Cyprus

Polyxeni Stylianou, Cyprus

Polyxeni Stylianou is a primary teacher and a researcher. She received her MA degree in Education (Psychology) from the Institute of Education (University of London) and her doctorate in Theory of Education and Curriculum from the Open University of Cyprus.

Her research interests mainly cover the integration of the concepts of death, loss and grief in primary education. She has been working as a teacher in public primary schools in Cyprus since 2001. She delivers conference presentations both nationally and internationally (e.g. DDD12, DDD13, DDD14, 40th ADEC Conference) and she publishes articles in scientific journals.

She had worked for three years as a teacher trainer at the In-Service Training Department of the Cyprus Pedagogical Institute offering seminars both to teachers and parents and editing educational material relevant to Death Education.

Currently she is working on two projects. The first one is on approaching grief issues through children’s literature. One of the purposes of this project is to explore teachers’ and children’s attitudes and reactions on the implementation of relevant suggested lesson plans and, as a result, to make assumptions on Death Education based on empirical data. The second project is on discussing History with children through war graves. The main aim of this project is to discuss the consequences of wars, focusing on life and people.