Themes of school architecture in European educational history have been highlighted previously (Burke, Cunningham, & Grosvenor, 2010), while the upsurge in the development of flexible and innovative school designs in Australasia gains traction in published research (Benade, 2017; Imms, 2016). Understanding spatial themes in relation to education can (and should) be understood as a global subject too (Benade & Jackson, 2018). This symposium features presenters reporting on research in England, Iceland and New Zealand. Its purpose is to draw from themes illustrating the overlaps of state policy, facilities design, educational practice, and questions of educational inclusion and exclusion. The featured presentations focus on the role of state policy over questions of educational access, facilities design and pedagogy for non-traditional schooling environments. The presenters all draw on their own field work experience with schools that have engaged with the challenge of developing flexible, innovative designs, reflecting on how these are constituted as ‘non-traditional’. The notion of ‘tradition’ becomes a motif for thinking about educational arrangements that may have worked to exclude students, despite state policies to encourage educational inclusion, while the notion of ‘innovative design’ becomes a theme for thinking about ‘doing education’ differently, in ways that may support inclusion. To think this way, however, throws into sharp relief the challenges of establishing whether clear links exist between design and learning, and between design and pedagogy. Tensions between design primacy and established teacher practices are evident in some settings, while in other settings, design is shown to positively influence student attitudes (Sigurðardóttir, 2018), with the potential to improve citizenship qualities (Nair, 2014; Nair, Fielding, & Lackney, 2013), such as through more democratic forms of inclusion, encouraged by specific pedagogical and organisational arrangements. Participatory planning is particularly important in this regard (Woolner, McCarter, Wall, & Higgins, 2012), but conversely, there is evidence of top-down, bureaucratic approaches to planning and design (Wells, Jackson & Benade, 2018). The presenters, working in qualitative methodological modes, informed by spatial theory, report on case studies involving either single schools or multiple sites, where they have collected data using a range of tools, including observation, interview and documentary analysis. The proposed symposium on the potential of flexible learning spaces to be inclusive invites researchers to reflect on the ways space can be studied and theorised, and also to consider the complexities of policy development, and the relations between space, teaching and learning, and finally, to consider what the implications of such reflections may be for thinking about these developments in their historical context. 

Benade, L. (2017). Being a teacher in the 21st century: A critical New Zealand research study. Singapore: Springer Nature. Benade, L. & Jackson, M. (2018). Transforming education: Design and governance in global contexts. Singapore: Springer Burke, C., Cunningham, P. & Grosvenor, I. (2010): Putting education in its place: Space, place and materialities in the history of education. History of Education 39(6), 677-680. Imms, W., Cleveland, B. & Fisher, K. (Eds). Evaluating learning environments: snapshots of emerging issues, methods and knowledge. Rotterdam, The Netherlands/Boston, MA: Sense Publishers. Nair, P. (2014). Blueprint for tomorrow: Redesigning schools for student-centered learning. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press. Sigurðardóttir, A.K. (2018). Student-centred classroom environments in upper secondary school: Students’ ideas about good spaces for learning vs. actual arrangements. In L. Benade & M. Jackson, (Eds.), Transforming education: Design and governance in global contexts (pp. 183-197). Singapore: Springer Wells, A., Jackson, M. & Benade, L. (2018). Modern Learning Environments: Embodiment of a disjunctive encounter. In L. Benade & M. Jackson, (Eds.), Transforming education: Design and governance in global contexts (pp. 3-17). Singapore: Springer Woolner, P.; McCarter, S.; Wall, K. & Higgins, S. (2012). Changed learning through changed space: When can a participatory approach to the learning environment challenge preconceptions and alter practice? Improving Schools 15(1), 45-60.