existing divide in Cyprus. The educational material will promote the development of skills, knowledge and attitudes for peaceful coexistence through history education and learning and using languages. The target group will be students between the ages 11-14 (lower secondary education in Cyprus) and 15-18 (upper secondary education in Cyprus); hence, the lesson plans and educational activities should entail variations for two different age groups (11-14 and 15-18).

Title: Young children’s literacy practices at home and in school: Reports from parents and teachers
Funding: University funds
Duration: 2020-2021
Project coordinators: Stavroula Kontovourki & Theoni Neokleous
Description: This study explores young children’s (aged 3-8) literacy practices at home and in school, as those are reported by parents and teachers who are key to formulate literacy spaces. Attempting to map out children’s literate profiles in the digital age, we examine literacy practices (including digital ones) in which children engage and are constituted as literate subjects. Taking also into consideration the rapid transitions and changes caused by the COVID-19 pandemic (from March 2020 and onwards), particular focal point are set as follows: (a) the description and analysis of children’s literacy practices at home, (b) the description and analysis of literacy practices rendered as worthwhile and suitable for young children in educational settings, and (c) adults’ positions/perceptions in regards to the value and enactment of different literacies (print-based, digital, etc.) across spaces. The study draws on qualitative research methodology, with data being collected through surveys and in-depth interviewing with parents and teachers (early childhood, kindergarten, and primary).

Title: Fighting with words: Poetic duelling and its performance across the Mediterranean
Funding: European Commission, Marie Curie Fellowships
Duration: 2019-2021
Coordination: Elena Ioannidou
Researcher: Nicoletta Dimitriou
Description: DUEL is the first comparative study of poetic duelling across the Mediterranean. It focuses on six islands found in six Mediterranean European countries, moving from East to West: Cyprus, Crete (Greece), Malta, Sardinia (Italy), Corsica (France), and Majorca (Spain). At the heart of DUEL are two central questions: How are poetic duels performed, and what do they mean for both the producers (the performers) and the consumers (the audience) of this practice in the six chosen islands? Rather than looking at poetry or music in isolation, DUEL brings the poetic, musical, ethnographic, gender and performative aspects of this practice together in a ‘bottom-up’ study that puts the people involved in poetic duelling centre stage. Using an interdisciplinary approach and combining methods from ethnomusicology, life writing, visual anthropology, oral and cultural history, DUEL aims to bring performers from the six islands together on the page (in a book), on the screen (in an ethnographic documentary), and on the stage (in a festival). While the project is informed by theory, it is not side-tracked by it. The emphasis is on creating a vivid portrait of this performance practice (written, visual, and aural) that can have the greatest possible impact on academic and non-academic audiences alike. This is in line with the EU’s policy for making culture ‘accessible and inclusive’. There is a sense of urgency attached to this project, as it concerns a dying tradition practised among groups of performers across Europe who are also fast disappearing. In addition to interviewing performers through extended periods of fieldwork and recording poetic duelling performances in their particular social and cultural contexts, this project will also contribute to the understanding and preservation of European intangible heritage, against an increasing trend of homogenisation of both the production and the consumption of culture.

Title: Promoting Authentic Language Acquisition in Multilingual Contexts (PALM) Erasmus + (www.palm-edu.eu)
Funding: European Commission, Horizon 2020.
Collaborators: University College of Teacher Education, Lower Austria Baden, NILE Norwich, UK, University College of Teacher Education, Burgenland Austria, Free University of Bolzano, Italy, University of Pécs, Budapest
Duration: 2015-2018
Coordinator UCY: Elena Ioannidou
Description: This Erasmus+ Project involves the production of authentic texts by speakers of 8 different languages in the age range 6 to 14. The texts, videos and audios provides interesting reading and listening input for learners of the same age who want to study these languages. This sharing of texts through new media is expected to increase motivation, to develop crossover skills and foster multilingualism. Through writing and speaking about activities such as science experiments, sports reports, film reviews and other topics that are of personal interest, learners transfer skills which have been acquired in informal and authentic contexts to situations and tasks at school. Enhancing digital integration in learning, teaching and training at various levels is a priority of the Erasmus+ Project PALM. Therefore it aims at the strategic use of open educational resources and blended mobility through the PALM platform, which will serve as a virtual learning space for the pupils.

Title: Digital literacy and multimodal practices in the early years (DigiLitEY, COST Action IS1410)
Funding: European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) – Horizon 2020, European Union Funding for Research and Innovation
Primary Investigator: Jackie Marsh, University of Sheffield, UK
Duration: 2015-2019
Working Group 2 Co-chair: Stavroula Kontovourki
Description: (http://digilitey.eu/) The main objective is to create an interdisciplinary network that will advance understanding of young children ́s digital literacy and multimodal practices in the new media age and which will build a coordinated European agenda for future research in this area. Specific objectives are as follows: (1) to provide a means of drawing together current European interdisciplinary research on young children’s digital literacy and multimodal practices in homes, communities and early years settings. This will enable researchers across the COST countries collectively to identify gaps in knowledge, fostering coordinated and collaborative research, (2) to identify emergent digital technologies and applications relevant to young children and appraise their strengths and weaknesses in use in order to inform future research, policy and practice, (3) to identify best practice in digital and multimodal literacy learning and teaching in kindergartens and primary schools across Europe through a review of relevant research and consider the implications for policy and practice, in addition to identifying the practical and theoretical implications for teacher and early years’ practitioner training, (4) to exchange knowledge on appropriate methodologies and ethical issues when researching young children’s digital literacy and multimodal practices and to foster innovation in this area, (5) to provide training for Early Stage Researchers and strengthen links between them and established experts in the field, (6) to engage actively with a range of stakeholders, including policymakers, early years practitioners, parent groups and the children’s media industry in order to explore the implications of research outcomes for policy, practice, curricula, pedagogy and community-based learning.

Title: Storying the teaching profession ‘from below’ and amidst change: a study of four cohorts of elementary teachers’ life histories in the Republic of Cyprus (late 1970s-2010s
Funding: Leventis Foundation
Duration: 2017-2019
Principal Investigators: Stavroula Philippou & Stavroula Kontovourki, in collaboration with Eleni Theodorou
Description: The research project seeks to construct the life histories of approximately 32 teachers, who fall into four different cohorts that correspond to different periods in the recent history of the Republic of Cyprus (late 1970s-2010s), as those are marked by significant changes at the societal as well as at the narrower institutional level. Taking these into consideration and grounded in the life histories of individual elementary teachers, the project aims to construct a “history from below” of teacher professionalism and of the teaching profession in Cyprus during the time period under study (late 1970s-to date). It is orientated towards life history research and the sociology of professionalism and curriculum to closely investigate the complexities of wide-scale institutional or other changes in relation to the negotiation of teachers’ sense of professionalism, including and at interplay with, both their personal lives and the changing socio-political context. Specifically, it has a threefold purpose: (a) to compile a set of teachers’ life histories from four different cohorts of elementary school teachers who entered and exercise(d) the profession under different institutional and broader societal circumstances; (b) to shed light on the complex interplay of the personal and the professional as manifested in teachers’ life histories and through the anticipated differences between these four cohorts as well as through the similarities and differences that might emerge on other grounds (e.g. gender, geographic location/residence); (c) to construct the local history of the teaching profession and of teachers’ sense of professionalism by examining it as socially constructed, and to situate that local history in broader sociohistorical contexts and understandings of the profession in the international literature.

Title: G.R.E.Co II (Retaining Greek in Enclave Communities). Pontic Greek in Cyprus: From Trabzon to Karpasia
Funding: University of Cyprus (Internal)
Coordinator: Elena Ioannidou
Duration: 2016-2018
Description: This project investigateς a transplanted linguistic community in Cyprus; this community consists of Turkish nationals or “settlers” who were relocated form the district of Trabzon, Turkey and they were transferred to the northern part of Cyprus after the de facto partition of the island in 1974. The revealing characteristic of this community is that they are speakers of Pontic Greek (or Romeyka and/or Rumca as they refer to it themselves) (Ozkan 2013) and that they moved from Greek-speaking enclaves in Turkey to Cyprus. The fact that there are large communities of Pontic Greek speakers in Cyprus and that the variety is still spoken in the island is, to this date, virtually unknown to the scientific community. Even the most recent descriptions (Drettas, 1997) do not list Cyprus as one of the places in which the variety presently survives. Within this context, the main aim of the proposed project is to investigate the way Pontic Greek is used by these communities in Cyprus aiming to offer a through linguistic description of the current status of the language(s) used and to document its functional and symbolic uses along with issues of language and identity. Following the methodology adopted in GRECO I, the current project will employ ethnographic methods of data collection in order to elicitate data occurred in its natural setting and to investigate issues of language use and language values.

Title: Enactments of Language Arts and Social Studies curricula: Past and current constructions of teacher professional identity amidst curriculum reform
Funding: University of Cyprus – Joint start-up funding
Coordinators: Stavroula Kontovourki & Stavroula Philippou
Duration: 2014 – 2016
Description: The purpose was to develop an infrastructure and framework to study the everyday enactments of curricula by a small number of teachers in particular subject areas (language arts/literacy, social studies), as those were connected to teachers’ conceptualization of and to official policy discourse on professional identity. The study constituted an expansion of an existing, longitudinal project on elementary teachers’ professionalism and curriculum change in Cyprus since 2004. Through start-up funding, the project extended to (a) focusing on everyday enactment of curricula in the teaching of literacy and social studies (Geography, History, Health Education), (b) connecting these enactments to established conceptualizations of teacher professionalism, and (c) identifying and exploring multiple professionalities.

Title: “Retaining Greek in ‘Enclaved’ Communities: Greek as a mother tongue among Turkish Cypriots in Cyprus and Cunda Cretans in Turkey”
Funding: Leventis Foundation, University of Cyprus
Collaborators: University of Patras
Duration: 2014-2016
Principal Investigator: Elena Ioannidou
Description: This project was set to investigate two Greek–speaking communities which lived in areas where the dominant language was Turkish: Greek-speaking Turkish Cypriots who now reside at the northern part of Cyprus (Romeika speakers) and Greek-speaking Turkish Cretans who now reside in the area of Moschonisia/Cunda. The main project objectives were a) to document and analyze the linguistic variety of Greek used by these two groups and to compare it with the respective dialects of Greek, Cypriot Greek and Cretan in order to explore issues of language change and/or language maintenance, b) to document the functional and symbolic uses of the two varieties focusing on issues of language use, linguistic repertoire and language and identity. These two groups acquire particular importance since they were groups which experienced warfare, became refugees and most importantly have a mother tounge (i.e. Greek) which is different and often in conflict with the language of their affiliated group (i.e. Turkish). For this purpose ethnographic research was conducted in two research sites: various areas at the northern part of Cyprus and in Moschonisia in Turkey. The research was conducted in association with the University of Patras (co-investigators) and the Lab for the Study of Modern Greek Dialects.

Title: Developing a Social Literacy Program among Prisoners in the Central Prison of Cyprus
Funding: University of Cyprus
Duration: 2014-2015
Coordinator: UCY Research Group (Elena Ioannidou, Elisavet Kiourti, Christina Christofidou)
Description: This program involved the design and implementation of a Social Literacy Program for the period 2013-2014 at the prison school in the Central Prison of Cyprus. Literacy was approached from its ideological and critical perspective. The methodology employed was a combination of intervention (design and implementation of the program) and of ethnographic research (reflective diaries, field notes) and of texts created by the inmates. The program lasted 18 months, and it involved weekly classes and actions targeting at creating literacy classes which would function as platforms for voicing, representation and enactment for the inmates. Research findings revealed that the participants had positive attitudes and high motivation for participating in such a type of literacy education which drifted away from correctional or skill-based conceptions of literacy.

Last Updated on December 20, 2024