Conference Agenda

Intercultural education has been an issue of importance in Greek education since the 1990s, when Greece became a receiving country for immigrants; this was the time, when educational policy and research started to focus more on the country’s historical and cultural minorities, as a whole. 1997 constitutes a milestone, since four major Programmes were initiated by the Greek Ministry of Education and implemented by Greek universities with regard to the Education of Immigrant and Repatriate Students, the Muslim Minority Children in Thrace, Roma Children, as well as Children of the Greek Diaspora. After the onset of the Greek economic and social crisis in 2009, it became evident that the idea of intercultural education had to be reconsidered and linked more closely with the concepts of democracy, human rights and intercultural citizenship. Since 2015, the refugee crisis, the pandemic and more recently the Ukraine war, have created new demands for inclusion, quality education and education for social justice.

Cyprus also constitutes a particularly multicultural landscape with its main historical communities (Greek Cypriots, Turkish Cypriots, Maronites, Latins and Armenians); additionally, the economic immigrant inflow, especially after Cyprus became a EU member in 2004, has created new challenges for education, from which relevant policies and practices have arisen.

The presentation will focus on the specifics of the Greek discourse on migration and education (areas of discussion and research, controversies and their assumed potential for future developments), taking both educational policy and practice into consideration; it will also pursue the aim to shed light on selected aspects of the Cypriot discourse.

About the presenter

Dr Anastasia Kesidou
is Assistant Professor in Comparative and Intercultural Education at the School of Philosophy and Education, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. She is a member of the Board of Directors/Scientific Board of the UNESCO Chair on Education for Human Rights, Democracy and Peace of the same university and has been Chair of the Board of the Hellenic Observatory for Intercultural Education, which she co-founded in 2008 (three terms). She has participated as coordinator or researcher in various national and European projects funded by the Greek Ministry of Education and the European Union and publishes (in Greek, German and English) in the areas of comparative and intercultural education, education for human rights and democracy, curriculum and textbook research.