Social Geographies Of Educational Change

Social Geographies, as spatial location, is a factor relevant to understanding the variety of people’s interpretations and appropriations of educational innovations and changes. Their location in the social space also influences their response to change. In the field of educational change, social space means for example, skin colour, gender distribution of teachers in one school, children’s self-cultural representations or parents’ religious attitudes. By using the notion of Social Geographies in the context of educational change, the authors address the following questions: How initiatives in a classroom or department are influenced by the surrounding context of the school, the district or the nation; How innovation spreads or diffuses from one school to another; How and whether reforms can be scaled up from a few schools to a whole system; How seemingly standardised reforms affect schools differently depending on where they are located; How schools influence one another; How the identities of, and interrelationships among, schools are affected by technology, principles of market competition and choice, and other initiatives. This volume is relevant to educationalists, policy-makers, teachers, and students interested in a more complex approach to understand and intervene in educational change processes.

This open access book explores the complex relationship between schooling as a set of practices embedded in educational institutions and their specific spatial dimensions from different disciplinary perspectives. It presents innovative empirical and conceptual research by international scholars from the fields of social geography, pedagogy, educational and social sciences in Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Czechia, Hungary, Austria, Switzerland, Norway and Canada. The book covers a broad range of topics, all examined from a spatial perspective: the governance of schooling, the transition processes of and within national school systems, the question of small schools in peripheral areas as well as the embeddedness of schooling in broader processes of social change. Transcending disciplinary boundaries, the book offers deep insights into current theoretical debates and empirical case studies within the broad research field encompassing the complex relationship between education and space.

This accessible textbook is a stimulating introduction to contemporary social geography. It provides students with the tools to understand the various frameworks that geographers use to conceptualize, document, and attempt to overcome social differences.

This volume features scholars who use a critical geography framework to analyze how constructions of social space shape education reform. In particular, they situate their work in present-day neoliberal policies that are pushing responsibility for economic and social welfare, as well as education policy and practice, out of federal and into more local entities. States, cities, and school boards are being given more responsibility and power in determining curriculum content and standards, accompanied by increasing privatization of public education through the rise of charter schools and for-profit organizations’ incursion into managing schools. Given these pressures, critical geography’s unique approach to spatial constructions of schools is crucially important. Reterritorialization and deterritorialization, or the varying flows of people and capital across space and time, are highlighted to understand spatial forces operating on such things as schools, communities, people, and culture. Authors from multiple fields of study contribute to this book’s examination of how social, political, and historical dimensions of spatial forces, especially racial/ethnic and other markers of difference, shape are shaped by processes and outcomes of school reform.

WINNER 2023 Society of Professors of Education Outstanding Book Award Critical Geographies of Education: Space, Place, and Curriculum Inquiry is an attempt to take space seriously in thinking about school, schooling, and the place of education in larger society. In recent years spatial terms have emerged and proliferated in academic circles, finding application in several disciplines extending beyond formal geography. Critical Geography, a reconceptualization of the field of geography rather than a new discipline itself, has been theoretically considered and practically applied in many other disciplines, mostly represented by what is collectively called social theory (i.e., anthropology, sociology, cultural studies, political science, and literature). The goal of this volume is to explore how the application of the ideas and practices of Critical Geography to educational theory in general and curriculum theorizing in specific might point to new trajectories for analysis and inquiry. This volume provides a grounding introduction to the field of Critical Geography, making connections to the significant implications it has for education, and by providing illustrations of its application to specific educational situations (i.e., schools, classrooms, and communities). Presented as an intellectual geography that traces how spatial analysis can be useful in curriculum theorizing, social foundations of education, and educational research, the book surveys a range of issues including social justice and racial equity in schools, educational reform, internationalization of the curriculum, and how schools are placed within the larger social fabric.

This collection of original work, within the sociology of education, draws on the 'spatial turn' in contemporary social theory. The premise of this book is that drawing on theories of space allows for a more sophisticated understanding of the competing rationalities underlying educational policy change, social inequality and cultural practices. The contributors work a spatial dimension into the consideration of educational phenomena and illustrate its explanatory potential in a range of domains: urban renewal, globalisation, race, markets and school choice, suburbanisation, regional and rural settings, and youth and student culture.

This book explores the growth of ‘character education’ in schools and youth organisations over the last decade. It delves into historical and contemporary debates through a geopolitical lens. With a renewed focus on values and virtues such as grit, gumption, perseverance, resilience, generosity, and neighbourliness, this book charts the re-imagining and re-fashioning of a ‘character agenda’ in England and examines its multiscalar geographies. It explores how these moral geographies of education for children and young people have developed over time. Drawing on original research and examples from schools, military and uniformed youth organisations, and the state-led National Citizen Service, the book critically examines the wider implications of the ‘character agenda’ across the UK and beyond. It does so by raising a series of questions about the interconnections between character, citizenship, and values and highlighting how these moral geographies reach far beyond the classroom or campsite. Offering critical insights on the roles of character, citizenship and values in modern education, this book will be of immense value to educationists, teachers and policymakers. It will appeal students and scholars of human geography, sociology, education studies, cultural studies and history.

Geography of Education sets out the scope of this emergent, interdisciplinary field. It illustrates the essential affinity of geographical and educational studies, by emphasising the geographical factors influencing formal education systems and other forms of knowledge transfer. Colin Brock begins by arguing the theoretical synergy that exists between the nature of both geography and educational studies as disciplines. This is then exemplified by an analysis of the emergence of systems of schooling under the influence of religious, political and economic forces. The author also considers informal and non-formal modes of education, and argues that the huge diversity of such provision creates a rich resource for research into geographies of education. In the final chapters the author turns his attention to the role of cyberspace, which has its own geography, in learning, and considers education as a form of humanitarian response to issues of environmental sustainability. By bringing together a wide range of themes and topics relating to both education and geography, Colin Brock argues that the geographical approach should inform the evolution of all types of educational provision around the world.