About Us
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About Us
Research Team
The Research Team is interdisciplinary and consists of nine members, academics and post-graduate researchers, who contribute with their expertise and research experience to different aspects of the implementation of ACTinPrison. Specifically, the project ACTinPRISON is coordinated by Charoula Stathopoulou, Professor of Mathematics. It also includes three academics with diverse and complementary scientific expertise, such as Christos Govaris, Professor of Intercultural Education, Roula Kitsiou, Assistant Professor of Sociolinguistics, and Peter Appelbaum Professor of Education and Curricular Studies. In addition, Vassiliki Chrysikou is a post-doctoral researcher on Mathematics Special Education, and four doctoral students conduct research on different prison education aspects, such as Ioannis Fovos, who is interested in mathematics prison education, Sotiria Kalbeni, who studies language literacy in prison education contexts, Maria Karazanou, who focuses on arts-based prison education and specifically in participatory theatre in prison contexts, and Vangelis Katsigiannakis, who specializes in ICT aspects of prison education. The consortium has a great experience working together in the field of prison education research and praxis (e.g. CoSpIRom). Relating to their specific roles in ACTinPRISON:
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People
Short CVs
Charoula Stathopoulou
Professor
Charoula Stathopoulou, Professor of Mathematics Education in University of Thessaly (2008-2022), integrated her bachelor’s degree in Mathematics, and her additional postgraduate study in Mathematics Education and Social Anthropology in her Ph.D field-based study of the connection between cultural context and mathematics learning. She has coordinated research projects including CoSpIRom (http://cospirom.sed.uth.gr), and is co-editor of the journal Research in Mathematics Education.
Professor Stathopoulou is a regularly invited keynote speaker at international conferences, was twice a Visiting International Scholar at Arcadia University in the USA, and is the author of more than 150 papers in journals, volumes and conference proceedings. She is the author of «Ethnomathematics: Exploring the cultural dimension of both mathematics and mathematics education».
Her current research foci include: Ethnomathematics and Sociocultural and Political dimensions of Mathematics education, mathematics teaching/learning in and out of school, Drama in Education, and in particular, (Mathematics) education for non-mainstream students.
Peter Appelbaum
Professor
Peter Appelbaum, Professor and Director of Art Education & Education Studies Programs at Arcadia University, in Philadelphia, USA, focuses on curriculum studies, diversity education, community-based education and public pedagogy. The author or co-editor of numerous books, including Sound Studies in Educational Foundations, Children’s Books for Grown-up Teachers, Embracing Mathematics, and Multicultural and Diversity Education, he has been the past president or vice-president of The American Association for the Advancement of Curriculum Studies, The International Commission for the Study and Improvement of Mathematics Education, The Special Interest Groups for Critical Issues in Curriculum and Cultural Studies, and Arts-Based Educational Research.
Professor Appelbaum is a popular facilitator of workshops internationally on such topics as arts-based curriculum design, diversity frameworks for research and program restructuring, rethinking gender and sexuality education, and innovative community and intergenerational approaches to mathematics education.
He is also an exhibiting sound artist, multi-genre French hornist, and experimental music composer.
Roula Kitsiou
Assistant Professor
Roula Kitsiou is an Assistant Professor of Sociolinguistics at the Department of Language and Intercultural Studies of the University of Thessaly. She has studied Greek Language and Literature at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and her MA is on Modern Learning Environments and Design of Educational Materials. She has taught undergraduate courses related to sociolinguistics and language pedagogy as well as critical pedagogy at the postgraduate program ‘Language Education for Refugees and Migrants’ (Hellenic Open University). Her postdoctoral research at the University of the Aegean (state grant) was relevant to Arabic-speaking unaccompanied minors’ literacies.
She has been working with various social groups who have experienced (forced) migration for the past 10 years focusing on participatory research and actions/interventions towards their social integration and educational empowerment.
Her research interests include sociolinguistics of writing, multimodality, multiliteracies, second language pedagogy, asylum studies and linguistic landscape studies, while she experiments with various critical and arts-based research methodologies.
Sotiria Kalbeni
PhD candidate
Sotiria Kalbeni is a linguist, researcher, and adult educator. She has a degree in Greek Language and Literature at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and she earned her master’s degree in Computational Linguistics (Athens University). She is now a PhD candidate of sociolinguistics in the Department of Primary Education of the University of Thessaly. Her PhD research focuses on prison discourses, additional language learning/teaching, and development of multilingual repertoires in prison education.
Since 2010, she has experience in various educational and research programs for the educational and social integration of refugees, immigrants, Roma, and inmates (among others: “Education of Migrants in the Greek Language, History and Culture-ODYSSEUS”, “The RE [ENTER] PROJECT”, “Teacher trainings in the regions of Peloponnese, Eastern Macedonia, Thessaly, Epirus and Crete”, “Common Spaces for Intergration of Roma- CoSpiRom”, “Summer Classes in prison education”).
Her research interests focus on sociolinguistics, transnationalism, multilingualism in policy and practice, and art-based research methodοlogies.