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Landscapes of learning for unknown futures: presenter responses to audience questions

by Brett Bligh, Sue Beckingham, Lesley Gourlay, and Julianne K Viola

SRHE’s ‘Landscapes of Learning for Unknown Futures: prospects for space in higher education’ symposium series, delivered with Professor Sam Elkington and Dr Jill Dickinson, aims to foster continuous dialogue around learning spaces. Here the three presenters reflect on some of the ideas and issues raised during the first symposium on ‘Networks’. This blog has been compiled by Sam Elkington, Jill Dickinson, and Sinéad Murphy (SRHE Conferences and Events Manager.)

  1. How do we encourage academic staff to think more intentionally about how they use different spaces in and through their practice? How do we effectively build in ideas of working with spatiality into our learning and teaching strategies? 

Julianne: Academic staff should consider how students are connecting with each other and with educators in formal learning spaces. Spaces aren’t (in most cases) designed by the educators teaching in them, but looking at the formal learning setting (lab, lecture theatre, seminar room, etc) through a critical lens can help educators begin to think about what they might want to achieve in that space. For example, if you want to know whether a new way of teaching a challenging concept is landing with the students, also consider: can students see each other in the layout of this room? Can they look around the room to see whether anyone else has a quizzical expression on their face, so they know they aren’t alone in not understanding a concept? 

Sue: Staff need the luxury of thinking time and discussion to spark new ideas and share current practice. Encourage or lead a course/subject group activity where colleagues start by looking at how they use their own spaces, then visit other parts of their university. How are others using those spaces? Vignettes, videos and the like could be shared in newsletters which could then be used to prompt discussion and inspire alternative ways.  

Brett: If staff are to think more intentionally then they need to get used to talking about space in relation to their practice. One problem is that neither the pedagogical theories that people use, nor the institutional guidelines used in practice discussions, tend to be very helpful in talking about how space is used. We need to build a vocabulary that helps people to discuss the roles of space in practice. That vocabulary must be challenging, so that it provokes new thinking, but it must not be overly technical or oriented towards engineering or architectural concerns. In my own work I have put forward a tentative vocabulary that I think could be used, in both ‘everyday’ thinking and conversations and in institutional projects where space needs to be discussed more productively.

  • How do we work productively through the inherent contradictions of learning space design? For example, universities create specific spaces with the aim of helping to build a sense of community but then impose rules on how those spaces can be used. 

Julianne: Students tend to use spaces to socialise that aren’t entirely intended for that purpose. From example, my school friends and I used to gather in a hallway that adjoined the gym to the art wing at our high school, for no other reason than it was the perfect size for our group to hang out before school every morning! I’d be interested to see what the role of space utilisation monitors/ technology will be in the future of spaces like this. If my high school had these monitors available, I wonder whether they would consider expanding the space and adding some benches for students to sit on.  There have been some great StudentShapers projects at Imperial in this area – and the spaces that have been transformed to create more informal social space have garnered lots of positive feedback. 

Sue: When planning new buildings or updating current, it is essential that educators and students that will use those spaces are included in the conversations. The users of those spaces will be able to highlight what is missing and provide suggestions.

We need to start with reimagining what it is like to start a new course at university. I remember taking my daughters around multiple institutions for open days. Where they chose to go to was not just the course or the reputation of the university; it was where they felt comfortable and could imagine being there. Space begins with walking through the main doors, the café, the social spaces, the library and of course the formal learning spaces. Being able to visualise mentally what their future experience might look like, creating an affinity to and a sense of place they could relate to, and connect with is so important. Making the space feel welcoming and somewhere they would want to be. Connecting language to physical objects could include motivational quotes or saying welcome in multiple languages, graphics/images that depict diverse role models, big screens showcasing video clips with captions of what students are doing and creating, how and where they are collaborating and communicating. How can students be involved in created art/artefacts that can be showcased for others to see that depict the student experience?

Visiting an open day at the weekend may be busy but it doesn’t always capture the true feel of what’s to be expected in a session in full flow. How can this be created with video, AR or VR? The very spaces students will learn in are wide and varied, and may not have been experienced before.

Brett: We must view space design as an ongoing process in which refinement and new ideas are viewed as inevitably and welcome. Initial designs will hardly ever work in quite the ways intended, and so we must be prepared to refine the spaces and also recognise what has actually been achieved. To do so we need to provide ongoing forums for interprofessional and staff-student discussion. At present, these are often created for specific projects (for example, where a new building is being designed) and then wound up afterwards. Inevitably, these bounded discussions follow narrow agendas and seem formulaic. We need something more ongoing and permanent.

  • What do you think are the most immediate considerations pedagogically when thinking about how to make the best use of learning spaces? What can we practically be doing now to move staff towards being more open, flexible, and creative in and with space? 

Julianne: There is a walking interview method I’ve used in my research at Imperial: walking can generate thought. I’d be interested to see how educators can implement walking into their pedagogy, perhaps starting out with ‘office hours’ meetings happening over a walk, and maybe moving onto engaging students in formal coursework outside. Colleagues of mine like Dr Luke McCrone, who completed his undergraduate degree in Earth Science and Engineering, recognise the different way of thinking that one experiences when outside the classroom. There was a great 2014 piece on this in The New Yorker – “Why Walking Helps Us Think” by Ferris Jabr.

Sue: We can do more to create comfortable spaces to meet, collaborate and learn together outside of timetabled classes. Furniture is important; learning booths are popular in corridors as informal meeting places. Libraries, once hushed and quiet, now offer learning spaces students can use independently or with peers. Access to charging points for portable devices, as well as access to loanable devices. If we provide spaces for students to interact informally before class, it could make them feel more at ease when coming into a formal class. After the class has finished where can students go to debrief, plan for future groupwork, engage in social conversations? Landmarks they can communicate by text or group chat apps along with screenshots to arrange meetups. Such places will become favoured, and their use creates a sense of community and emotional connection. This links in to mattering as messages easily sent by mobile can cascaded to cohorts as well small groups.

Brett: Counterintuitively, the most constraining issue when discussing space usage tends to be timetabling rather than problems with particular spaces. We need to be clear that open, flexible and creative uses of space are not the same as efficient space occupancy; if a university is to be more innovative with space then occupancy metric will be challenged. I see no way other than to confront this contradiction directly.

  • Is it that spaces need to be seen as a way of ‘simulating’ certain modes of being and not just from a perspective of enacting certain forms of pedagogic content knowledge? What might this look like? 

Julianne: Great question, and my research on identity development ties in with this.  Interacting with other people and presenting different parts of ourselves to others depends on who we are with, and what the setting is. The idea of boundaries comes in again with this question. For example, the self that I present when I enter the Junior Common Room at Imperial (where the best katsu curry is!) is a bit inhibited – I feel I am encroaching on undergraduate territory, whereas I feel very relaxed having lunch or coffee outside with colleagues on the Queen’s Lawn, where the space feels more public. There are power dynamics in certain spaces!  

Sue: For current students, informal learning and self-directed learning starts before any scheduled class and often continues afterwards. Students line up ready to enter large lecture halls or sit cross legged in corridors waiting to enter a classroom for a seminar, lab, workshop or other discipline related space. Sometimes in deep conversation and some shy and yet eager to belong. If a picture is worth a thousand words what pictures would make a difference to the learning spaces to stimulate conversation? Perhaps some constant and providing familiarity, others changeable to create interest and intrigue? How can walls be used to share stories about the educators they will meet within the classroom? What stories can be told of prior students?

Brett: Many spaces do already stimulate certain modes of being. In my view these are often either ‘disciplinary’ spaces – including design studios, engineering labs, and finance trading rooms – or outdoor spaces, including green spaces but also pods and classrooms in wooded areas. If campuses are to continue to be viewed as valuable, then they need to be clearly differentiated from other forms of spaces. Too many campuses in recent times seem to look more and more like generic business parks as time goes on. This will inevitably erode how students perceive universities as places, and over time how valuable campuses are perceived to be—which could pose existential issues for some universities as institutions.

  • How can individual staff build creativity and criticality into their pedagogical approaches while working in learning spaces designed without their input? Is a collective voice among staff needed to influence how learning spaces are established; if so, how can this be facilitated, and how can an intersectional perspective on access needs and dynamics of power be assured?

Julianne: Bringing in different stakeholders when designing new spaces is key (see a list of prior StudentShapers projects at Imperial to see how students and staff became partners in designing new spaces at Imperial), and gives a sense of agency to staff and students alike. Building agency in the community would be a great outcome in and of itself. 

Sue: We need to push back against conventions. Why is furniture in a classroom in rows when we want students to interact and work in groups? Why do we plan for a lecture and separate seminar when we want students to engage in active/project/problem-based learning? It is important to evaluate innovative use of learning spaces from the students’ perspective. What works for them? How inclusive does it feel? What would they change?

Brett: Individual staff have increasingly limited power. Teaching is increasingly the domain of interprofessional collaboration and teamworking. I do think that collective voices are needed; including the forums for discussion I mentioned earlier. We also need to think more at the level of spaces across (a) whole programmes of study and (b) students’ entire experience of being at university, than at the level of the specific pedagogical interaction.

  • Hasn’t this whole conversation exploded, or at the very least fundamentally challenged, the conventional idea of a university campus?

Julianne: It has! The idea of a ‘university campus’ may also be different, depending on what your own university context is. Coming from a US liberal arts background, my initial mental image of a ‘campus’ is very different from the revised version that is in my mind’s eye after studying and working at universities in the UK. As technology has become a large part of the university experience, the conventional idea of a university campus should now include digital/online spaces, too. 

Sue: Successful examples of hybrid modes of learning are set to continue, so yes. But this also means we need to continue to review learning spaces that are not timetabled. We need to provide learning space for students to engage online; not all will have a space at home or reliable digital access, or it is too far to go home and then take an in-person class the same afternoon. Where lectures are scheduled online, students may value learning together using one screen or personal screens and headsets. In the classroom, planning a flexible space is important, being able to reconfigure seating plans to suit the needs of the class and activities. Long rows of heavy tables and chairs are not conducive to interactivity and spontaneous communication.  

Brett: Yes, I think that the idea of the university campus is being challenged profoundly, resulting in rearguard actions by some stakeholders as a form of defence. The attempts to make campuses ‘sticky’ are but one example of this.

Lesley: I would agree that it has – in some quarters – reinforced an already prevalent idea that the physical campus is obsolete or in need of ‘reinvention’. However, I would caution against an assumption that because universities managed to stay operational while fully remote, it is something to pursue post-pandemic. This was an emergency response, not an active choice, and it brought with it a large number of disadvantages to students and academic staff. Our own study at UCL into the impacts on academic and professional services staff revealed many tensions, stresses and difficulties encountered by staff remote working, with evidence of differential impacts on women and those with less workspace (https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/departments-and-centres/centres/ucl-knowledge-lab/current-research/ucl-moving-online-teaching-and-homeworking-moth). Research has also shown that the pivot to online had negative effects on students in terms of alienation, lack of engagement and social support.

I would be highly critical of ‘discourses of inevitability’ which state that as a result of the pandemic, the role of the material campus and face-to-face engagement should be challenged. While remote engagement may have a limited place, I would argue that the pandemic has in fact underscored the vital importance of being physically together on campus, in terms of engagement in study, and also in terms of social contact, identity and depth and richness of experience.  

Dr Brett Bligh is a Lecturer in the Department of Educational Research, Lancaster University, and Director of the Centre for Technology Enhanced Learning. He is co-Editor of Studies in Technology Enhanced Learning and co-ordinator of the CL-SIG group dedicated to discussing uses of the Change Laboratory approach in higher education settings. His research interrogates the nexus of technology mediation, physical environment, and institutional change in higher education. Brett’s work prioritises Activity Theory conceptions of human practice, and interventionist methodologies. For further details about Brett’s work see his staff profile here.

Sue Beckingham is a Principal Lecturer and LTA Lead in Computing. In addition to teaching at undergraduate and postgraduate level, Sue has an academic development leadership role where she provide support and guidance relating to learning, teaching and assessment. In 2017 she was awarded a National Teaching Fellowship. She is also a Fellow and Executive Committee Member of the Staff and Educational Development Association. For details of Sue’s publications and other activities, see her staff profile here.

Professor Lesley Gourlay is a professor at the UCL Knowledge Lab, currently working in the intersection of Science and Technology Studies and Education, drawing on phenomenological perspectives and approaches. Her current project, funded by a Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship Grant MRF-2020-35 (Sept 2021 – 2024), focusses on ‘The Datafied University: Documentation and Performativity in Digitised Education’. She is currently working on a new monograph for Bloomsbury Academic, with a working title of ‘The University and the Algorithmic Gaze: A Postphenomenological Perspective’. For more, see Lesley’s staff profile here.

Julianne K Viola is a postdoctoral Research Associate at the Centre for Higher Education Research and Scholarship (CHERS). Julianne leads the Belonging, Engagement, and Community (BEC) and contributes to educational research and evaluation efforts across College, and is a developer of the Education Evaluation Toolkit. Previously, Julianne completed her doctoral research at the Department of Education, University of Oxford, on how adolescents develop their civic identities in the digital age, conceptualisations of citizenship, and the interplay of social media and technology on youth civic identity. For details of Julianne’s publications and other activities, see her staff profile here.


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Landscapes of Learning for Unknown Futures: Prospects for Space in Higher Education Reflections on Networks Symposium, 26 April 2023

by Sam Elkington and Jill Dickinson

Wednesday April 26 saw the launch of the SRHE ‘Landscapes of Learning for Unknown Futures: prospects for space in higher education’ symposium series, delivered in partnership with series co-convenors Professor Sam Elkington and Dr Jill Dickinson. This blog was compiled and edited by Sinead Murphy.

The intention of this Symposium Series is to bring together leading voices and space-based research from across the field to encourage critical discussion and debate with a view to generating and encapsulating key insights around contemporary landscapes of learning in HE. Traditionally, the needs of learning spaces have been often pushed into the background of institutional planning, decision-making, and curriculum design in favour of other, more visible performance measures of the student experience. Now the changing requirements of learning spaces are top of the agenda for university leaders, estates teams, and practitioners who must recognise and understand how learning can take place anytime and anywhere and, therefore, imagine new and radical strategies for student-centred, sustainable campus design.

We offer the concept of ‘learning landscape’ as a basis on which to explore how universities can use different ideas about learning spaces to reflect changing preferences, incorporate digital technologies, and critically consider future possibilities. This Symposium Series presents opportunities for key stakeholders to discuss and debate  new possibilities for pedagogy, technology, and learning spaces. Enacted through separate, hybrid symposium events, and structured through the prism of one of three thematic lenses – networks, flexibilities, and assemblages – the Series has been informed by a ‘Kaleidoscope of Notions’ (Wang et al, 2011) for interrogating theoretical and applied perspectives and priorities for future learning spaces.  We aim to encourage an overarching reflexive conversation with, and for, the sector.

Networks

The initial Networks themed symposium charted a focus shift in HE. It recognised that the contemporary learning landscape needs to be considered less in terms of singular learning spaces and more in terms of how spaces are becoming increasingly connective, permeable, networked, and interwoven (both physically and digitally) to provide inclusive and adaptive learning environments.

In her keynote address, Professor Lesley Gourlay offered a critical take on the concept of networks in HE learning and teaching. She highlighted an overemphasis on connection (defined in terms of interlinkages between discrete nodes) and the mediating role of technology in associated learning processes. Noting the inseparability of physical and digital space in and for learning, Lesley argued for the need to push beyond now established post-digital configurations of space and knowledge generation, towards a conceptualisation of ‘lived’ learning encounters as being more-than-digital, situated within an unfolding meshwork of formal and informal spaces. Lesley drew upon the work of Tim Ingold to animate her view of the meshwork of intertwined learning spaces in HE, pointing to the need to retain three critical components of the learning landscape:  ephemerality, co-presence with others, and the significance of finding seclusion and stillness. From this perspective, the spaces ‘between-the-lines’ possess value for students in their coming-to-know about their subjects, as well as themselves, offering what Lesley described as ‘fugitive spaces’; fleeting yet meaningful assemblages of space and practice that help students to navigate the increasing sprawl of HE campuses and their digital appendages.

In her talk, ‘Mattering, meaning making and motivation: building trust and respect through multimodal social learning communities’, Sue Beckingham shared insights from work exploring how social media can be used to support student mattering, helping to mediate intentional communicative action and trust across formal and informal spaces for learning. Drawing on the ideas of ‘bonding’ and ‘bridging’ social capital, Sue challenged us to question assumptions we can sometimes make about the concept of mattering, it being more than an exercise in fostering social connections between individual learners. Sue’s work provided a compelling empirical basis for utilising multimodal strategies to help students understand what is expected of them in spaces both on and off campus. For Sue, such strategies function as ‘gestures’ that encourage, and model for, relational practices through shared experiences where students have learned to work cooperatively across contexts and boundaries. 

Dr Julianne K Viola’s talk, ‘Nurturing meaningful connection in a new era of learning’, introduced longitudinal research that began before the pandemic and continued through periods of online and hybrid delivery, as well as taking in the more recent return to campus. Julianne’s research sought better understanding of the factors that influence students’ ability to navigate their university settings and build meaningful connections with campus space(s) and student communities. By encompassing student experiences prior to, during, and post-pandemic, Julianne provided unique insight into what matters most for students in building and maintaining a sense of belonging and community across different modes of delivery and experience. Key findings highlighted the significant impact that the lack, or absence, of physical contact with space, and the limited ability to connect and socialise with others, had on student engagement and motivation in, and for, their learning. Further insights pointed to the prevalence and persistence of certain structural barriers – viewed in terms of how certain physical (campus) and virtual spaces are set up and utilised – that can undermine or weaken meaningful connections for students. Supporting similar insights shared in Sue Beckingham’s earlier talk, students reported a positive or enhanced sense of belonging and community with their university settings when a mix of formal and informal spaces were available to them as ‘touch points’ in their wider experiences. Crucially, this merging of spaces points to the affective dimension of networked space as a means of nurturing meaningful connections for students on both an individual and collective level.

In his talk ‘Physical learning spaces and networked landscapes of learning: Prismatic mediations’, Dr Brett Bligh problematised how physical learning spaces mediate networked landscapes of learning, arguing that physical spaces exhibit multiple mediation on what is expected and made possible for students and educators therein. Brett challenged the established logic of ‘built pedagogy’, and associated proliferation of solutions in modern campus development, on the grounds that such solutions are typically based on a model of deploying different types of learning spaces to mediate certain forms of educational practice. 

Brett was quick to highlight the limiting nature of such an attitude towards learning space and how it encouraged certain ways of interacting and speaking about space production. Brett’s view is that, in the practice realities of learners and educators, such activities constitute a wider learning landscape comprised of a range of environments, people, social structures, and resources. It is within these ‘mediations’ that physical learning spaces are appropriated, and their agentic qualities and rhythms revealed. Building on established research, Brett made the case for an alternative language for conceptualising how space is a “mediating factor” within the actual practices of HE that is based around six core concepts, wherein space is understood to be transparent, enabling, stimulating, associative, cognitively integrated, and socially integrated. Whereas earlier research conveys distinctly normative views on space, focused largely on stability, this alternative framework is oriented towards encouraging stakeholders to reflect on their experiences and explore future possibilities within their institutions. Brett wants the associated vocabulary to support reflection, re-thinking, and re-conceptualisation – as stakeholders use it to explore their experiences and aspirations together.  

In the afternoon panel discussion contributors were given licence to expand, elaborate, and cross-examine the work presented with the aim of considering more deeply the ‘prospects for space’. Discussion identified the importance of connection, mattering, belonging, and a clear need to move away from performative paradigms in learning space and campus design towards a more participative paradigm of practice. Such a paradigm shift would acknowledge the rhythms of connections, of continuities and discontinuities in space, of working socially and solitarily, identifying, and intentionally inviting touchpoints that converge at the boundaries of experience (physical, virtual, and emotional). New strategies for enabling learning and accommodating the multiple demands on today’s students necessitate a rethinking of the  uses and locations of learning space. Increasingly, this will require universities, educators, and students to be flexible and network-minded in how they seek out, and bring together, formal and informal activities in an environment that recognises that learning can take place any time, in either physical and/or virtual spaces.

The powerful insights emerging from this first symposium have encouraged us to think about how we can help scaffold the spaces that students are already using for learning. We can draw on their experiences of using these locations and technologies to adopt student-centred approaches to designing landscapes of learning that extend across and beyond the campus. Our next symposium considers these, and related, ideas through the lens of Flexibility: we will explore how learning is situated relative to the demands of students for greater control in fitting their studies around their learning needs and preferences, as well as other aspects of their lives. Such a view implies a necessity for widening and loosening of the boundaries of conventional learning spaces to provide greater potential flexibility in how, where, and when learning happens. We hope that you will join us on 14th June, online or in person at SRHE’s offices, to continue this conversation.

Sam Elkington is Professor of Learning and Teaching at Teesside University where he leads on the University’s learning and teaching enhancement portfolio. Sam is a PFHEA and National Teaching Fellow (NTF, 2021). He has worked in Higher Education for over 15 years and has extensive experience working across teaching, research and academic leadership and policy domains. Most recently Sam worked for Advance HE (formerly the Higher Education Academy) where he was national lead for Assessment and Feedback and Flexible Learning in Higher Education. Sam’s most recent book (with Professor Alastair Irons) explores contemporary themes in formative assessment and feedback in higher education: Irons and Elkington (2021) Enhancing learning through formative assessment and feedback London: Routledge.

Dr Jill Dickinson is an Associate Professor in Law at the University of Leeds. As a SFHEA, Jill was also selected as a Reviewer for the Advance HE Global Teaching Excellence Awards, and she has been shortlisted for National Teaching Fellowship. A former Solicitor, specialising in property portfolio management, Jill’s dual research interests are around place-making and professional development, and her work has been recognised in the Emerald Literati Awards for Excellence. Jill holds a number of editorial roles, including board memberships for Teaching in Higher Education and the Journal of Place Management and Development. She has recently co-edited a collection entitled Professional Development for Practitioners in Academia: Pracademia which involves contributions from the UK and internationally, and is being published by Springer. Jill has also co-founded communities of practice, including Pracademia in collaboration with Advance HE Connect.


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Making space in higher education research: Reporting back from our higher education geographies conference symposium

by Kate Carruthers Thomas and Holly Henderson

  • Kate Carruthers Thomas
  • Holly Henderson

Space and place are too often the background and too rarely the central focus of higher education research. This was the argument of our symposium, which offered four ways of theorising the spatial in higher education. The conversation that began in this symposium extends far beyond the time allowed, and so we are continuing that conversation here, with each of the four symposium contributors summarising their use of the spatial in higher education research.

Kate Carruthers Thomas on Massey’s spatial concepts

I work with the spatial concepts of Doreen Massey to research and theorise higher education (HE).  Massey was a radical geographer, bringing a feminist perspective to discussions of space, place and power and her understanding of space as plural, heterogeneous and fluid energises an analysis of dominant forms of space and power in HE. My SRHE 2019 paper drew on two research examples: Gender(s) at Work (2018) exploring ways gender shapes experiences of the workplace and career in a post-1992 UK university, and Dimensions of Belonging (2016) problematising a sector-wide reductive narrative of ‘student belonging’ in relation to part-time students.

Applying Massey’s spatial propositions to HE frames ‘the university’ as a product of social relations shaped by geographies of powersocially-coded masculine. Universities originate from monasteries: elite, male-dominated spaces of knowledge production. The contemporary university remains shaped by the power geometry of patriarchal disciplinary discourses, traditions and cultures as well as male-defined constructions of work and career success. Massey coins the term ‘power geometry’ to describe how individuals and groups are differently positioned in relation to flows of capital and culture, to different geographies of power in particular contexts. How they are positioned shapes how they experience the spaces they are in. Gender(s) at Work extends the notion of geography of power to gender, examining how gender operates as a geography of power to position individuals and groups in relation to the flows and connections (of prestige, reward, status) within that activity space.

I also use Massey’s device of ‘activity space’ – the spatial network of links and activities, of spatial connections, locations within which agents operate (2005: 55). This multiscalar tool enables a view of individual universities as activity spaces (shaped by their own geographies of power) and as nodes in the wider activity space of a stratified HE sector. Dimensions of Belonging theorises four English universities as sites in relationship with locality, economy and the HE sector, with each university campus a complex territory of power and inequality in which belonging is negotiated.

To capture lived experiences of university spaces, I created a methodology of spatial storytelling; one sensitised to ‘the social as inexorably also spatial’ (Massey 1993:80).  This mobilises the idea of power geometry through combining narrative enquiry and visual mapping, disrupting and revealing spaces between organisational rhetoric/corporate narratives and lived experiences. 

Working with Massey in researching and theorizing HE both energises my analyses of space, place and power and leaves room for complexity and contradiction.  Spatial storytelling reveals ‘spaces between’ leaving ‘openings for something new’ (Massey 2005: 107).

Holly Henderson on de Certeau’s spatial stories

Higher education happens in places. It does not, however, happen in all places equally, and nor does it happen equally in any one place. The complexities of how higher education is understood and accessed in different places, and how places themselves are defined in relation to higher education, are multiple. In a previous project, which looked at students studying for degrees in post-industrial towns without universities, and in a current project, which looks at access to and experiences of higher education on small islands around the UK, I have used concepts from social geographies to try to get to grips with what it means to say that higher education happens (unequally) in places.

I use spatial analysis in three ways. Firstly, using the concept of spatial stories (de Certeau, 1984), I see any place as defined narratively through layers of stories. These stories are the ways that a town or street comes to be known as a ‘kind of’ place. Often, we do not notice that we are telling or hearing them, but they are fundamental to the way we understand our surroundings. Secondly, I extend spatial analysis to the relationship between higher education and place. In the UK, and especially in England, the dominant story is of a particular mobility pattern, in which the 18-year old undergraduate leaves the place of the familial home and moves into university accommodation in a new place. Finally, I ask how individuals narrate their own stories in relation to these first two factors; do they see themselves as belonging to the place they are living in, and has that question of belonging affected their decision to move or stay in place for degree education? Does the place they feel they belong to require that they make a decision between staying without studying higher education, or leaving in order to study? And if the place they are living and studying in does not have the same history of providing higher education as that of a well-known university city or town, does higher education fit straightforwardly with the enduring narratives through which the place is defined? These questions, and others that stem from them, position place at the centre of higher education research.

Fadia Dakka on Lefebvre’s Rhythmanalysis

Prompted by Ron Barnett’s claim about the ‘ineradicability of rhythm in university time’ (2015), my reflection extends to the nature of time, place and change in contemporary academia. In keeping with the theme of the Symposium, I emphasise how making space in higher education research subsumes both making time and ‘dwelling’ in it. Therefore, rhythm does not simply refer to the pace of activities within the university, but also to its ontological, epistemological and ethical dimensions. Using rhythm as a critical lens and a pedagogical orientation, I have examined the production of time and space in the everyday life of a teaching-intensive university in the West Midlands (2017-18), drawing inspiration from Lefebvre’s Rhythmanalysis (2004 [1991]) and Critique of Everyday Life (2014 [1947,1961, 1981]). I am particularly interested in the ethical and political implications that can be drawn from rhythmic analyses of ‘felt’ time and space (Wittman, 2017) in contemporary universities. On this basis, I have empirically explored notions of anticipation, dwelling, appropriation and presence within the contemporary university.

The analysis of the participants’ spatio-temporal experiences within the institution has revealed a plurality of academic rhythms that respond to radically different logics. The logic of accumulation, rooted in temporal linearity, exacerbates procedural anticipation, conflating quantification with educational progress. Within this logic, the emphasis on individual productivity and time-management produces an impoverished educational experience centred on constant adaptation and compliance. Spatially, this coincides with the abstract, conceived grid of institutional timetables, schedules and deadlines, the oppressive repetition of which reinforces a ‘pedagogy of domination’ (Middleton, 2014). On the other hand, the poetic logic, that translates Aristotle’s ‘poiesis’ as the human activity of bringing something new into the world, resonates with ideas of transformation, appropriation and dwelling which, in turn, reaffirm the centrality of imagination-relation-anticipation as a necessary condition for meaningful change.

Appropriation, dwelling and (anticipatory) presence have strong implications for how we inhabit the university space. For instance, the participants’ unorthodox production of space documented in the project epitomizes the Lefebvrian act of subversion whereby the perceived and lived spaces produced by the participants effectively disorientate the conceived space of the institution (Lefebvre, 1991 [1974]). The participants’ refusal to inhabit the homogeneous yet fragmented space of the capitalist institution (Stanek, 2011) contrasts with their dwelling in pockets of autonomous, reflective space/time meticulously carved out in their everyday. These forms of spatio-temporal appropriation need to be increasingly performed as collective, liberating acts of quotidian resistance, in order to subvert the capitalist institution from within. 

Sol Gamsu and Michael Donnelly on the relational construction of place

The moment of entry to higher education (HE) sees major patterns of internal migration within the UK. Accessing HE is, as we know, a process that is deeply implicated in the creation and reproduction of inequalities. Binding these basic points together in an analysis of flows of students between home or school and university allows us to show how the geography of education is central to core debates in geography. Like my colleagues, the work of Massey has been central to how I have conceptualized these processes. Place for Massey (2005: 139) forms ‘where the successions of meetings, the accumulation of weavings and encounters build up a history.’ Regional boundaries are formed through the concentration of particular social practices that become symbolically and spatially associated with certain boundaries and reflect and re-create divisions and hierarchies (Cooke, 1985; Paasi, 2011).

These patterns develop over time and are rooted in particular political economies with HE provision largely instigated, or at least largely financed, by the state. The historical and contemporary geographies of local and national state power, the spatial contexts of regional dominance within England, the relative autonomy of the Welsh, Scottish and (Northern) Irish systems of governance in relation to power of the Anglo-British state – HE has been a central field that has been shaped by and in turn reinforced the spatial hierarchies and divisions created through the state. Beyond these structural geographies though, cultural geographies of regional division are also reflected and created by individual mobilities created by daily or termly movements to and from university and home.

Our paper (Gamsu and Donnelly, forthcoming) explores these theoretical issues, using social network analysis (SNA) methods to highlight how recognizable regional and national boundaries are present in students’ mobility patterns. Taking the example of students moving from Northern Ireland to Liverpool we explore how student mobilities reflect historical patterns of migration across the Irish Sea. Using the same SNA approach, we examine the distinctive hierarchies of schools and universities present in school to university movements. We find a cluster of primarily English elite private and state schools and universities. Quantitative SNA methods are complemented by qualitative interviews and mapping techniques to allow us to show how student mobilities at the micro-level create, reflect and reinforce historical spatial boundaries and socio-spatial hierarchies of institutions.

In Conclusion

To draw these distinctive approaches together we briefly revisit the original aims of our symposium, the first of which was to highlight the often unseen ways that space and place structure higher education, and structure it unequally. Inequalities and difference underpin Henderson’s work with spatial stories working to understand ways in which higher education happens (unequally) in places, while Carruthers Thomas frames the university itself as a complex territory of power and inequality. Spatial analyses throw up difference and relationship in Dakka’s uncovering of a plurality of contradictory academic rhythms in the everyday life within a teaching-intensive university and, in analysing flows of students between home/school and university, Gamsu and Donnelly highlight the shaping of HE through local, regional and national differences reflecting historical and contemporary geographies of local and national state power.

The second aim of the symposium was to demonstrate different possibilities for the use of spatial theory in researching higher education, providing new insights into enduring debates. To this end, each of the four papers foreground particular spatial/temporal concepts or processes. By putting place at the centre of her research into island HE Henderson gains new insights into narratives of HE and belonging. Gamsu and Donnelly frame the moment of entry into HE as a pattern of internal migration, using social network analysis to highlight regional and national boundaries in student mobility patterns.  Carruthers Thomas positions gender as a geography of power within the university as means of examining spaces between organisational rhetoric of equality and lived experience. Meanwhile Dakka introduces opposing logics – the logic of accumulation and poetic logic to challenge the privileging of individual productivity over reflective space/time carved out in the everyday.

Dr Kate Carruthers Thomas is a Senior Research Fellow and Athena SWAN Project Manager at Birmingham City University, UK. She specialises in interdisciplinary enquiry into contemporary higher education, inequalities and gender; in spatial methods and analyses. Kate also uses poetry and graphics as methods of disseminating her research in these fields. 

Dr Holly Henderson is an Assistant Professor in Education at the University of Nottingham. She has previously held positions at the University of Birmingham and began her career teaching in Further Education in London. Her research and teaching focus broadly on sociological issues of inequality in education. In particular, she is interested in access to and experiences of post-compulsory and higher education. Her research is theoretically informed by social geographies, which enable analysis of the ways in which place, space and mobilities structure educational possibility. She is also interested in narrative and its relationship to subjectivity.

References

Barnett, R (2015) ‘The time of reason and the ecological university’, in Gibbs, P, Ylijoki, OH, Guzman-Valenzuela, C, Barnett, R (2015) Universities in the Flux of Time London: Routledge pp 121-134
Carruthers Thomas, K (2019) ‘Gender as a Geography of Power’ in Crimmins, G (ed) (2019) Strategies for Resisting Sexism in the Academy London: Palgrave Macmillan

Carruthers Thomas, K (2018) Rethinking Student Belonging in Higher Education: From Bourdieu to Borderlands London: Routledge

Cooke P (1985) ‘Class practices as regional markers: a contribution to labour geography’ in Gregory, D and Urry, J (eds) Social relations and spatial structures London: Macmillan, pp 213-241

De Certeau, M (1984) The practice of everyday life (S Randall trans.) California. University of Berkley Press
Gamsu, S and Donnelly, M (Forthcoming) ‘Social network analysis methods and the geography of education: regional divides and elite circuits in the school to university transition in the UK’ Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie

Lefebvre, H (1991 [1974]) The Production of Space Oxford: Blackwells Publishers Ltd

Lefebvre, H (2004 [1991]) Rhythmanalysis: Space, time and everyday life London: Bloomsbury

Lefebvre, H (2014 [1947,1961,1981]) Critique of Everyday Life London: Verso

Massey, D (1993) ‘Power-Geometry and a Progressive Sense of Place’. In Bird, J, Curtis, B, Putnam, T, Robertson, G and Tuckner, L (eds) Mapping the Futures: Local Cultures, Global Chance. Abingdon: Routledge pp 59-69

Massey, D (2005) For space, London: Sage

Middleton, S (2014) Henri Lefebvre and Education. Space, History, Theory New York: Routledge

Paasi, A (2011) ‘The region, identity, and power’ Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences 14: 9-16

Stanek, L (2011) Henri Lefebvre on Space. Architecture, Urban Research and the Production of Theory Minneapolis: The University of Minnesota Press

Wittman, M (2017) Felt Time. The science of how we experience time. Cambridge: MIT Press

The Symposium was held at the 2019 SRHE Research Conference at Celtic Manor. I bet you’re sorry you missed it.