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 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 work was published by Saint Philip Street Press pursuant to a Creative Commons license permitting commercial use. All rights not granted by the work's license are retained by the author or authors.

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.

Geography matters to elite schools — to how they function and flourish, to how they locate themselves and their Others. Like their privileged clientele they use geography as a resource to elevate themselves. They mark, and market, place. This collection, as a whole, reads elite schools through a spatial lens. It offers fresh lines of inquiry to the ‘new sociology of elite schools.’ Collectively the authors examine elite schools and systems in different parts of the world. They highlight the ways that these schools, and their clients, operate within diverse local, national, regional, and global contexts in order to shape their own and their clients’ privilege and prestige. The collection also points to the uses of the transnational as a resource via the International Baccalaureate, study tours, and the discourses of global citizenship. Building on research about social class, meritocracy, privilege, and power in education, it offers inventive critical lenses and insights particularly from the ‘Global South.’ As such it is an intervention in global power/knowledge geographies.

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.

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.

First published in 1987, this title provides primary school teachers with ideas by which geographical skills and ideas can be introduced in the primary school. John Bale shows how teachers can build on children’s ‘private geographies’ with practical learning strategies, examining approaches to the teaching of map skills, the ways in which the locality can be used and how information about distant places can best be relayed. An interesting, useful and relevant guide, this title will be of particular value for teachers and teachers in training, as well as those studying primary Education more generally.

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.

While in recent years the burgeoning Higher Education (HE) sector has been set an agenda of widening participation, few HE institutions have strategies in place for reaching the full range of potential students most likely to benefit from (and successfully complete) their current subject and course offerings. Universities and colleges are often unsystematic in the ways in which they identify schools and colleges for outreach and widening participation initiatives, and sometimes uncoordinated in how they present the full institutional profile of subjects of study in these activities. Using innovative methodology, this book sets out some relevant aspects of the changing HE policy-setting arena and presents a systematic framework for broadening participation and extending access in an era of variable fees. In particular, the book illustrates how HE data and publicly available sources might enable institutions to move from piecemeal analysis of their intake to institution-wide strategic and geographical market area analysis for existing and potential subject and course offerings.