Session Information
27 SES 13 A, From Design to Practice in School Environments (Part 1)
Symposium to be continued in 27 SES 14 A
Contribution
The schoolyard is a social and pedagogical space continuously constructed in a dynamic process in which different spatial dimensions are in play. Drawing on data from a cultural history project on the Swedish schoolyard (Larsson, 2013; Larsson & Norlin, 2014; Rönnlund 2015a,b; Larsson et al, forthcoming) and on additional data from France, this paper focuses on spatiality in terms of conceived space. By exploring how different agents in the school environment represent the schoolyard, the aim is to contribute to the understanding of how the schoolyard is produced as a social and pedagogical space. Starting from Henri Lefebvre's theory of the production of space through various spatial dimensions (1991), the study highlights different school agents’ representations of the schoolyard: How do planners/architects and teachers in two different national contexts represent the schoolyard, and what similarities and differences can be distinguished between different groups of agents and different cultural contexts in this respect? International comparisons are sparse in this field, and of particular interest as Sweden and France, although they both have long pedagogical traditions, represent two different educational traditions based in their different historical and pedagogical background. On the other hand, societal developments and pedagogical influences on international level, are likely to influence on national practices in both these countries. By comparing the two, various perspectives will be brought into the analysis. With this cross-cultural and comparative design, semi-structural interviews with about 15 school agents in two cultural contexts were conducted (Denscombe, 2007): persons working with planning schoolyards at the municipality at different levels (including architects), and teachers. The analysis was directed towards discourses (How did the interviewees talk about and understand the schoolyard? What did they view as desirable in that space?), and towards patterns in relation to different cultural contexts and groups of agents. Preliminary results indicate two main patterns – the schoolyard as fragmented, pluralistic, diverse, interrupted and mobile, and the schoolyard as a fixed entity. While the planners’ representations gave a picture of the former, the teachers’ representations were more in line with the latter: a well-defined place with well-defined places in it, places with strong single identities and somewhat predefined activities. However, the comparison between the two national contexts revealed more complex patterns.
References
Denscombe, M. (2007), The Good Research Guide: For Small-Scale Social Research Projects. Maidenhead: Open University Press. Larsson, A, Norlin, B & Rönnlund, M (forthcoming). Den svenska skolgårdens kulturhistoria Skolans utemiljö som pedagogiskt rum och socialt spänningsfält 1611-2011 [The cultural history of the Swedish schoolyard] Larsson, A. & B. Norlin, eds. (2014), Beyond the Classroom: Historical Perspectives on Pupils and Informal Schooling Processes. Hamburg: Peter Lang Publishers. Larsson, A. (2013), “A children’s place? The school playground debate in postwar Sweden”, History of Education 42, no 1, 115–130. Lefebvre, H. (1991) The production of space. Blackwell Publishers. Oxford Rönnlund, M. (2015) Skolgården som socialt rum. Nordic Studies in Education,33 (3-4), s 200-216. Rönnlund, M (2015). Schoolyard Stories. Processes of gender identity at a ’childrens’ place. Childhood, 22 (1), s 85-100.
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