Session Information
Contribution
In the post World War Two era, a concensus developed in the approach to school design in England and Wales that envisaged the school 'from the inside out' through an appreciation of the environmental and material conditions of innovative pedagogy. This paper will explore the origins of this concensus through the pioneering work of the schools architecture development group at the Ministry of Education. It will detail the process through which the architects David and Mary Medd designed building solutions to support what they recognised to be innovative pedagogical practise in schools for young children. In particular, it will examine the nature of the relationships developed between architects and educators in the pursuit of learning environments that supported flexible and variable teaching and learning styles. Poorly misunderstood at the time, and since, as 'open plan', the paper will draw attention to the most significant features of the environments that were produced through the notion of 'contested designs for learning'.The principal methodology will be through semi-structured interviews with key educators and architects who designed and taught in schools, recognised internationally as innovative, during the 1950s and 1960s. The interviews will be carried out during the spring of 2007 constructing new archives of oral testimony by key individuals. The discussion points structuring the interviews will be generated from archival analysis through the collections held at the University of London Institute of Education archives. The study is likely to produce new an valuable knowledge about the nature of the relationships that were developed through an appreciation of the connection between design of materials and school buildings and innovative pedagogy. article / book proposal
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