School Chronotopia and Society: How Place of School and Time of Schooling Work for Social Distinctions

Author(s):

Maria Mendel

Conference:

ECER 2009

Network:

14. Communities, Families and Schooling in Educational Research

Format:

Paper

Session Information

14 SES 07, Dimensions of Place-Conscious Education

Paper Session

Time:

2009-09-29

15:30-17:00

Room:

JUR, HS 10

Chair:

Rune Kvalsund

Contribution

The paper presents empirical research on social and educational transition in Polish parents’ narratives. It focuses on place-conscious parental involvement in education of their children. The research concentrates also on place-based social differentiation perceived in the light of school choice, rituals regarding school thresholds, and other social behaviours that build class distinctions. Parents’ narratives are interpreted – on the one hand - in the light of the role the geographical location of home and school plays in shaping the understanding of education (the image of the school, knowledge of schooling, understanding democracy in school, aspirations regarding children’s future, etc). On the other hand the analysis emphasises the time of transition and new stratification that accompanied the socio-economic and political transformation in Poland after the year 1989. This aspect of study completes the space-time in which parents’ lives underwent changes that forced them to take given places in the new social structure. The space-time (chronotopia in Michail Bachtin’s terms) of social transformation can be read through the lens of parental narratives concerning education of their children. New stratification with a deep gap between the top and the bottom of the social pyramid seems to be maintained and also defined through the place of school and politically understood time of schooling.

Method

The research is biographical and the material is composed of 42 narratives of parents from Gdansk and Tczew. While the first one is a big (half a million people) and successfully developing town, the latter one is its rather poor satellite, where increasing unemployment generates plenty of social problems. The analysis is based on Duccio Demetrio’s approach to biographical research. The parents' memories were structured by Demetrio's phases of recalling, remembering and recollection of the images of the past. The narratives covered the issues of school choice, school threshold, and school-home co-operation (partnerships). There were no hypotheses formulated in the research, and the final interpretation followed the rules of grounded theory approach.

Expected Outcomes

The analysis shows that most of educational practices, parental involvement and many other forms of social participation, are not socially innocent. They strongly signify class distinctions, and refer the snippets of biographies directly to the theory of social diversification, especially in regards to the construction of the middle class. It seems that the chronotopic perspective developed in this study can be fruitful in grasping the interrelations between schooling and political changes.

References

Bourdieu, P. (1999) Site effects, in: P. Bourdieu et al (Eds) The Weight of the world. Social suffering in contemporary society (Stanford, CA, Stanford University Press) Bruner, J. (1986) Life as narrative, Social Research, 54(1), 11-32 Demetrio, D. (2000) Autobiografia. Terapeutyczny wymiar pisania o sobie [Authobiography. Therapeutic dimension of the Self-writing] (Krakow, Oficyna Wydawnicza Impuls) Gennep A. Van (2006) Obrzedy przejscia [Rites of Passage] (Warszawa, Panstwowy Instytut Wydawniczy) Giddens, A. (1991) Modernity and self identity (Stanford, CA, Stanford University Press) Gruenewald D.A. (2003) Foundations of Place: A Multidisciplinary Framework for Place-Conscious Education, American Educational Research Journal, 40(3), 619-654 Massey, D. (1994) Space, place and gender (Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press) Mendel M. (Ed.) (2006): Pedagogika miejsca [Pedagogy of Place] (Wroclaw, Wydawnictwo DSWE) Robertson, R. (1995) Glocalisation: Time-space and homogeneity-heterogeneity, in: M. Featherstone, S. Lash & R. Robertson (Eds) Global Modernities (London, Sage) Smith, G. (2002) Place-based education. Learning to be where we are, Phi Delta Kappan, 83(8), 584-595 Thomson, P. (2002a) Schooling the rustbelt kids. Making the difference in changing times (Sydney, Allen & Unwin) Thomson, P. (2002b) Strengthening family-school relationships: a story about using research to develop policy and practice in Tasmania, Australia, International Electronic Journal for Leadership in Learning, 6(4), http://www.ucalgary.ca/~iejll. Turner V. (1969): Gry spoleczne, pola i metafory [Dramas, Fields, and Methaphors: Symbolic Action in Human Society] (Krakow, Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellonskiego)

Author Information

Maria Mendel

University of Gdansk

Faculty of Social Sciences

Gdynia

170

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