A graduate student in Cleveland, Ohio, is requesting participation from Greek Americans ages 18 and older for her doctoral research project focusing on Greek language maintenance and preservation in the United States.
For the past five years, Keli Pontikos Paragios, an education doctoral candidate at Cleveland State University, has been researching Greek Americans and their heritage language maintenance.
Paragios started with interviews of community leaders, educators and other individuals in Cleveland and in Clearwater, Florida. Thereafter she conducted local survey research in Cleveland to bolster her data.
Paragios presented both of the aforementioned studies at the international education conference in Athens, Greece (ATINER) in 2017 and 2018.
“[At the conferences] I realized the demand for more information and more data,” Paragios told The Pappas Post. “Researchers from all over the world approached me and insisted I open up my research to gather more information.”
Now Paragios is conducting large-scale research as the grand finale to her project, which will be the dissertation for her adult education doctoral program at Cleveland State University.
To complete the survey, individuals must be at least 18 years old, born in the U.S. or arrived in the country before the age of three and of Greek descent.
“I have intentions to distribute to as many as I can in the Greek American community with my ultimate goal of having representation from each of the 50 states,” Paragios said. “I’ve already received nearly 300 responses which I think highlights the communities’ desire to contribute and support this project.”
Paragios said she intends to publish the survey data into a book.
Click here to complete the survey
Featured image from the personal collection of Pappas Post Publisher Gregory C. Pappas
