Maria Chalari

Biography

Maria studied Education (BA) and Education and Human Rights (MA) at the University of Athens and the University of London. She is a doctoral graduate of the UCL Institute of Education’s Department of Education, Practice, and Society. She completed her doctoral thesis under the supervision of Stephen Ball and, in August 2016, she was awarded the degree of Doctor of Education in the field of Sociology of Education. She completed her degree with the support of the Centenary Advanced EdD International Bursary, which was awarded to her in May 2014. In 2017, she joined the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens as a post-doctoral research fellow. Her research study was funded by IKY, the State Scholarship Foundation. Currently, Maria is working as Marie Sklodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Research Fellow at European University in Cyprus.

Maria has worked with human rights organizations and institutions as a team leader, a trainer for volunteers, and as a specialist on innovative education programs for children. She has taken part in many conferences and youth forums and has been part of numerous human rights projects in different countries around the world such as Japan, Turkey, Cyprus, Russia, Bulgaria, Portugal, and Hungary. She has also worked as an educator in formal and informal education in Greece, Oman and the UK, and has been a member of research teams working on projects for the National Center for Social Research, the University of Athens, the Hellenic Coordinating Centre of the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement, and the European Union.

Among other topics, her research focuses on: matters related to human rights; political, ethnic, racial, and gender-based social problems; the origins and the shaping of education policy in different areas at national and international levels; main theories and concepts concerning education and human rights; and the construction of social discrimination and social exclusion.

Maria’s book attempts to convey a positive message. It aims to help educators understand the issues of teaching and learning and the purpose of education itself and to encourage the construction of new frameworks for teaching and learning and the generation of a pedagogy of hope for contemporary Greek education.

Education

Postdoc in Sociology of Education, University of Athens 2019
Doctor in Education, UCL Institute of Education, UK, 2016
Joint MA in Education and Human Rights, UCL IOE, 2006
BA in Early Childhood Education, University of Athens, 2002

Areas of Research / Professional Expertise

Maria is interested in the impact of the Greek socio-economic crisis on education. Her field of enquiry also extends to the personal and professional well-being of teachers and students, educational inequalities (especially the patterns of inequality that affect happiness attainment in children), nationalism and rising xenophobia in Greece, early childhood education, and the general purpose and role of education overall, focusing on its potential for overcoming serious social problems. She is concerned with critical consideration of the social transformations of human society.

Books