This paper investigates the material complexity and relational emergence of 'teaching'. Reporting on a video-based ethnographic study of an upper secondary classroom in Norway, the paper centres on the following research questions: Which material-discursive practices 'matter' in upper secondary teaching situations, and how are participants' bodies…

Historically, classrooms have utilized stationary furniture, facing front toward a centralized instructor position, and limiting student-to-student interactions. Such classrooms often stem from design processes that tend to focus on building codes and feedback from investors, architects, and planners, which leaves little input from instructors and…

For many years, the Reggio Emilia approach has been in the spotlight of the international debate on early childhood education, attracting countless devoted followers in preschool centres all over the world and inspiring an ever-increasing amount of pedagogical research. At the heart of this educational philosophy, space is considered a 'third…

This paper reports the findings of a case study that examined the importance of flexible learning spaces and student-centred pedagogies for facilitating effective teaching and learning in schools. By exploring the arrangement of learning spaces at the school level, the study compared a case school in Germany with the Future Classroom Lab Model.…

Classroom space is a fundamental field of interaction in which all interchange and determination activities between the person and the social environment can be developed. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate the systemic relationship between places and groups. It specifically investigates how the pedagogical reorganization of classroom…

As educational systems design and build new spaces aimed for learning in the digital age, small group configurations around large screens have become a highly popular spatial feature in classrooms and libraries. In this paper, we introduce the idea of intermediate indexing as occurring in the space between the knot of intertwined resources at the…

The physical characteristics of a child's learning environment can affect health, wellbeing and educational progress. Here we investigate the effect of classroom setting on academic progress in 7-10-year-old students comparing reading development in "open-plan" (multiple class groups located within one physical space) and…

This paper implements a feminist new material lens to illuminate how the spaces and objects of play are actively involved in the enactment and normalisation of gender violence in kindergarten. Findings from data collected in two Canadian kindergartens show how the familiar and mundane spatial-material arrangements of play, namely the use of…

This research addresses the problem of the imposition of educational spaces in multicultural contexts. The research is of qualitative nature, based on an interpretative hermeneutic paradigm. It uses collective case study design. The selection of participants was non-probabilistic and intentional, and snowball sampling was used, selecting 15…

Educators are beginning to consider the physical learning environment as an additional resource in meeting learning outcomes in modern classrooms. In order to better utilise classroom space, schools have begun to eliminate desks and chairs and to replace 'traditional' furniture with 'flexible' furniture that is capable of multiple reconfigurations…

Instruction based on active learning is being promoted in higher education by the creation of new collaborative teaching and learning spaces, but capacity does not yet exist for all courses to be held in these new spaces. In this study, we examined how students choose between sections of the same course, with the same materials and techniques used…

A significant amount of research has been devoted to class size, in relation to student achievement. Success in the classroom is not only about increases in attainment. Fulfilment, and well-being, for teachers and students alike, is a more complete evaluation of improved achievement. The cost of reducing class sizes seems to be prohibitive, so…

In Malaysian secondary education, typically only academically able students with learning disabilities and acceptable behaviour join mainstream classrooms for full inclusion. Social participation at school is one key indicator of inclusive education outcomes. Most Malaysian mainstream classrooms group students into small fixed peer-seating groups.…

The main objective of the study was to understand specific ways in which a flexible, technology-enhanced space can create opportunities for student engagement. Despite a few studies that address classroom elements such as furniture, researchers argue for more-holistic attention to the materials of learning environments to better support the…

The focus of this study was to look at how the seating layout effects participation and assessment performance overall as a class. The participants were 23 fourth grade students at a Louisiana elementary school. Three layouts were tested: small groups, horseshoe, and pairs. This study included three, two-week rounds of research. The collection…