Geographies of education: A journey (original) (raw)

Critical geographies of education: an introduction

Geographical Research, 2017

This special issue contributes to scholarship on critical geographies of education (Kraftl, 2013a) along with research that has emerged as a result of the spatial turn in educational studies (Gulson & Symes, 2007; Helfenbein & Taylor, 2009). Such research had proceeded through a variety of subdisciplinary lenses in human geography, including political, urban, social, and cultural geographies (see Holloway et al., 2010; Kraftl, 2014). Moreover, scholarship outside geography has increasingly adopted, refined, and retheorised geographical tropes in respect of diverse education spaces (Brooks et al., 2012; Gulson & Symes, 2007). Collectively, this work seeks to map the recursive production of education, space, and society as a form of boundary crossing in the sense described by Massey (1999, p.5) for whom 'some of the most stimulating intellectual developments of recent years have come either from new, hybrid places or from places where boundaries between disciplines have been constructively breached and new conversations have taken place'. Attempts at defining the field of geographies of education have been part of reviews and introductions to special issues. Evident in such works are the ways in which those crafting these definitions have attempted to pull together multiple and disparate literatures and to apportion the designate geographies of education onto work that may have been identified differently elsewhere, that is, where the focus is not necessarily on locating the work as part of geographies of education. As Holloway and Jöns (2012, p.482) posit, this 'multiplicity of roots is reflected in review pieces that are noteworthy for their variety in that they often address markedly different literatures and audiences'. In reviews of the geographies of education, at times, the objects and subjects under investigation are unclear. Taylor (2009, p.660) draws on Bradford (1990) as a way to clarify the distinction between geography and education: 'The objects of study-where education and/or geography are used to help understand other social, economic or political processes-and research that makes education and/or geography the subjects of study-where

Critical Geographies of Education: Introduction to the Special Issue

Canadian Geographer, 2013

Schools, colleges, and universities are vibrant human communities, instruments of public policy, and powerful political symbols involving, at one point or another, most members of society (Manzer 1994). They serve as a central mechanism for transmitting cultural knowledge and skilling future generations, as key sites of neighbourhood integration, in social capital formation, and in the development of civil society (Basu 2004a). Education is a central institution through which governing rationalities are materialized, creating educational spaces and land-scapes of educational disparities observable at various scales within nations, regions, communities, and schools (Apple 2001a; Basu 2004b; Hay 2004). As it is in schools, colleges, and universities that future generations are formed into the citizenry imagined in powerful political and economic ideologies, jurisdictional disputes over who controls education and the function it serves have been central aspects of educational politics (Bale and Knopp 2012). Education remains a key site for ideological contestation and for resistance to regimes of control even, and especially, as neoliberal reforms and the introduction of new technologies are transforming the spaces, subjectivities, and power relations of education (Apple 2001b; Giroux 2001, 2002). For all these reasons, educational spaces are rich subjects of critical geographical analysis (Basu 2010). In this collection we place particular emphasis on what geographic analysis can contribute to understanding the dynamic of difference in contemporary schools. Geographical analysis necessarily includes critical social analysis: race, class, and gender are not fixed identities but ongoing social productions; the multi-scalar spaces in which such social production takes place are vitally important to understanding how our societies work and, most importantly, how we might improve our social processes, especially for the most marginalized in our society. As critical scholars of education have long argued, schools are sites of cultural and social reproduction that legitimize broader social stratifications. As Marxist critics have suggested, schools discipline students for the workforce and inculcate dominant class structures, norms, and values (Bowles and Gintis 1976; Apple 2004). The streamlining of the production of knowledge into professional, vocational, and technical programs signals the differential subjection of students into deeply spatially structured roles within capitalist regimes, while the spatial segregation and redlining of schools further perpetuates inequalities (Dippo and James 2011; Harris and Mercier 2000; Robinson 2001, 2010). Similarly, the imposition of exclusionary spatial practices of a colonial system of education based on an idealized white norm have contributed to demoralizing and marginalizing Indigenous and racialized communities (Miller 1996; Kelm 1998; Milloy 1999; Lewis 2001; Harris 2002; Schick 2002; McCreary 2011). However, classrooms re-main sites of challenge and possibility.

Critical Geographies of Education

2021

His current research interests include curriculum theorizing in urban contexts, cultural studies of education, and the impact of globalization on the lived experience of schools. 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.

Geographies of Schooling: An Introduction

Geographies of Schooling, 2019

Researchers across different disciplines have shown a growing interest in the spatial dimension of education and learning in its different forms. The number of publications on geography of education (

Critical Geographies of Education Without Abstract Introduction

Encyclopedia of Teacher Education, 2019

A critical geographic lens is important for identifying, analyzing and understanding educational inequities. Until the 21st century, geography and education were discrete fields of study. With the “spatial turn,” education researchers have begun to use tools and methodologies from human geography, and other social sciences to examine the spatial arrangements of power and inequity in education.Using a critical geographical lens, this entry examines the spatial nature of educational equity research.

Geographies of education: data, scale/mobilities, and pedagogy. (accepted, pre-print version)

The Routledge Handbook of Methodologies in Human Geography

This chapter provides a critical appraisal of the key methodologies used in generating an exciting body of geographical scholarship around education and learning, with a focus on three areas of productive tensions: data, scale/mobilities, and pedagogy. The first section discusses what constitutes data in extant research on the geographies of education and the politics and ethics which shape our definitions and emphases. The second section explores the question of scale to reflect on how scholars have drawn the parameters of their research field and, at the same time, offer some thoughts on the role of mobilities thinking (and mobile methodologies) in researching contemporary and diversifying forms of educational and learning spaces. The last section explores the potential of researching with pedagogies and pedagogic research in enriching the current subfield, linking such methodological prospects with an ongoing interest in the creative connections between geographies of education and education of geography. We conclude with a suggestion for greater attention to ideas of data, scale/mobilities, and pedagogy to develop a capacious methodological imagination for geographies of education.

Catching the bus: A call for critical geographies of education

Geography Compass, 2017

Informed by recent struggles over schooling, this article proceeds from the premise that education is a deeply geographic and urgently political problem increasingly engaged by a wide range of scholars and activists. We argue that the current political moment demands increasing geographic attention to the confluence of social processes that shape schooling arrangements. We contend that this attention also must address how people involved in collective action understand and enact alternatives and how these mobilizations may articulate with other social movements. Although existing geographers of education have studied schooling in relation to other processes such as gentrification and citizenship, we argue that centering schooling as an object of study can enliven important disciplinary conversations. In light of these arguments, we call on geographers to advance geographic scholarship on education by creating a cohesive critical geographies of education subfield. Drawing from intensified interest in the geographies of education, this subfield can contribute to broader geographic debates by centering schooling in theory generation, rather than only studying education as a site of test cases for existing geographic theories. Given this call, this review highlights how the existing literature on schooling signals the potential of geographic work on education and marks considerations for the development of future research.