The aim of the round table session is to enhance the transnational/comparative approach to the historical study of children’s and youth’s educational spaces and also sharpen and develop methods and theoretical concepts for the study of historical spaces in general. To heighten the comparative/transnational approach to the historical study of children’s and youth’s educational spaces is important as links outside the national unity often influence the creation of educational spaces. When working within a national research framework, this is often overlooked and sometimes difficult to include. Moreover, as today’s historical studies of children’s and youth’s spaces are characterized by a broad interdisciplinary approach, the round table will serve to bring together different perspectives and thereby heighten discussions further. In the roundtable session, the discussion will be focused on possible methods and concepts for studying space in a historical perspective.

A wide range of methods has been used for the historical study of educational spaces. From archival studies through studies of various buildings to interviews and school visits in the present. The round table will exemplify and discuss the potentials in each of the presented methods and also point to new ways of exploring educational spaces in a historical perspective.

The focus on educational spaces suggests a theoretical base in spatial theories, with theorists like Lefebvre (1991) and Thrift (2007). Naturally, participants will use different concepts and perspectives in their projects, something that offers possibilities to discuss benefits and problems within and across different theories. In the theoretical discussion a particular attention will be given to the notion of space and its possible definitions. It will also be consider how to define educational when talking about spaces and the possibility to compare – or connect – studies of spaces that are related to formal and informal education or in even broader terms of socialization.  Also the terms children and youth will be open for discussion.

Furthermore, it will be consider how different approaches, theories and methods take into account and bend the complexity of the field in various ways. The complexity is not least about how educational spaces – also those particularly made for children and youth – involve a wide range of other actors such as teachers, architects, parents, pedagogues, children and youth workers, politicians etc.

In the round table discussion researchers from across Europe present their current research within the field, reflect on their use of method and theoretical perspective and bring it into a joint discussion.

Among others: Henri Lefevbre (1991): The Production of Space. Oxford: Basil Blackwell; Nigel Thrift (2007): Non-Representational Theory. London: Routledge