Biography
Dr. Sirrakos is a Professor in the Department of Secondary Education at Kutztown University. Prior to Dr. Sirrakos’ arrival to Kutztown in 2013, he worked as an educational consultant with the Institute for Student Achievement and taught science in both New York City and Dresden, Germany. In 2018, Dr. Sirrakos was awarded KU's John P. Schellenberg Award for Excellence in Teaching and Learning. Dr. Sirrakos teaches courses in education psychology, methods of science instruction, school leadership, Hip Hop and multicultural education, and he supervises student teachers. His research interests include fostering equity in education, creating opportunities for students to inform the teaching and learning process, cross-national studies of learning environments, and the intersections of Hip Hop and education. Currently, Dr. Sirrakos serves as the principal investigator for a three-year National Science Foundation grant to better understand the barriers and challenges for success faced by underrepresented high school students in computer science, namely females, underrepresented racial minorities and/or students of low socioeconomic status.
Dr. Sirrakos has presented his work on issues of culture, equity, and education at several regional and national conferences. He has written for and contributed to numerous academic journals and edited volumes in the United States and internationally, including his co-edited book Between the World and the Urban Classroom.
Publications
Kraal, E. R., Sirrakos, G., Guertin, L., Epstein, A., & Simmens, G. (2021). Impact of Student Produced Audio Narrative (SPAN) assignments on students’ perceptions and attitudes toward science in introductory geoscience courses. Journal of Geoscience Education.
Sirrakos, G. & Fraser, B. J. (2019). Development and validation of the Questionnaire Assessing Connections to Science (QuACS). In D. Zandvliet and B. J. Fraser (Eds.), Thirty Years of Learning Environments: Looking Back and Looking Forward (pp. 102-126). Leiden, the Netherlands: Brill Sense.
Daneshzadeh, A. & Sirrakos, G. (2018). Restorative justice as a double-edged sword: Conflating restoration of Black youth with transformation of schools. Taboo: The Journal of Culture and Education, 17(4). https://doi.org/10.31390/taboo.17.4.02
Sirrakos, G. (2018). Fostering students’ affiliation to the urban science classroom. In J. Paraskeva & E. Janson (Eds.), Voicing the Silences of Social and Cognitive Justices (pp. 133-150). Leiden, the Netherlands: Brill Sense.
Sirrakos, G. & Emdin, C. (Eds.) (2017). Between the world and the urban classroom. Rotterdam, the Netherlands: Sense Publishers.
Sirrakos, G. & Fraser, B. J. (2017). A cross-national, mixed-method study of reality pedagogy. Learning Environments Research: An International Journal, 20, 153-174.
Sirrakos, G. (2017). Beyond a deficit perspective: From the Greek financial crisis to urban students of color. In G. Sirrakos & C. Emdin (Eds.), Between the World and the Urban Classroom (pp. 53-68). Rotterdam, the Netherlands: Sense Publishers.