Conference:
ECER 2010
Format:
Paper
Session Information
20 SES 05 A, Intercultural Learning Environments (part 1)
Paper Session
Time:
2010-08-26
08:30-10:00
Room:
U40 SALI 6, Metsätalo
Chair:
Maria-Àngels Subirats
Contribution
In learning about a distant place, students engage with diversity on two scales – both within the distant place and between the distant place and other places. This study explores and theorises the characteristics of such learning.
The aim of this research was to generate a theoretically and empirically rigorous study of the nature and processes of young people’s learning about distant place to contribute to the literature and practice within the geography education community. In this case, the distant place was Japan, as seen from a school in Eastern England, but the findings have applicability to the development of children’s cultural understandings in other contexts, including within Europe, and indeed the project builds on earlier studies conducted within a European context.
Three research questions framed the empirical stages of the project, as shown below. The findings from question 2 will form the focus of this paper:
1. In what form(s) did the Year 9 students represent Japan before the period of formal teaching commenced? To what did they attribute these representations?
2. In what ways and by what processes did the students’ representations of Japan change over the course of the unit?
3. To what extent did students’ framings of diversity within Japan and between Japan and other countries reflect wider social representations?
The research was located within an interpretive theoretical perspective, seeking to understand the “culturally derived and historically situated interpretations of the social life-world” (Crotty, 2003, p. 67). To this end a range of methods were employed to generate an in-depth case study within the particular socio-cultural context.
Method
The research consists of an in-depth interpretive case study of one Year 9 class (ages 13 to 14) in a UK school, learning about Japan. The case is framed as a ‘bundle of trajectories’ (Massey, 2005), which foregrounds the relational and change dimensions of learning. Materials resulting from a wide range of methods, including in-depth interview, visual methods, classroom observation, collection of written work, entries in cross-cultural bulletin boards and audio reflections, are used to explore students’ representations and the ways in which these change over time. Data resulting from these methods are analysed using iterative cycles of description, categorisation, juxtaposition of different sources and reporting.
Expected Outcomes
Over the unit of study, some representations of Japan were found to persist, some were modified and new ones emerged. Each student’s unique set of interests shaped their engagement with the representations of Japan encountered in class. Different learning activities provided students with distinctive opportunities for understanding and framing diversity, both within Japan and between Japan and other countries. For example, electronic message exchange and the use of photographs taken by young people in the distant place enabled some students to make quite significant changes in their expectations of Japanese people and their lifestyles. Through generating an in-depth case study of how students learned about one distant place, this research suggests ways forward for selecting and deploying teaching strategies in other contexts to support students in the negotiation of distant place.
References
Crotty, M. (2003). The foundations of social research: Meaning and perspective in the research process. London: Sage Publications. Massey, D. (2005). for space. London: Sage Publications. Taylor, L. (2009) Children constructing Japan: material practices and relational learning, Children’s Geographies, 7 (2), pp. 173-189.
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