The thesis of this Ph.D. is new forms of organizing the secondary school in Denmark and the potential of these organizational forms as inclusive learning environments. I´m inspired by multisensory ethnography (Pink, 2011a, 2011b) in my study of the ways the students are categorized into included or excluded positions in secondary schools. The Ph.D. project is based on a theoretical assumption that processes of categorizations are entangled into the school architecture/the school buildings – that is to say that the categorizing processes are entangled with the “place making” of the students and teachers during the classes and during the breaks.    

Objective 

In Denmark, pupils are traditionally organized in the classes with the same classmates and teachers through primary and secondary school. However, in these years there are several experiments with separating the primary schools from the secondary schools, splitting the school classes and mixing the students in new classes across different primary schools. In the new separated secondary school the student begin in classes with new classmates and new teachers – the idea is to enabling the students to get a “fresh start”/a new beginning, and by that avoiding lack of motivation for the school work and school “dropouts”.  

In addition, there are in these years a general change of the learning discourse from focusing on the teaching to focusing more specific on the learning processes (Bjerg and Staunæs, 2014). In relation to this change of discourse is a change in focusing on the build environment as crucial for the learning processes. This is based on an assumption that the school architecture, the interior and choices of materials enact with the learnings processes: time-space-bodies are governed in new ways (Juelskjaer, 2013): The students are supposed to choose learning spaces more freely (the cozy corner outside the classroom, the fat boy-chair, the school library). In addition, to choose whom they´ll cooperate with, and they are responsible for managing the time in order to do the work in time. The result is a flexible learning environment (Juelskjaer and Staunæs, 2014).

Research questions:

What kind of processes of categorization emerge in the flexible learning environment in secondary school and what are the impact of these processes of categorization on the practices of inclusion and exclusion. What kind of processes of recognitions and depreciation and what kinds of likes and dislikes emerge in the flexible learning environment in the organizational context in secondary school?   

Theoretical framework

The theoretical framework draws on different orientations:

First following the work of Pierre Bourdieu I´m studying the assumptions of the teachers and the cultural constructs and categorization (Bourdieu, 1997). The teachers and pupils processes of recognition and categorization are examined and related to the organizational form and to the build environment.

Processes of categorizations are studied as symbolic boundaries which are expressed through normative interdictions, cultural attitude and practices – and through patterns of likes and dislikes/recognitions and depreciations.  The symbolic boundaries play an important role in the creation of inequality and the exercise of power (Lamont, 2002).

Second, focusing on how processes of categorization entangles with the school architecture I´m inspired by new materialism and Karen Barads theory of agential realism which underline  materiality as doing: matter is produces and productive, generated and generative (Barad 2007). 

Third, I´m inspired by Doreen Masseys (1984) and Nigel Thrifts (2008) notion of places as dynamic, open, porous: Places are understood as performative (places are doings and processes) and it is through our performances of places that places takes on meanings and becomes affective (Thrift, 2008).  

References: • Bjerg, Helle and Staunæs, Dorthe (2014): Læringscentreret skoleledelse. Tænketeknologier til forskningsinformeret skoleledelse. Dafolo. • Bourdieu, Pierre. (1997): Af praktiske grunde. Omkring teorien om menneskelig handlen. Hans Reitzels Forlag. • Fors, Vaike, Bäckström, Åsa, Pink, Sarah: (2013): “Multisensory Emplaced Learning Resituating Learning in a Moving World”. Mind, Culture and Activity, 20:2. • Hammersley, Martyn (2012): “Classroom Ethnography”. In Delamont, Sarah (ed): Ethnography methods in education. Sage Benchmark in Social Research Methods. • Harris, Gitte Sommer (2011): “Categories and categorization”. Toward a comprehensive Social Framework. In Distinktion, 12. • Juelskjaer, Malou and Staunæs, Dorthe (2014): “Klasseledelse all inclusive. Læringscentreret ledelse af sanser, affecter og rytmer”. In Krejsler, John Benedicto and Moos, Lejf: Klasseledelse. Dafolo. • Juelskjaer, Malou (2013): Gendered subjectivities of “spacetimematter”. I Gender and Education. Vol. 25, nr. 6. • Juelskjaer, Malou (2011): ”Når skolen bygger om år skolen bygger om: hvordan ny arkitektur skaber nye betingelser for ledelse”. In Juelskjær, Malou et.al. (ed): Ledelse af uddannelse: at lede det potentielle. Samfundslitteratur. • Larsen, Vibe. (2010) ”Nationale praktikker i børnehaven: Om relationen mellem forskelsstrukturer i småbørnspædagogikken og en nationalstatslig organisering”. Roskilde Universitet. • Pink, Sarah (2011a): “From embodiment to emplacement: rethinking competing bodies, sense and spatialities”. Sport, Education and society, 16:3. • Pink, Sarah (2011b): “Multimodality, multisensoriality and ethnographic knowing: social semiotics and the Phenomenology and perception”. Oualitative Research (3). • Thrift, Nigel (2008): “Non-representational Theory: Space, Politics, Affect”. Rouledge. • Massey, Doreen (1994): “A Global Sense of Place”. From Space, Place and Gender. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. • Øland, Trine. (2011) Progressiv pædagogik – former, forandringer og virkninger. Dafolo.