Session Information
Contribution
In this presentation I will discuss the constructing process of the learning space in urban environment. (Gruenewald 2003). This presentation bases on my PhD work I finished in March 2008. I explored the relationship between children (4-6 years old) and the urban environment. The particular interest was in the ways in which children themselves use, interpret and conceptualize their nearest urban environment and at the same time in which ways the urban environment provides and limits the opportunities to be a child.
I have used relational theories of human–environment relationship which means in my research review of concepts space, place, affordance (Gibson 1977), behaviour settings (Barker 1968) and thirdspace (Soja 1996).
The concept of space/place is essential for the theoretical background of my whole study and especially for the methodological choices. Besides I maintain that the concept of space/place is poorly paid attention to in educational research. I suggest that different kind of visions of the concept of space/place cause diverse representations of children and childhood when we talk about learning space.
I used concept lived place. It based theoretically on Henry Lefebvre’s (1974/1991) and Edward Soja’s (1996) thinking and is grounded on idea that the space takes shape in co-construction of the physical, material, individually interpretive, social and cultural spaces which are intertwined in the everyday life.
For to explain the concept lived space more precisely I analyze urban environment in three different spaces. In urban environment there are many physical objects (space as physical; firstspace) which could be interpreted individually (space as experienced and interpretive; secondspace). But besides that there is the thirdspace, which consists of first- and secondspaces intertwined social and cultural knowledge being connected with urban environment.
Children’s lived place in urban environment come about when children act in the urban environment. Children have much cultural and social knowledge about that environment/space and the appropriate use of it. Children know what it means to be as child in the city environment. At the same time the children or the childhood get their definition because the design, the equipment and the rules and norms of the urban environment include the idea of proper way of being child there. So the physical, interpreted, cultural and social ways of thinking about the urban environment are intertwined.
This concept of lived space opens up a perspective on the cultural action space and the spatiality of social life, in this case spatiality of learning life in urban environment. With this I want to emphasize that the spatiality is not a neutral entity, pure space, where children’s lives/learning go on – but the space is full of collective and cultural symbolism, politics and ideology. (Lefebvre 1991.)
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Atkinson, P. & Hammersley, M. 1998. Ethnography and participant observation. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (eds.) Strategies of qualitative inquiry. Thousand Oaks,London, New Delhi: Sage, 110–135. Christensen (Haudrup Christensen), P. 2004. Children’s participation in ethnographic research: issues of power and representation. Children & Society 18, 165–176. Gruenewald, D. 2003. Foundations of place: A multidisciplinary framework for place-conscious education. American Education Research Journal 40(3), 619–654. Lefebvre, H. 1974/1991. The production of space. Translated Donald Nicholson-Smith. Cambridge, Oxford: Blackwell. Soja, E. 1996. Thirdspace. Journey to Los Angeles and other real-and-imagined places. Cambridge USA, Oxford: Blackwell.
Search the ECER Programme
- Search for keywords and phrases in "Text Search"
- Restrict in which part of the abstracts to search in "Where to search"
- Search for authors and in the respective field.
- For planning your conference attendance you may want to use the conference app, which will be issued some weeks before the conference
- If you are a session chair, best look up your chairing duties in the conference system (Conftool) or the app.