Simoni Symeonidou
Biographic Data
| ID | 4503130 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Simoni Symeonidou |
| GIVEN NAMES | Simoni |
| FAMILY NAME | Symeonidou |
| SIGNATURE | SYMEONIDOU S |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Cyprus |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-8416-4621 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 28 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 60 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 27 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2002 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Educating teachers for Re -Empathy
This paper explores the problematisations of 59 pre-primary, primary and secondary school teachers in building disability-focused empathy at school. Thematic data analysis of semi-structured interviews, audio-taped discussions during their participation in a professional learning programme, and self-reflective diaries suggest that although participants had different understandings of how disability-focused empathy can be built at school, many of …
Comparing the systemic policy development of early childhood intervention and its intersections with inclusion between Greece and Cyprus
Inclusive education in the aftermath of the pandemic
This paper reports on a study that sought to explore mainstream and special teachers’ inclusive practices during the Covid-19 pandemic and discusses issues that are relevant in the post-Covid-19 period. The study is contextualized with European and international studies and reports on teachers’ role in the inclusion of children with disabilities before and during the pandemic. The sample of the study comprised of 17 mainstream and special teacher…
Vignettes as a creative method in inclusive early childhood education and care research on teachers
This paper focuses on vignettes as a creative research method that can help us conceptualise early childhood education and care teachers’ understandings of diversity. Research on teachers’ understandings of diversity and inclusive education is used as an example to illustrate how vignettes can shed light on specific elements (e.g. school structures and materials, diversity awareness raising approaches, etc.), and the complexities of national cont…
The use of vignettes in research on the social and educational inclusion of people with disabilities
The range of issues, research paradigms, methods, and ways of analysis employed in disability research leads to findings and discussions that can either benefit or further oppress people with disabilities. This Focused Mapping Review and Synthesis study investigates why and how vignettes are used in studies published between 2010–2022 in four leading journals publishing disability research. The findings suggest that vignettes are mainly used to e…
Once inclusive always inclusive (?)
In this paper teachers and parents of children with disabilities in primary education share their perspectives on instructional practices that support inclusive education. The paper explores participants' views on their own teaching practices before the Covid-19 pandemic in comparison to what they employed during the transition to emergency remote online education. The study involved 17 mainstream and special teachers from public schools in Cypru…
Teacher education for disability-focussed anti-oppressive pedagogy
Disability Studies scholars have extensively analysed how people with disabilities are oppressed in societies that devalue them. Teachers can promote change in thinking by presenting people with disabilities as people with multiple identities and experiences who are frequently oppressed. This paper explores how teachers can change their thinking and Reconceptualise their practices to this end. It reports on a two-year teacher education programme …
Curricula for exclusion
This paper presents the findings of a qualitative study which analysed key documents, such as curricula, laws and technical/research reports that informed curriculum development for children with disabilities in the Republic of Cyprus, from 1979 to date. The thematic document analysis sought to make meaning and interpret these developments, which are presented in three time periods: the era of segregation, the era of integration and the era of co…
Unpacking ableist discourses in Cypriot education policy during the pandemic
During the COVID-19 pandemic, children with disabilities were confronted with ableist discourses that justified unfair policy measures. This study is concerned with the discourses recorded in a range of education documents, published during the pandemic within the Republic of Cyprus. It employs an interdisciplinary framework, informed by Critical Discourse Analysis, Inclusive Education, and Critical Disability Studies, to examine the powerful act…
The inclusion of children with disabilities in early childhood education
Bridging early childhood education and inclusive practices in classrooms that serve children with disabilities
In this paper, we report on a study that sought to examine how Early Childhood Education (ECE) teachers, working in Cypriot public schools, combine pedagogies of ECE and inclusive education. We were also interested in how having children with disabilities in their classes informed their practices. We purposively selected and interviewed seven female teachers who, according to our judgement, had good knowledge of the ECE theoretical framework and …
Stamped allegories of disability
This study examines the representations of the disabled body by unpicking the messages transferred through the artistic illustrations of disability found in 250 postage stamps. The theoretical framework employed derives from cultural, critical and feminist disability studies, while the tripartite model of disability served as a critical framework to the analysis of the representations of the disabled body. The first-level coding led in the classi…
Understanding the value of inclusive education and its implementation
Teacher education for inclusion and anti-oppressive curriculum development
This paper engages with the issue of teacher education for inclusion and particularly with the approach of employing disability arts and narratives of people with disabilities in university based courses for inclusion. It draws on three examples of anti-oppressive curricula that were developed as part of a graduate university module in Cyprus that encouraged student teachers to engage with disability arts and narratives in order to understand key…
Disability studies as a framework to design disability awareness programs
This paper presents and critically discusses a disability awareness program that was addressed to non-disabled children aged between 6-8 years old in Cyprus. The main aims were to explore how disability studies and anti-oppressive pedagogies could inform decisions on structured activities and materials to support children understand disability as condition of life, and recognize disabling practices. Artefacts from children’s work and narratives a…
The Hare and the Tortoise
This paper explores the process of policy formulation and implementation in relation to children commonly described as having ‘special educational needs’ and disability (SEND), in Cyprus and in England. Drawing on qualitative research evidence from key primary documentary sources including legislation, statutory and non-statutory guidance and reports, it provides a comparative analysis of the content and the spirit of policy in both countries ove…
Initial teacher education for inclusion
This article presents a review of the literature on initial teacher education for inclusion published from 2000 to 2014. The analysis uncovers a number of aspects of concern to academics, researchers, teacher educators, and policy-makers. Making informed decisions about the design of initial teacher education courses and units of study for inclusion depends upon addressing some fundamental issues (i.e. the legacy of special education, and the cha…
The wonderful world of children's books? Negotiating diversity through children's literature
The present paper reports the findings of a study that sought to identify how diversity (in the form of disability, appearance, and race) is presented in children's books written in or translated into the Greek language. The study focused on the plots and the portrayal of key figures. The sample consisted of 50 children's books written after 1990 that focus on diversity and target children aged 6–12 years. Content analysis framed within the inter…
New policies, old ideas
This paper reports on qualitative content analysis research and critically analyzes the state’s intention to use the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health as a tool to develop a national disability assessment system that will guide social policy developments, and particularly the allocation of pensions and benefits to disabled people. The work uses Cyprus as an example, and reviews the most important issues arising fr…
Employing the principles of universal design for learning to deconstruct the Greek-Cypriot new national curriculum
The present paper discusses issues related to inclusive education and curricula development based on the principles of universal design for learning (UDL), and it reports on the results of a qualitative content analysis of the new national curriculum (NNC) developed for the public Greek-Cypriot schools in Cyprus. According to the findings, the NNC does not accommodate the principles of the UDL to an extent that would enable teachers differentiate…
Deconstructing the Greek-Cypriot new national curriculum
The present paper contextualizes the recent process of development of the New National Curriculum (NNC) for use in Greek-Cypriot public schools. Using content analysis, it pays particular attention to the degree to which the language, performance expectations, and suggested materials described in the NNC take account of disabled children. Notwithstanding the human rights and anti-discrimination rhetoric that surrounds the process of creating an i…
Purpose, Process and Future Direction of Disability Research
Purpose, Process and Future Direction of Disability Research brings together the collective experience of an international network of early career researchers who set out to discuss the complexity of researching disability. As newcomers to the research process, the researchers detail their apprehensions about embarking on doctoral research, together with the struggles they experienced along the way, and importantly the motivation that drove them …
Enriching the subject of Greek Literature with the experience of the ‘other’
This article reports on a research project that explored the potential to integrate autobiographical work emphasising personal experiences of exclusion and marginalisation into the Greek Literature curriculum followed in Greek-Cypriot schools. Given the difficulties encountered in Cyprus in promoting changes in attitudes towards diversity, we discuss the autobiographical poems of the disabled Turkish-Cypriot poet Orkun Bozkurt with the aim of str…
The experience of disability activism through the development of the disability movement
This paper reflects critically upon part of the findings of research about key activists’ experience of disability politics in Cyprus from 1966 to 2004. Disabled activists’ experience of politics is conceptualized through a critical analysis of the different stages they went through while struggling to develop the disability movement in the given social, cultural, political and historical context. Having located this research in the theoretical s…
Trapped in our past
The importance of culture in understanding cross‐cultural phenomena is now widely acknowledged. This paper seeks to explore the impact of the Greek‐Cypriot culture on constructing notions of disability which dominate popular culture and education. Since culture cannot be understood without the study of history, this analysis takes a historical character. The findings presented in this paper are part of a larger research project regarding the pers…
Using teachers' prior knowledge, attitudes and beliefs to develop in-service teacher education courses for inclusion
Deconstructing the Greek-Cypriot new national curriculum
The present paper contextualizes the recent process of development of the New National Curriculum (NNC) for use in Greek-Cypriot public schools. Using content analysis, it pays particular attention to the degree to which the language, performance expectations, and suggested materials described in the NNC take account of disabled children. Notwithstanding the human rights and anti-discrimination rhetoric that surrounds the process of creating an i…
Resistance, transformation and the politics of hope
The social model of disability has been a useful tool to shift the focus of disability as individual deficit to disability as a social construction in an oppressive society. However, a theory of political action is needed to create transformative change. This article develops resistance as a unifying political construct and tool for action. Four critical incidences from different historical eras and different global regions – India, the USA, Cypr…
Disability studies as a framework to design disability awareness programs
This paper presents and critically discusses a disability awareness program that was addressed to non-disabled children aged between 6-8 years old in Cyprus. The main aims were to explore how disability studies and anti-oppressive pedagogies could inform decisions on structured activities and materials to support children understand disability as condition of life, and recognize disabling practices. Artefacts from children’s work and narratives a…
The wonderful world of children's books? Negotiating diversity through children's literature
The present paper reports the findings of a study that sought to identify how diversity (in the form of disability, appearance, and race) is presented in children's books written in or translated into the Greek language. The study focused on the plots and the portrayal of key figures. The sample consisted of 50 children's books written after 1990 that focus on diversity and target children aged 6–12 years. Content analysis framed within the inter…
Stamped allegories of disability
This study examines the representations of the disabled body by unpicking the messages transferred through the artistic illustrations of disability found in 250 postage stamps. The theoretical framework employed derives from cultural, critical and feminist disability studies, while the tripartite model of disability served as a critical framework to the analysis of the representations of the disabled body. The first-level coding led in the classi…
Teacher education for inclusion and anti-oppressive curriculum development
This paper engages with the issue of teacher education for inclusion and particularly with the approach of employing disability arts and narratives of people with disabilities in university based courses for inclusion. It draws on three examples of anti-oppressive curricula that were developed as part of a graduate university module in Cyprus that encouraged student teachers to engage with disability arts and narratives in order to understand key…
Employing the principles of universal design for learning to deconstruct the Greek-Cypriot new national curriculum
The present paper discusses issues related to inclusive education and curricula development based on the principles of universal design for learning (UDL), and it reports on the results of a qualitative content analysis of the new national curriculum (NNC) developed for the public Greek-Cypriot schools in Cyprus. According to the findings, the NNC does not accommodate the principles of the UDL to an extent that would enable teachers differentiate…
Enriching the subject of Greek Literature with the experience of the ‘other’
This article reports on a research project that explored the potential to integrate autobiographical work emphasising personal experiences of exclusion and marginalisation into the Greek Literature curriculum followed in Greek-Cypriot schools. Given the difficulties encountered in Cyprus in promoting changes in attitudes towards diversity, we discuss the autobiographical poems of the disabled Turkish-Cypriot poet Orkun Bozkurt with the aim of str…
Trapped in our past
The importance of culture in understanding cross‐cultural phenomena is now widely acknowledged. This paper seeks to explore the impact of the Greek‐Cypriot culture on constructing notions of disability which dominate popular culture and education. Since culture cannot be understood without the study of history, this analysis takes a historical character. The findings presented in this paper are part of a larger research project regarding the pers…
Teacher education for disability-focussed anti-oppressive pedagogy
Disability Studies scholars have extensively analysed how people with disabilities are oppressed in societies that devalue them. Teachers can promote change in thinking by presenting people with disabilities as people with multiple identities and experiences who are frequently oppressed. This paper explores how teachers can change their thinking and Reconceptualise their practices to this end. It reports on a two-year teacher education programme …
New policies, old ideas
This paper reports on qualitative content analysis research and critically analyzes the state’s intention to use the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health as a tool to develop a national disability assessment system that will guide social policy developments, and particularly the allocation of pensions and benefits to disabled people. The work uses Cyprus as an example, and reviews the most important issues arising fr…
The experience of disability activism through the development of the disability movement
This paper reflects critically upon part of the findings of research about key activists’ experience of disability politics in Cyprus from 1966 to 2004. Disabled activists’ experience of politics is conceptualized through a critical analysis of the different stages they went through while struggling to develop the disability movement in the given social, cultural, political and historical context. Having located this research in the theoretical s…
A critical consideration of current values on the education of disabled children
In this paper the values characterizing the society, the state and the stakeholders in relation to the education of disabled children in Cyprus are outlined. A critical analysis is carried out, followed by examples deriving from the Cypriot context. The national context is placed within the international context, so that the discussion finds its place in a more broad framework. Value-driven action at all levels is related to current and prospecti…
A critical consideration of current values on the education of disabled children
In this paper the values characterizing the society, the state and the stakeholders in relation to the education of disabled children in Cyprus are outlined. A critical analysis is carried out, followed by examples deriving from the Cypriot context. The national context is placed within the international context, so that the discussion finds its place in a more broad framework. Value-driven action at all levels is related to current and prospecti…
The experience of disability activism through the development of the disability movement
This paper reflects critically upon part of the findings of research about key activists’ experience of disability politics in Cyprus from 1966 to 2004. Disabled activists’ experience of politics is conceptualized through a critical analysis of the different stages they went through while struggling to develop the disability movement in the given social, cultural, political and historical context. Having located this research in the theoretical s…
Trapped in our past
The importance of culture in understanding cross‐cultural phenomena is now widely acknowledged. This paper seeks to explore the impact of the Greek‐Cypriot culture on constructing notions of disability which dominate popular culture and education. Since culture cannot be understood without the study of history, this analysis takes a historical character. The findings presented in this paper are part of a larger research project regarding the pers…
Resistance, transformation and the politics of hope
The social model of disability has been a useful tool to shift the focus of disability as individual deficit to disability as a social construction in an oppressive society. However, a theory of political action is needed to create transformative change. This article develops resistance as a unifying political construct and tool for action. Four critical incidences from different historical eras and different global regions – India, the USA, Cypr…
Using teachers' prior knowledge, attitudes and beliefs to develop in-service teacher education courses for inclusion
Enriching the subject of Greek Literature with the experience of the ‘other’
This article reports on a research project that explored the potential to integrate autobiographical work emphasising personal experiences of exclusion and marginalisation into the Greek Literature curriculum followed in Greek-Cypriot schools. Given the difficulties encountered in Cyprus in promoting changes in attitudes towards diversity, we discuss the autobiographical poems of the disabled Turkish-Cypriot poet Orkun Bozkurt with the aim of str…
Employing the principles of universal design for learning to deconstruct the Greek-Cypriot new national curriculum
The present paper discusses issues related to inclusive education and curricula development based on the principles of universal design for learning (UDL), and it reports on the results of a qualitative content analysis of the new national curriculum (NNC) developed for the public Greek-Cypriot schools in Cyprus. According to the findings, the NNC does not accommodate the principles of the UDL to an extent that would enable teachers differentiate…
Deconstructing the Greek-Cypriot new national curriculum
The present paper contextualizes the recent process of development of the New National Curriculum (NNC) for use in Greek-Cypriot public schools. Using content analysis, it pays particular attention to the degree to which the language, performance expectations, and suggested materials described in the NNC take account of disabled children. Notwithstanding the human rights and anti-discrimination rhetoric that surrounds the process of creating an i…
Purpose, Process and Future Direction of Disability Research
Purpose, Process and Future Direction of Disability Research brings together the collective experience of an international network of early career researchers who set out to discuss the complexity of researching disability. As newcomers to the research process, the researchers detail their apprehensions about embarking on doctoral research, together with the struggles they experienced along the way, and importantly the motivation that drove them …
New policies, old ideas
This paper reports on qualitative content analysis research and critically analyzes the state’s intention to use the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health as a tool to develop a national disability assessment system that will guide social policy developments, and particularly the allocation of pensions and benefits to disabled people. The work uses Cyprus as an example, and reviews the most important issues arising fr…
The wonderful world of children's books? Negotiating diversity through children's literature
The present paper reports the findings of a study that sought to identify how diversity (in the form of disability, appearance, and race) is presented in children's books written in or translated into the Greek language. The study focused on the plots and the portrayal of key figures. The sample consisted of 50 children's books written after 1990 that focus on diversity and target children aged 6–12 years. Content analysis framed within the inter…
The Hare and the Tortoise
This paper explores the process of policy formulation and implementation in relation to children commonly described as having ‘special educational needs’ and disability (SEND), in Cyprus and in England. Drawing on qualitative research evidence from key primary documentary sources including legislation, statutory and non-statutory guidance and reports, it provides a comparative analysis of the content and the spirit of policy in both countries ove…
Initial teacher education for inclusion
This article presents a review of the literature on initial teacher education for inclusion published from 2000 to 2014. The analysis uncovers a number of aspects of concern to academics, researchers, teacher educators, and policy-makers. Making informed decisions about the design of initial teacher education courses and units of study for inclusion depends upon addressing some fundamental issues (i.e. the legacy of special education, and the cha…
Disability studies as a framework to design disability awareness programs
This paper presents and critically discusses a disability awareness program that was addressed to non-disabled children aged between 6-8 years old in Cyprus. The main aims were to explore how disability studies and anti-oppressive pedagogies could inform decisions on structured activities and materials to support children understand disability as condition of life, and recognize disabling practices. Artefacts from children’s work and narratives a…
Understanding the value of inclusive education and its implementation
Teacher education for inclusion and anti-oppressive curriculum development
This paper engages with the issue of teacher education for inclusion and particularly with the approach of employing disability arts and narratives of people with disabilities in university based courses for inclusion. It draws on three examples of anti-oppressive curricula that were developed as part of a graduate university module in Cyprus that encouraged student teachers to engage with disability arts and narratives in order to understand key…
Stamped allegories of disability
This study examines the representations of the disabled body by unpicking the messages transferred through the artistic illustrations of disability found in 250 postage stamps. The theoretical framework employed derives from cultural, critical and feminist disability studies, while the tripartite model of disability served as a critical framework to the analysis of the representations of the disabled body. The first-level coding led in the classi…
Unpacking ableist discourses in Cypriot education policy during the pandemic
During the COVID-19 pandemic, children with disabilities were confronted with ableist discourses that justified unfair policy measures. This study is concerned with the discourses recorded in a range of education documents, published during the pandemic within the Republic of Cyprus. It employs an interdisciplinary framework, informed by Critical Discourse Analysis, Inclusive Education, and Critical Disability Studies, to examine the powerful act…
The inclusion of children with disabilities in early childhood education
Bridging early childhood education and inclusive practices in classrooms that serve children with disabilities
In this paper, we report on a study that sought to examine how Early Childhood Education (ECE) teachers, working in Cypriot public schools, combine pedagogies of ECE and inclusive education. We were also interested in how having children with disabilities in their classes informed their practices. We purposively selected and interviewed seven female teachers who, according to our judgement, had good knowledge of the ECE theoretical framework and …
Once inclusive always inclusive (?)
In this paper teachers and parents of children with disabilities in primary education share their perspectives on instructional practices that support inclusive education. The paper explores participants' views on their own teaching practices before the Covid-19 pandemic in comparison to what they employed during the transition to emergency remote online education. The study involved 17 mainstream and special teachers from public schools in Cypru…
Teacher education for disability-focussed anti-oppressive pedagogy
Disability Studies scholars have extensively analysed how people with disabilities are oppressed in societies that devalue them. Teachers can promote change in thinking by presenting people with disabilities as people with multiple identities and experiences who are frequently oppressed. This paper explores how teachers can change their thinking and Reconceptualise their practices to this end. It reports on a two-year teacher education programme …
Curricula for exclusion
This paper presents the findings of a qualitative study which analysed key documents, such as curricula, laws and technical/research reports that informed curriculum development for children with disabilities in the Republic of Cyprus, from 1979 to date. The thematic document analysis sought to make meaning and interpret these developments, which are presented in three time periods: the era of segregation, the era of integration and the era of co…
Inclusive education in the aftermath of the pandemic
This paper reports on a study that sought to explore mainstream and special teachers’ inclusive practices during the Covid-19 pandemic and discusses issues that are relevant in the post-Covid-19 period. The study is contextualized with European and international studies and reports on teachers’ role in the inclusion of children with disabilities before and during the pandemic. The sample of the study comprised of 17 mainstream and special teacher…
Vignettes as a creative method in inclusive early childhood education and care research on teachers
This paper focuses on vignettes as a creative research method that can help us conceptualise early childhood education and care teachers’ understandings of diversity. Research on teachers’ understandings of diversity and inclusive education is used as an example to illustrate how vignettes can shed light on specific elements (e.g. school structures and materials, diversity awareness raising approaches, etc.), and the complexities of national cont…
Sociology (24 works) · Psychology (21 works) · Pedagogy (19 works) · Political science (15 works) · Disability Education and Employment (11 works) · Mathematics education (11 works) · Law (10 works) · Social science (10 works) · Inclusion (mineral (9 works) · Disability Rights and Representation (8 works)