A Critical Psychosocial Pedagogy of Space

This research project recognises that school spaces and places are neither innocent nor neutral and that they are an instrument of the political and social character. Space has an impact on the performance of students and teachers and it both prohibits and establishes order. It commands and locates student bodies within society and determines what is acceptable. As social action, space is a fundamental and allpervasive source of power. School buildings can formalise relationships and shape the performance desired by authority. Societal and institutional power is structured by architecture and architecture itself celebrates and monumentalises the structural networks of power. Furthermore, the design of schools emphasises the status of students and teachers in society. In responding to these ideas, this research work examines how active engagement with space and place within schools can demonstrate resistant and emancipatory possibilities for those who are disadvantaged through gender, race or socioeconomic position in society.