Maria Patsarika

I am a Research Associate with Rosie Parnell (PI) at the University of Sheffield, School of Architecture, on the project ‘Children Transforming Spatial Design: Creative Encounters with Children’ (Leverhulme Trust research grant, 2013-2016 – see also http://www.designingwithchildren.net/). This is the intersection of diverse disciplinarian roads that I followed over the years: history and archeology, culture and heritage studies, sociology of childhood and architecture. I am also member of the Centre for the Study of Childhood and Youth (http://cscy.group.shef.ac.uk/). My research role at the University of Sheffield is complemented by teaching social sciences at the American College of Thessaloniki, Greece. Prior to these I had worked at the Houses of Parliament, London, as Education and Visitor Assistant, which prompted my interest in children’s participation.

In 2011 I completed my PhD jointly at the School of Architecture and the Department of Sociological Studies at the University of Sheffield. My research thereafter focuses on children’s and young people’s place in the world – be this the spaces that they use or the role that they assume and are ascribed by others in society. In particular, I am keen to understand how their casual ways of being are juxtaposed to the more formal contexts of learning and civic engagement. Creative dialogue between children and adults is a keyword in this process; I believe it has a strong role to play in mediating these two.