Dionysia Kontogianni is a tenured Assistant Professor at the Department of Preschool Education of the University of Crete, specializing in Intercultural Pedagogy. She graduated from the Department of Primary Education at the University of Ioannina and in 2002 she received her PhD in Education Sciences from the University of Crete. From 1997 to 2014, she was a research associate at the Laboratory of Intercultural and Migration Studies of the Department of Primary Education at the University of Crete. In particular, she participated as the project manager of the research program “Education for the Greek Diaspora”, as a member of the Project Team of the program “Greek-Language Primary and Secondary Intercultural Education in the Diaspora”, and she was responsible for the scientific editing and writing of educational material for preschool-aged children of the Greek diaspora. Between 2005 and 2008, she worked as a Primary Education teacher. Since October 2016, she has been teaching in the Master’s Program in Education Sciences, in the specialization “Pedagogy and Teaching Practice” of the Department of Preschool Education at the University of Crete. Moreover, from October 2020 to June 2025, she worked as Adjunct Teaching Staff at the Hellenic Open University (HOU) in the Master’s Program in Education Sciences of the School of Humanities, within the module “Education: Cultural Differences and Social Inequalities”.

Research Interests: Intercultural pedagogy, Migration, Identity in multicultural environments, Bilingual education, and Greek-language education in the diaspora.

Indicative Publications 

• Kontogianni, D., Michelakaki, T., & Papalexopoulou, E. (2019). Albanian families leaving Greece: the narrative of the repatriation experience and sense of belonging by children and teenage students in Albania. In J. Panagiotopoulou, L. Rozen, C. Kirsch & A. Chatzidaki (Eds.), ‘New’ Migration of Families from Greece to Europe and Canada. A ’New’ Challenge for Education? (pp. 129-152). Springer VS.
• Kontogianni, D. (2019). The impact of the family environment on the educational adjustment of preschool children of Indian origin. Preschool and Primary Education, 7(1), 19-36. http://dx.doi.org/10.12681/ppej.18487
• Kontogianni, D., & Oikonomidis, V. (2020). Bilingual infants and their treatment in the greek kindergarden. In E. Skourtou, V. Kourtis- Kazoulis, T. Aravossitas & P.P. Trifonas (Eds.), Language Diversity in Greece: Local Challenges with International Implications (pp.11-22). Springer Nature AG.
• Kontogianni, D., & Thomou, P. (2022). Cultural and linguistic diversity in the Greek school: The case of Reception Classes. Dialogoi! Theory and Practice in the Sciences of Education, 8, 190–210. https://ejournals.epublishing.ekt.gr/index.php/dialogoi/article/view/31789