ABSTRACT
This paper presents a research project that was conducted in Athens, Greece in 2018 and 2019. The main objective of this project was to address students' views on Greek society and education in the context of the socio-economic crisis, their prospects, and their aspirations for educational and social transformation. The paper concentrates on students' views on education and discusses the role of schools in creating democratic societies. It provides a closer insight into possible ways of thinking about education, and food for thought for any attempts to deconstruct or initiate radical change in the education system. It looks at the potentialities and possibilities of deploying critical pedagogy as a mode of resistance for transformative and empowering education within the Greek education system. It concludes that during times of multiple crises, critical pedagogy is clearly relevant and has a responsibility to rethink its views and practices, build active resistance and engage in fostering educational and social change that can lead to a more just, equal and fair society.
ABSTRACT
This paper focuses on adolescents’ reading habits during the protracted lockdown (March 2020 - May 2021) due to COVID-19. Drawing on evidence from an online survey, several focus groups and semi-structured interviews with adolescents in Greece and Cyprus during the COVID-19 pandemic, this paper explores the extent to which reading books is still highly valued in adolescents’ lives and the degree to which this activity is related to adolescents’ advantageous familial and socio-economic background. Moreover, the paper examines whether reading should still be considered an activity that contributes to cultural reproduction in the digital era. This paper contributes to the examination of the often invisible mechanisms that originate from the family and produce socially stratified school underachievement that sustains social inequalities in contemporary Greek and Cypriot societies.