About

Welcome to my Personal Blog

For information on my professional activities at the University of Leeds you may check the following webpage:

Prof Michalis Kontopodis, Chair in Global Childhood & Youth Studies (CPsychol & HEA Fellow), School of Education, University of Leeds: https://essl.leeds.ac.uk/education/staff/690/prof-michalis-kontopodis

Overview of Publications & Citations:
https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=7vqTq68AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao

CV & overview of publications: pdf file

Personal Email: mkontopodis@pm.me

YouTube Channel: Prof Kontopodis: Global Childhood & Youth Futures – YouTube

General Information & Background 

I am a first-generation student, who grew up in Crete, has lived in a few different countries and feels quite awkward as professor, and at the same time, an immigrant in post-Brexit UK. For reasons related to my own biography, I am committed to working on inclusion, digital education and co-designing global childhood & youth futures, which is also the theme of this web-platform. I am a Chartered Psychologist by the British Psychological Society, and also Fellow of the Higher Education Academy in the UK.

Since 2018, I am the Chair in Global Childhood and Youth Studies at the University of Leeds. My background comprises psychology, anthropology and education. I accomplished my PhD in 2007 at the Free University Berlin and held the following positions before moving to the University of Leeds: 

  • 2016-2018: Senior Lecturer, University of Sheffield, UK
  • 2014-2016: Senior Lecturer, Roehampton University London, UK
  • 2013-2014: Assistant Professor, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands
  • 2011-2012: Post-Doc Researcher, University of Amsterdam, Netherlands
  • 2007-2010: Post-Doc Researcher, Humboldt University Berlin, Germany

I have also held the following visiting positions:

  • Escuela Normal del Estado, San Luis Potosi, Mexico (visiting professor, 2014)
  • Pontíficia Universidade Católica de São Paulo, Brazil (visiting professor, regularly since 2010)
  • Jawaharlal Nehru University, India (visiting professor, 2010)
  • City University of New York, US (visiting scholar, 2009)

Leading postgraduate training programmes in (post-)qualitative and participatory research, I highly value knowledge co-production in collaboration with a wide network of practitioners, NGOs, local community organisations and policy makers in diverse communities around the globe. I am fluent, teach and publish in English, German, Greek and Portuguese; I have some basic knowledge of French, Dutch and Spanish and a few publications in Russian, too (see tabs above).

I am a former Secretary of the International Society for Cultural-historical and Activity Research and I have often provided scientific advise to international organisations focusing on childhood & youth futures, global education and digital transformation, for example, I have served as an expert evaluator of the Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program of the European Union, expert evaluator of research proposals for the Danish Council for Independent Research and external advisor of the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (National Council of Scientific and Technological Development) in Brazil.

Last but not least, I have a licence to work as a child & adolescent psychologist and have established the MSc in Psychology & Education at the University of Sheffield, which has been accredited by the British Psychological Society.

Main Book Publications: 

Kontopodis, M.; Varvantakis, C. & Wulf, C. (Eds.) (2019). Global Youth in Digital Trajectories. London: Routledge.

Kontopodis, M.; Magalhães, M.C. & Coracini, M.J. (Eds.) (2016). Facing Poverty and Marginalization: 50 Years of Critical Research in Brazil. Bern, Oxford & New York: Peter Lang.

Kontopodis, M. (2014) Neoliberalism, Pedagogy and Human Development: Exploring Time, Mediation and Collectivity in Contemporary Schools. London & New York: Routledge.

Kontopodis, M., Wulf, C. & Fichtner, Bernd. (Eds.) (2011) Children, Development and Education: Cultural, Historical, Anthropological Perspectives. New York: Springer.

Open-access publications: https://leeds.academia.edu/mkontopodis