Constadina Charalambous

• PhD
• Professor (Associate) at European University Cyprus

This paper focuses on language classes where Greek-Cypriot students learn Turkish as their second Modern Foreign Language (MFL). Literature on MFL learning and emotions tends to focus on learners' emotions in relation to the production of the new language; however, MFL learning is also a space that provides the opportunity to language learners to c...

This paper presents an exploratory case study of the dynamics of the entanglement between emotion and memory in the context of a teacher's pedagogical practices in a conflict-troubled society. The theoretical concept of emotional styles is used analytically to demonstrate how emotions and memory are intertwined and political. The analysis shows the...

This paper looks at teachers' interpretations of a recent and controversial Greek–Cypriot policy initiative, which aimed to promote ‘peaceful coexistence’ between the two rival communities in conflict-ridden Cyprus. Specifically, it focuses on the ways in which Greek–Cypriot teachers constructed the relation between the new policy for peaceful coex...

This paper investigates the interference of local politics with a peace education initiative in Greek-Cypriot education and the consequent impact on teachers’ perceptions and responses. Focusing on a recent educational attempt to promote ‘peaceful coexistence’, the authors explain how this attempt was seen by many teachers as being a part of a loca...

This paper focuses on seemingly ‘silly’ talk, whispered by Greek-Cypriot students during Turkish-language classes. Taking into account the history of violent conflict between the Greek-Cypriot and Turkish-Cypriot communities, Turkish-language learners’ silly-talk emerges as an interactional space that refracts larger discourses and ideologies, and...

Situated in the conflict-affected Cypriot context, this paper aims to explore the affective dimension of nationalism as manifested in the representations of national ‘others’ in a Greek-Cypriot secondary school. Drawing on data from a linguistic ethnographic study looking at the negotiations of ethnic and intercultural education discourses, we focu...

Set in the peak of the so-called “European Migrant Crisis” and situated in the conflict-affected Cypriot context, this article examines Greek-Cypriot High School students’ representations of Syrian refugees as they were debated in classroom discussion. Drawing on ethnographic research that took place in 2016 in a Lower Secondary School in Cyprus, w...

This paper focuses on political socialization in a conflict-affected context and looks at how young Greek-Cypriot learners of Turkish debated political positionings and engaged with political and conflict ideologies usually seen as part of the adult world. It draws on data from two linguistic ethnographic projects (2006–2009; 2012–2015) that analys...

Focusing on the role that language and language education can play in peace-building, this paper examines everyday practice through the lens of linguistic ethnography. It investigates Greek Cypriot teenagers learning Turkish, the language of the (former) enemy, and it asks: how were the Turkish language’s associations with violent conflict handled...

This chapter draws on two ethnographic studies in Greek-Cypriot schools, focusing on immigrant children with Turkish as L1, a language that has been stigmatized by a history of conflict both in the Greek-Cypriot context and in many of the children’s own communities and historical trajectories. Analysing children’s silences and self-censoring of the...

Living Book—Augmenting Reading for Life, a three-year EU-funded Erasmus + project (September 2016–August 2019), exploited the affordances of augmented reality (AR) and other emerging technologies in order to address the underachievement of European youth in reading skills. The program developed an innovative approach that empowers teachers from upp...

This paper draws on ethnographic data from a project on peace education and reconciliation pedagogies in the conflict-affected context of Cyprus. Following a primary school teacher over the period of eight months in peace education workshops and in her classroom before and after the workshops, we trace critical moments that seem to have an impact o...

Recognizing the importance of reading, the EU Education and training 2020 (ET 2020) benchmarks set in 2009, included having less than 15% of 15-year-olds being under-skilled in reading by 2020 as one of its main targets. Unfortunately, while some EU countries have since made significant progress toward improving their students’ performance in readi...

This Journal of Sociolinguistics dialogue starts from the perception that existential threats to national security have become an increasingly pervasive concern in daily life, spreading fear and suspicion through civil society. Communicative practices play a central role in these processes of (in)securitization, but sociolinguists appear to have pa...

This chapter discusses an attempt to empower teachers to ‘augment’ students’ reading experiences as part of the project The Living Book – Augmenting Reading for Life (Erasmus+). The project’s overall aim is to address the under-achievement of European students in reading by developing an innovative approach that combines offline activities promotin...

This article revisits discussions of the relationship between language and heritage, bringing into the picture processes and experiences of (in)security and conflict. It draws largely on critical heritage studies literature, as well as on literature that deals with managing heritage in postconflict situations, and uses insights and concepts from th...

This study of language crossing moves away from the scenes of multi-ethnic heteroglossia that have dominated the research, and turns instead to a setting affected by major conflict where the language of the traditional enemy has been introduced to secondary schools as part of a reconciliation initiative. This generates a radically different view of...

This paper looks at how histories of conflict and ideologies of language as a bounded entity mapped onto a homogeneous nation impact on attempts of translanguaging in the classroom in the conflict-affected context of Greek-Cypriot education. Drawing on ethnographic data from a highly diverse primary school, this study examines how nationalist under...

The present paper takes the approach of critical hermeneutics in human rights education (HRE) that has been developed theoretically and tries to operationalize it in pedagogical practice. In particular, a group of Greek-Cypriot teachers were trained in a series of workshops on how critical hermeneutical approach (CHA) could be taught in the context...

This paper describes a qualitative study that explored the understandings of human rights, pedagogical perspectives and practices in human rights teaching of three Greek-Cypriot elementary teachers. The study revealed some significant challenges in human rights teaching that seemed to be common for all three participating teachers. First, all of th...

Peace education initiatives have been subject to heated public debate and so far the complexities involved have not been fully understood. This multilayered analysis examines how teachers negotiate ideological, pedagogical and emotional challenges in their attempts to enact a peace education policy. Focusing primarily on the case study of conflict-...

The present paper examines the implementation of a particular human rights education approach—known as “critical hermeneutical” approach—in the context of two Greek-Cypriot classrooms. The study investigates whether and how an intervention grounded in this approach offers transformative possibilities to students and what kind of challenges it may p...

The present article aims to examine the interplay between the transnational discourses of human rights and the particularities of local constructions and conceptualisations of human rights within the context of an ethnically divided society, Cyprus. Specifically, this interplay is examined through a qualitative study of Greek-Cypriot primary school...

This paper addresses potentially problematic classroom episodes in which someone foregrounds a social division that is normally taken for granted. It illustrates the way in which linguistic ethnography can unpack the layered processes that collide in the breaking of silence, showing how linguistic form and practice, individual positioning, local in...

This article explores the fit between orthodox ideas about intercultural language education and situations of acute insecurity. It describes the teaching of Turkish to Greek-Cypriots, introduced in 2003 by the Republic of Cyprus as part of a de-securitization policy. Although these classes were optional, many students regarded Turks as enemies, and...

This paper explores the interplay between discourses on diversity-and recently 'superdiversity'-and interethnic conflict, focusing on the conflict-troubled Greek-Cypriot context. Drawing on ethnographic data from Greek-Cypriot literacy classrooms, and particularly, on lessons about the Cyprus conflict, it examines how children from diverse backgrou...

In this chapter we examine the perceptions and emotions of Greek-Cypriot teachers regarding a recent governmental initiative that defined the development of “a culture of peaceful coexistence” between Greek-Cypriots and Turkish-Cypriots as a central educational objective of the 2008-2009 school year (Ministry of Education and Culture, 2008a, p. 1).

This study sought to understand how teachers' discomforting emotions were manifest in a teacher education setting and how teacher educators might engage with discomfort pedagogically. A qualitative perspective was used with a group of teachers who participated in a series of peace education workshops in Cyprus. All of the workshops were audio- and...

Following current conceptualizations of language as social and cultural practice, language teaching policies in many countries have broadened their traditional focus on grammar and vocabulary so as to include culture. Countries are nowadays adopting an intercultural perspective on language teaching and learning, and the Council of Europe has recent...

This chapter examines the relation between language learning and intercultural communication by exploring the interface of language, identity and culture in conflict-ridden contexts. Focusing on languages associated with interethnic animosity, it aims to identify the challenges to established theories of language and culture teaching presented by c...

In this paper we examine Greek‐Cypriot teachers’ positions towards the – largely unfamiliar – concept of reconciliation within the Greek‐Cypriot community. Looking at a set of 40 interviews conducted in spring 2009, this study is set against the broader historical context of the continuing Cyprus Problem and the development of ethnic rivalry betwee...

The present paper looks at teachers’ perceptions of difficulties and emotions about a recent policy initiative in the Greek-Cypriot educational system to promote peaceful coexistence. This policy initiative by the government sparked strong emotional reactions. This paper provides an in-depth understanding of the intersection between tensions at the...