Materialities And Mobilities In Education

Materialities and Mobilities in Education develops new arguments about the ways in which educational processes can be analysed. Drawing on a recent interest in mobilities across the social sciences, and a conterminous resurgence in academic accounts of materialities, the book demonstrates how these two ostensibly differing perspectives on education might be fruitfully deployed in tandem. Considering the interaction and convergence of materialities and mobilities, the book highlights the relationship between structural constraints and opportunities and the agency of individuals, providing a unique and essential insight into contemporary education. Examining a range of education spaces from the formal to the informal and the different types of mobility that manifest in relation to education, the book introduces readers to a range of theoretical resources and detailed case studies used to analyse the spatiality of education from across the disciplines of human geography, education and sociology. Drawing on material from across the globe, Materialities and Mobilities in Education is an engaging and relevant text, which will appeal to postgraduate students, researchers and academics interested in the development of education policy and practice.

This book joins a developing tradition of ‘practice-based’ conceptions of learning, but with a special interest in foregrounding the materiality of educational processes. It challenges educational views that are preoccupied with developing a particular kind of human subject, and argues that relations among materials – including texts and technologies, embodiment, tools and natural forces - are key to understanding how learning and knowing emerge in collective activity. To critically examine materiality, the chapter authors draw from orientations associated with actor-network theory, but push forward these conceptions to create an important in-between place of inquiry in sociomaterial/STS studies and education. Most express concerns about visions of education that emphasise output driven learning, performativity, standardisation and representationalist forms of knowledge. They use sociomaterial approaches to make visible the everyday, particular micro-dynamics of education and learning. Their analyses reveal that power relations and the politics that infuse pedagogy are by no means confined to human interests and ideologies, but are created and sustained through materialising processes that are enmeshed with the social and semiotic. Ultimately, these sociomaterial analyses open new directions and vocabularies for reconceptualising what is taken to be pedagogy, where and how pedagogical processes occur, and what effects they have on culture and society. This book was originally published as a special issue of Pedagogy, Culture & Society.

This book explores questions around the meaning and significance of international student migration. Framed in relation to the mobilities – and immobilities – of international students, the book highlights various key themes emerging from the rich interdisciplinary scholarship in this area, including socio-economic diversification in mobile students, the differential value of international higher education, and citizenship and state-building projects. It also discusses the importance of considering ethics in relation to student migrants. This pioneering book will be of interest and value to scholars of student mobilities and the international student experience more widely, as well as practitioners and policy makers.

This book examines the intersections between children, education and geography. With a particular focus on children’s geographies and geographies of education, the book draws upon cutting-edge research to consider how geographical education can be enhanced through increased engagement with these fields. The book is underpinned by the position that the lives of children and young people are inherently geographical, as are educational institutions, systems and processes. The volume explores the ways in which the diverse relationships between children, education and geography can enrich research and work with, and for, children and young people. Chapters in this book consider how in/justices are (re)produced through education. Chapters also explore how insights generated by thinking in, and across, geography and education can be used to support and empower young people in both formal education and in their everyday lives. Ultimately, this book is written for children and young people. Not as the readership, but as people, often marginalised in decision making at a variety of scales in education, and who, we contend should be at the heart of all educational thinking. The book is of value to undergraduate and post graduate students interested in geography education and children’s geographies, as well as teachers of geography, both new and experienced.

This book offers critical insights into the geographies of the international student higher education experience from initial recruitment, through to the plethora of personal factors which influence their decisions to become mobile and experiences when abroad. From the student perspective these include, but are not limited to, the importance of social networks, desire for a multicultural experience and the attraction to certain locations as discussed in this volume. However, unlike other work, it also reflects on the motivations of the HEIs themselves and their need to continue recruiting students in the face of greater competition from overseas. Recognising this omission, this book also analyses the resulting migration industries and how these are sustained (and even necessitated) by the sector. It is, therefore, the first to bring together these wider institutional narratives with those of the students resulting in a holistic and comprehensive insight into the student mobility process.

This book is the first international reference work to showcase the diversity of ways of using Bourdieu's sociological toolkit in educational research. Written by scholars based in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Indonesia, Hong Kong, the UK, and the USA, the handbook provides a unique and cutting-edge picture of how Bourdieu has been both used and adapted in educational research globally. The book will be useful for those who may only have a cursory knowledge of Bourdieu's tools as well as those who are already familiar with Bourdieu's work. The chapters cover a wide range of topics including educational leadership, teacher preparation, space/place, educational policy, literacy education, marginalised students, and student mobility.

This open access book analyzes language education through a socio-material framework. The authors revisit their position as researchers by decentering themselves and humans in general from the main focus of research activities and giving way to the materialities that are agentive but often overlooked parts of our research contexts and processes. Through this critical posthumanist realism, they are able to engage in research that sees society as an ethical interrelationship between humans and the material world and explore the socio-materialities of language education from the perspectives of material agency, spatial and embodied materiality, and human and non-human assemblages. Each chapter explores language educational contexts through a unique lens of (socio)materiality. Based on how the authors conceptualize (socio)materiality, the book is organized in three sections that seek answers to the following overarching questions: In what ways do material agencies emerge in language educational contexts? How are educational choices and experiences intertwined with materialities of spaces and bodies? What assemblages of human and non-human may occur in language education contexts? Each chapter questions, in its own way, the notion of the human subject as rational, enlightened being and sole possessor of agency, and offers examples of allowing for other-than-human agency to enter the picture. Together, the contributors exemplify how researchers who have been committed to social constructionist thinking for most of their careers learn to make space for new theories, thus inspiring and encouraging readers to remain open for new intellectual and embodied endeavors.

Since the turn of the millennium it has become clear that the Asia-Pacific Region is, economically, the fastest growing continent in the world, and is likely to remain so for some time despite the setbacks of the COVID-19 pandemic. Asia-Pacific's share of the world's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) doubled from 15 per cent to 30 per cent between 1970 and 2017 and is projected to account for half of global GDP by 2050. With South East and South Asia also growing rapidly, with over half the world's population and three of the world's five largest economies, Asia is soon poised to home half of the world's middle class - a class that is both the driver and the product of higher education. The quality of a country's system of higher education may be seen both as a gauge of its current level of national development as well as of its future economic prospects. It is therefore natural that the putative "Asian Century" should generate interest in the region's higher education systems which, on the one hand, share common characteristics-a fixation with credentials and engineering, high technology (especially among male students), and business degrees-while at the same time are also highly differentiated, not only across countries but also within. As such, a better understanding of higher education achievements, failings, potential, and structural limitations in the Asia-Pacific Region is imperative. This handbook presents a number of significant country case-studies and documents cross-cutting trends relating to, among other things: the trilemma faced by governments juggling competing claims of access, accessible cost, and quality; the balance between teaching and research; the links between labour markets (demand) and higher education (supply); preferred fields of study and their consequences; the rise of the research university in Asia; the lure of institutions of international reputation within the region; new education technologies and their effects; and, trends in government policy within the wider region and sub-regions.