Vryonides, Marios

This paper focuses on parents and the way they perceive and formulate expectations and aspirations about their children's educational and occupational outcomes. Drawing on evidence from a survey among more than 700 parents of primary school pupils this paper demonstrates that interesting patterns in parental aspirations can be observed. These patterns can be partly explained by differences in parental social and cultural capital circulating in the home environment. The discussion of the results evolves around the argument that families often employ different strategies as a result of their social positioning which relates to particular social and cultural characteristics that shape distinct habituses of either success or compromise. This paper contributes to the examination of the often hidden mechanisms that originate from the family and produce social class differentiation in education that sustains overall social inequalities in contemporary Greek society and makes the ideal of equity in and through education still illusive.

The aim of the article is to examine the effects of age in the way adolescents experience and report interethnic relations with emphasis on interethnic violence in the school environment. The methodology followed a two-stage sequential mode combining qualitative and quantitative approaches. This mixed method mode started with a survey which was contacted using a common questionnaire in England, Slovenia, Italy, Austria and Cyprus followed by group interviews with students aged 11-12 and 17-18. The survey data were analyzed with the help of statistical tests in order to reveal differences between the way the two age groups have responded to the survey questionnaire. More in-depth comparative analysis was carried out with the interview transcripts of the two age groups. There were differences in the way the two age groups have responded in the survey on interethnic violence but these were frequently small and do not signify major shifts in the way younger and older adolescents deal with issues of interethnic violence. More visible differences could be observed in the way the two age groups articulated their positions during the interviews.

This chapter focuses on three contemporary social problems in education that have received considerable attention from sociologists and educational researchers: educational inequalities between social classes and between ethnic/ racial groups and the social impact of the accountability movement in education. These three themes are concerned with how education reproduces social inequalities in society, often through procedures, structures, and the unintended actions of parents, teachers, school staff, and educational policy makers. The findings show that research on these topics is exceptionally rich in terms of theoretical and methodological approaches and debates. Furthermore, although most of the studies have been conducted in Anglo-Saxon countries, increasingly more research is carried out in different countries. This is a promising development, as theories about educational inequality are necessarily context specific, given that educational systems and their social conditions vary widely across national and regional contexts.

The aim of the paper is to examine the effects of the current economic crisis in the way teenagers experience and report interethnic relations with emphasis on interethnic violence in the school environment in Cyprus. It will report findings from an EU funded project which was recently completed (2012) titled: “Children’s voices: Exploring interethnic violence in schools”. Through an eclectic analysis on interview transcripts from group interviews with teenagers (16-17 year old) it emerges that in Cyprus there is an environment of growing concern about the presence of migrants in society and this has direct and indirect effects on education. Overall there are mixed perceptions about interethnic tolerance in schools ranging from negative to (politically correct) positive ones. While the prevalent discourse of multiculturalism in Cyprus uses the rhetoric of integration, what appears to be happening in the Cypriot educational system, is assimilation practices focusing on language acquisition. The findings of the empirical investigation point to interesting directions for educational policy regarding the whole gamut of interethnic relations in Cyprus at a period in time when the current economic crisis appears to have largely negative effects on multiculturalism. The paper concludes with a discussion on the way the Ministry of Education and schools in Cyprus respond to the above challenges and the prospects for the near future.

This chapter focuses on three contemporary social problems in education that have received considerable attention from sociologists and educational researchers: educational inequalities between social classes and between ethnic/ racial groups and the social impact of the accountability movement in education. These three themes are concerned with how education reproduces social inequalities in society, often through procedures, structures, and the unintended actions of parents, teachers, school staff, and educational policy makers. The findings show that research on these topics is exceptionally rich in terms of theoretical and methodological approaches and debates. Furthermore, although most of the studies have been conducted in Anglo-Saxon countries, increasingly more research is carried out in different countries. This is a promising development, as theories about educational inequality are necessarily context specific, given that educational systems and their social conditions vary widely across national and regional contexts.