On Continuity and Change in National Identity Construction: An Initial Note on Greek-Cypriot Education, 1960-2010

Abstract

In this paper, and in the context of this special issue on fifty years since the establishment of the Republic of Cyprus, we present an initial historicisation of Greek-Cypriot education since 1960 using, as a narrative and intellectual device, constructs of national identity. We argue here that four different historical moments in terms of national identity construction may be extracted from the available body of scholarship – the first years of Independence (1960-1974), the early post-74 period (1974-1994), the period between 1994-2003, and, the period between 2004-2010. In these different historical moments, education appears to have been given a major role in either restructuring or reaffirming and maintaining identities, and, as a result, ethnonational identities were in flux, veering between discourses of Hellenocentric, Cypriocentric and Hellenocypriocentric identity.