Catherine Blaya is Professor of Education Sciences at the University of the Côte d’Azur. She is a member of the Migration and Societies Research Unit (UMR CNRS 8245-IRD 205). She was a lecturer at the IUFM of Aquitaine, before becoming Professor in Educational Sciences at the IREDU (University of Burgundy) and then at the University of Nice Sophia Antipolis. Catherine Blaya co-founded the International Observatory of Violence at School which she chaired from 2013 to 2018. She leads the French team of the EU Kids Online group (eukidsonline.org) on the digital uses and negative experiences of young people. Her research focuses on comparative studies on the problems of violence in schools, juvenile delinquency, school drop-out, cyberviolence and incitement to hatred on the Internet. She has (co-)published Teens in Cyberspace, Risk-taking and Cyberviolence (2013), Bullying, Cyberbullying and Student Well-Being in Schools. Comparing European, Australian and Indian Perspectives (2018); International Perspectives on Cyberbullying (2018), Cyberhate, Youth and Violence on the Internet (2019).

After a two-and-a-half year secondment to the Haute Ecole Pédagogique du canton de Vaud, where she headed the Laboratoire Accrochage Scolaire et Alliances Educatives (LASALE), she returned to Nice to take over as director of the Institut National Supérieur du Professorat et de l’Education. The evolution of initial teacher training is based, according to the law, on three principles: the university character of the training, the master’s degree and the alternation during the internship year between university training and the exercise of responsibility. Its plans are therefore to strengthen the link between initial and in-service teacher training and research and, to this end, to develop the master’s degree in educational research. This master’s degree will be an opportunity to open up prospects of continuity towards a doctorate in Educational Sciences.