ABSTRACT
This chapter describes specific examples of studies of education working with forms of spatial theory. These examples show methodological approaches, as well as the strengths and possibilities of these theories in terms of the questions they ask, what they make visible, and the understandings they can yield. There are two disciplinary strands to this work, which tend to exist in different journal and conference spaces with occasional cross-overs. The first is found among those geographers who pursue educational topics. The second is found among educators who draw upon spatial theories. This work has become more pronounced with both an interest in the learning spaces opened for exploration through the discourses and practices of lifelong learning, what Ferguson and Seddon (2007) refer to as bubbles, and the changing educational relationship associated with globalization (Gulson and Syme 2007). We explore some aspects of research by geographers on education in the first section of this chapter. We then go on to examine a number of spatial themes in the educational research literature. These themes recur in the research drawing upon spatial theory. They are curriculum spaces, globalizing educational spaces, technologized educational spaces, gendered spaces, and finally spatializing metaphors in education. This work is itself fragmented and diverse. It draws eclectically, and not always coherently, from the threads of spatial theory identified in chapter eight. Mostly, it attempts to frame education as spatial practices rather than as taking place in space or in particular contexts (Edwards et al. 2009). As with chapter eight, this is an indicative rather than exhaustive exploration.
