The attainment of ethnic minority students in their host countries has been occupying a significant part of the international literature for many years. However, results suggest that no generalisations can be made on whether an ethnic minority group underachieves in a particular country and the reasons behind their attainment levels, unless that specific group has been investigated in the country in question. Cyprus joined the EU in 2004 and since then the demographic composition in the island changed dramatically; a change reflected in schools. The literature on ethnic minority group attainment in secondary schools in Cyprus is virtually non-existent and, as such, in this PhD programme the aim was to examine the attainment of ethnic minorities compared to native students and the reasons behind the observed patterns. In order to answer the research questions a series of studies were carried out. Initially, two quantitative studies were conducted. These studies used trimester grades as a proxy of attainment and Rasch analysis to turn these ordinal student grades into a linear scale. Descriptive statistics and multiple regression analyses were then run to check for trends and significant associations. Two qualitative studies then followed. Firstly, a focus group study was conducted utilising the help of six young female teachers, all teaching classics to create a homogeneous group. Then followed an interview study utilising semi-structured interviews on sixteen teachers. For both studies a thematic analysis was undertaken on the transcribed discussions. Another quantitative study then followed which employed an enhanced methodology to the first two studies and richer data. The final study was a mixed methods study and concentrated on school absences. Results demonstrate the reality in lower secondary schools in Cyprus for the first time. The minority group Georgians, the first time that this group is met in the literature, and a combination of other smaller groups put together in a group called ‘Others’, are shown to achieve significantly lower than natives. Ethnic background, gender, generation status, absences, the socio-economic status of the family and the character of the local educational system were shown to be related to student attainment. The widely held belief that ethnic minority students do even worse in those subjects that are more language-dependent is disproven; rather it is the content of the subject that is felt to be more influential on attainment. Also, the recently emerging consensus that unexcused absences are more strongly associated with attainment than excused absences is not upheld in this study; a more detailed classification of unexcused absences might be responsible for this. Finally, it is interesting to note the differential influence of different absence variables on different school subjects. Findings highlight the need for change and improvement in the educational practice in Cyprus and add to both the local and international literature. The specific factors identified can form the basis on which to base suggestions for improvements and further research.

The research reported in this study is located in a major curriculum reform programme commissioned by the Cypriot government and introduced into all public primary schools in September 2011. The study has a specific focus on teacher professional identity in changing times, not least through examining how teachers engage with an external intervention. The study identifies and deploys conceptual tools to examine how and why teachers have been positioned through this reform, and how there is a need to recognise their role as architects and key agents to curriculum reform policies. This research uses a case study approach and operates on three levels. At the micro level, I report on four primary school teachers’ professional lives utilising multiple sources of evidence. At the meso level, I locate these four teachers into a wider context by reporting on data collected from 308 questionnaires distributed to teachers in 29 schools before the implementation of the reform programme and a year after. Finally, at the macro level I report on the national policy context by looking at documents and interviews with two purposively selected curriculum coordinators. Research data revealed that teachers’ professional identity and its underpinning constructs such as emotions, job satisfaction and professional commitment, autonomy, and confidence were constantly challenged and negotiated within the changing educational setting. Contextual and professional factors were found to affect to a great extent teachers’ identity. The unfolding of the research findings derived from the three levels of this research and the use of Foucauldian governmentality as a theoretical lens led to the exposition of the power relations embedded in teachers’ professional lives and contributed to the further analysis of teachers’ identity within educational policy. The case is made that the complexity of professional identity needs to be taken into account by reform designers because teachers are the ones who embrace, reinterpret and develop such efforts. The way and degree to which teachers understand, adjust, perceive and enact on reforms are affected by the extent to which these innovations interact with and challenge existing identities. This research project examines how policy interplays with practice as well as how teachers in a highly centralised system experience and respond to changes in their professional lives, what constitutes, shapes, supports and undermines their practice, thus, making a contribution to the evidence and theory base for the educational policy field. The study enriches the international literature on professional identity and fills in the gaps with respect to teachers’ professional identity at a time of system wide change at a national level in Cyprus. Finally, there is a methodological contribution as it concentrates on primary teachers and utilises methods which are not widely used as the majority of undertaken research is based mainly on surveys and interviews and focuses on secondary teachers.

The main focus of the master thesis is on the emergence, development and current state of the Cypriot conflict in regard to the broader Greek-Turkish relations. Special attention is being drawn to the consequences which this problem causes to the cooperation of Greece and Turkey as its secondary actors and to their involvement in the main European integration projects - the European Union and NATO. The first chapter deals with a historical analysis of Greek-Turkish relations as well as with selected theoretical aspects of the Cypriot conflict - nationalism and conflict typology. The second chapter observes the inclusion of the European Union in relations with all the subjects to the conflict in Cyprus, with regard to the current trends in international political and economic environment shaping those relations. The following chapter describes the role the Cyprus conflict has in terms of NATO-EU cooperation in creating the European security architecture. The final part summarizes the findings and, based on them, draws a model depicting the mutual links among the subjects concerned with the situation in Cyprus and their character.

Waste management issues are prevalent in many parts of the world. Member states of the European Union (EU) are expected to follow the guidelines of the Waste Framework Directive set by the EU. The directive includes targets intended to facilitate waste management practices such as recycling and landfilling. Unfortunately, several countries in the Mediterranean regions are failing to meet these targets, one such country being Cyprus. The country is the third largest generator of municipal waste in the EU and majority of the country’s waste (approx. 80%) are landfilled, while just 19% are recycled. Cyprus has failed to meet the target for recycling 50% of the municipal waste by 2020. Much of the problems can be attributed to the fact that the country lacks good infrastructures such as recycling facilities and services for separate processing of recyclables and biodegradables. Cyprus University of Technology,situated in the city of Limassol, is a leading university in country that values environmental protection and sustainability and has won several awards for depicting their commitment towards sustainable development. Owing to their good environmental record, a study was conducted at this university in the form of a waste audit and nudging experiment along with a complimentary questionnaire. Nudging is a concept in behavioural science which proposes positive reinforcement through the form of indirect suggestions as a strategy to influence decisions and behaviours of individuals or groups. Nudging was undertaken through the intervention of an informative sign at the recycle bins. The waste audit was separated into two periods, control (without nudging) and intervention (with nudging). Later, a questionnaire was distributed to students to understand their attitudes and behaviours towards recycling and the nudging experiment. This research is analysed using a mixed method approach whereby data is collected and analysed using both quantitative and qualitative methods. A secondary data analysis was also utilised for recommending possible solutions to improving waste management problems in Cyprus based on recycling initiatives in other countries, particularly from the Mediterranean region. The research found that there has been an increase in the rate of recycling since nudging was introduced. The questionnaire results also implied that there is a general concern among students for recycling and that much more has to be done by the university to help with waste separation and recycling. The secondary analysis of literature also reveals Cyprus has a long way to go, but proper waste management can be achieved through the government’s prioritisation of environmental protection and improvement of waste management infrastructures. Although the findings in this research has been successful, it could have been further investigated if the waste audit period had been extended and more responses were acquired to the questionnaire. Additionally, conducting interviews of certain individuals could have provided more insight into the waste management challenges in the future.

This thesis investigates the possible future pathways for the road transportation sector of Cyprus, in a time horizon from the year 2013 to 2040. The road transportation sector of Cyprus is the most energy consuming sector in the country, completely dependent on the use of diesel and gasoline. In order to comply with the renewable energy target for the transportation sector set by the European Union, Cyprus needs to transform its road transportation sector. The software MESSAGE (Model for Energy Supply Strategy Alternatives and their General Environmental Impact) is used to model the road transport sector, consisting of passenger and freight transportation. The results of the modelling provides insights into the most cost-effective pathways for Cyprus in the future. In addition to the reference scenario, four different scenarios are examined. These scenarios are focusing on different relevant aspects for Cyprus which are renewable energy, natural gas, public transport and hydrogen. The results of the study indicate that the total numbers of petroleum fueled vehicles will increase in the future, and the freight transport will be particularly difficult to transform. For the passenger transport, there will be a fuel switch from gasoline to diesel, since diesel is less expensive than gasoline. There are possibilities for increasing the numbers of alternative low-carbon emitting vehicle technologies in Cyprus. For the passenger transport, the most cost-effective low-carbon vehicle technologies are hybrid diesel electric cars, plug-in hybrid diesel electric cars and hybrid electric diesel buses. For the freight transport, the most cost-effective low-carbon vehicle technologies are natural gas heavy trycks and electric light trucks. Lastly, the results of the study indicate that it will not be possible for Cyprus to reach the renewable energy target for the transportation sector. The country has to investigate in taxation schemes for increasing the numbers of alternative vehicles as well as increasing the blends of biofuels into gasoline and diesel.

The Republic of Cyprus is often thought of as a tourist destination and hot spot for sun thirsty expats. Hidden from plain sight amongst holiday homes and blue waters, it may thus seem counterintuitive that Cyprus is home to a toxic ethno-nationalist political conflict that has mandated one of the longest running United Nations peace interventions to date. Still, life in Cyprus does not resemble a conflict zone. This beckon the conceptual debate of peace as more than the absence of war and raises questions of how peace is perceived by involved actors and subsequently, how it is influenced by subjective ideas. With negotiations stuck in a cycle of stalling and reassuming, the peace process is often described as the Cypriot deadlock. The cause of the deadlock is debated without consensus, but frequently boils down to disagreements over policies and issues of intercommunal mistrust. Looking to nuance these notions, this thesis aims to explain the deadlock ideationally by analysing ideas of peace as expressed by political elites and assess how they influence the peace process. The research presents a typological method for mapping ideational biases corresponding to meta-ideas of International relations theory. The central argument of this thesis is that the Cypriot peace process is deadlocked due to divergent ideational biases of political elites, rendering the rationales and strategies (the ideational underpinnings) behind the peace process ideationally unviable. This desktop study of Cyprus is based of primary data from the official websites of the Republic of Cyprus, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, and the United Nations, published between January of 2019 and April of 2021.

Diploma thesis deals with the connection between the nature of implemented peacekeeping operation and possible positive output of this activity and thus with successful peacebuilding in the specific context of etnopolitical conflicts. Etnopolitical disputes constitute a vivid challenge aimed towards United Nations organisation. Mainly, because this organisation is one of the main actors of international system in finding solutions of etnopolitical conflicts and because United Nations also proposes concrete tools for their resolving - peacekeeping missions. We work with assumption that the nature of etnopolitical conflict and the nature of conflicting parties involved influence, to an important extent, involvement and impact of peacekeeping operations in resolving these conflicts. Diploma thesis, through the use of theories of origin and solvability of ethnic conflicts, creates the framework within which their more complicated solvability can be explained as well as inhibitors of theoretically successful models. Likewise, the typology of peacekeeping operations is defined and also narrower understanding of peacebuilding, as a set of political and security aspects, is described. Datas from four case studies then offer an opportunity to formulate partial endings and findings of examined causal relation. C lick...

STASINKOVÁ, Sandra. (2016). Cyprus Dispute Settlement after the EU accession: Renewed Negotiations and Future Development. Master thesis, Prague: Charles University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute of Political Studies. 65 p. Supervisor: JUDr. PhDr. Tomáš Karásek, Ph.D. The aim of this diploma thesis is to analyse the ongoing conflict in Cyprus, which became internal for the European Union in 2004, and consequently asses the role of the European Union in the conflict resolution, which is being evaluated according to the principles of mediation. The thesis is divided into four parts. Firtsly, we outline the escalation and the background of the conflict in Cyprus, which have led to the Turkish intervention and consequent division of the island. Secondly, we analyse the period of the European Union accession as a milestone in the development of the conflict. Following the EU accession, we deal with the overall role of the European Union in the conflict resolution and the Union's credibility in conflict managment in general in the third part of this thesis. Lastly, the fourth chapter focuses on the development of the conflict and character of the negotiations after Cyprus became the full member of the European Union. It also provides possible results from current negotiations and possible ways...

The study reported in this article examines the nature of relationships between organizational and personal resources and nurses' turnover intentions. A sample of 124 nurses in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus serves as the study setting. Results of the study reveal that a form of organizational support (empowerment) and two personal resources (customer orientation, job resourcefulness) are the best predictors of turnover intentions. Implications of these results are discussed and avenues for future research are offered.

The study reported in this article examines the nature of relationships between organizational and personal resources and nurses' turnover intentions. A sample of 124 nurses in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus serves as the study setting. Results of the study reveal that a form of organizational support (empowerment) and two personal resources (customer orientation, job resourcefulness) are the best predictors of turnover intentions. Implications of these results are discussed and avenues for future research are offered.