Dr. Christina Hajisoteriou is a Professor in Intercultural Education at the University of Nicosia. She was awarded a first-class honours BA in Primary Education (best graduate of the year) by the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. She received annual curriculum awards by the Greek Foundation of National Scholarships. In 2006, she received her MPhil (Thesis Grade A) in Educational Research with specialisation in Intercultural Education from the University of Cambridge. In 2009, she received her PhD in Education concentrating on Intercultural Education by the University of Cambridge. Her PhD research was funded by Leventis Foundation via the Cambridge Commonwealth Trust. In 2012, she completed her post-doctoral research on ‘The Europeanisation of intercultural education - The case of Cyprus’ co-funded by the Republic of Cyprus and the European Regional Development Fund through the Research Promotion Foundation of Cyprus. In the past, she has served as a primary school teacher in public schools in Cyprus.
Dr Hajisoteriou is the Deputy Director of the UNESCO Chair of the University of Nicosia focusing on "Cultural Diversity and Intercultural Dialogue for a Culture of Peace". She is a member of a number of international research associations, while she served also as a member of the Biomedical and Clinical Research Committee A of the Cyprus National Bioethics Committee, and as an evaluator for various funds such as the Austrian Research Fund. She published or edited 8 books and more than 80 articles and book chapters, all focusing on intercultural education. In 2016, Palgrave-Macmillan published her book The Globalisation of Intercultural Education: The Politics of Macro-Micro Integration’with Prof. Angelides. Her latest book ‘Student voices for inclusion and interculturalism’ with Prof. Angelides was published in 2023 by Diadrasi Publishers. Last but not least, she has been a co-recipient of more than 5 million euros in funding for various project focusing inter alia on intercultural competences, mainly coming from the EU.
Selected publications in peer-reviewed journals
1. Hajisoteriou, C. & Sorkos, G. (2023). Students as informal leaders in deliberate acts of inclusion, Research Papers in Education, 38(6), 924-943.
2. Hajisoteriou, C., Panaou, P. & Angelides, P. (2022). Empowering children to speak up and act on social justice issues: The use of folktales and collaborative storytelling as tools of social imagination’. British Educational Research Journal, 48(2), 253-271.
3. Hajisoteriou, C. & Sorkos, G. (2023). Towards a new paradigm of ‘Sustainable Intercultural and Inclusive Education’: A Comparative ‘Blended’ Approach. Education Inquiry, 14(4), 496-512.
4. Sorkos, G. & Hajisoteriou, C. (2021). Sustainable Intercultural and Inclusive Education: Teachers’ efforts on promoting a combining paradigm. Pedagogy, Culture and Society. 29(4), 517-536.
5. Hajisoteriou, C. & Angelides, P. (2020). ‘Inching’ towards interculturalism: Ambiguities and tensions in teachers’ ideologies and practices in the context of Cyprus. Intercultural Education. 31(1), 16-37.