The idea that the New Zealand education system will cater to all students, regardless of ability, and to support them in developing their full potential to the best of their abilities, is enshrined in the famous 1939 Beeby/Fraser “to the fullest extent of his (sic) powers” statement (quoted by Alcorn, 1999, p. 99). This focus on equality of access persisted for a half century, until the reforms of the mid-1980s, which shifted discourse to equality of outcomes (Benade, 2012). In recent years, this discourse has come to be characterised by references to preparing students for success in the globalised, 21st century knowledge economy (Ministry of Education, 2016a). In this context, the design of innovative new school buildings and refurbishments of existing facilities have been promoted as a policy that will enable, even bring about, modern pedagogical practices that, in turn, will achieve the stated aim of preparing students for the 21st century global economy (Ministry of Education, 2011). Arguments against retaining traditional single-cell classrooms is that these nurture traditional, mainstream (‘one-size-fits-all’) approaches to teaching and learning (Nair, 2014), while the hope is that new, radical building designs will enable ‘new’ pedagogies (even if this relationship is not fully established in research (Imms, 2016). Flexible learning environments do nevertheless encourage a break with a ‘mainstream’ paradigm, raising the question whether non-traditional learning spaces are more ‘inclusive’ than traditional classrooms. This question is addressed in the context of an on-going study of several New Zealand schools whose teachers and students have been working in flexible space since around 2012. In these schools, teachers have exchanged ‘front-of-the-room’, single teacher presentational approaches for collaborative, dispersed and facilitative styles, often in teams (Benade, 2017; Imms, 2016). Current Ministry of Education rhetoric claims the importance of building design and design processes in ensuring inclusivity (2016b), particularly cultural inclusivity. Consistent with the insights of Henri Lefebvre (1991), it is argued in this presentation, however, that notions of inclusion and exclusion are inherent in social practices that are both superimposed upon material space as much as they are influenced by that space.

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