Course Space, Place, and Education

Course description

The perspectives of place and space offer rich insights into how and why we do what we do. We are all basically from a place and bound to the cultural practices there, and to some extent carry these with us when travelling to new places. A spatial perspective can dwell within or even try uncovering some of the presuppositions and expectations we have when trying to understand, learn and become a part of a new setting. And it can give insights to how places and spaces are made and deliberately constructed in order to enhance or even discipline certain ways of thinking and acting. In that sense, being a part of a place and space is a fundamental part of being human who is inseparable from cultural structures but can nonetheless be overlooked in times of an individualized and highspeed society.

By addressing the general question of ‘where’, a spatial approach can enable valuable insights on taken-for-granted aspects of education and learning. This is terms of: Where do educational experiences take place? How does the physical setting, its materialities, and the atmosphere affect the situation? Such questions prove relevant when thinking back one’s own learning experiences. The content might be difficult to remember, but the smell and sounds of the environment stand out clear. On a larger scale, space and place help us to realize the institutional practices that frames our particular physical and cultural environments to learn in. Such environment could signify meaning and structures that transgresses our perceptions in terms of learning to be a professional, citizen or a student for instance.

In this PhD course, we will explore the relations between place, space, and education through theory and practice. We will discuss theories of educational environments in terms of learning, development, and participation. Furthermore, we will explore spaces and places in specific institutional contexts through fieldwork one involving an excursion. During these, we will understand educational institutions in a wider historical and spatial perspective before focusing on research methodology.

Through the course, you will work with space, place, and education through a variety of modalities:

• A pre-assignment involving our own PhD project: How can you think or rethink your project through the lenses of space, place, and education?
• Literature on spatial theory and place-based learning.
• Lectures on learning in excursions and geographies of education
• Excursions and fieldwork to two educational sites
• Groupwork and plenary presentations
• Individual reflections

Aim/Learning outcomes

The aim of the course is to explore and experience education as situated in a physical space and to understand how places can be used for learning and for creating subjectivities.

Through the course, there will be these learning outcomes:

• Using examples of the relationship between space and education at different scales, participants will learn how a spatial perspective can add novel insights into educational practice.
• Investigating specific educational buildings, participants will get to understand how architecture shapes students/pupils and allow/prohibit certain identities and subjectivities to unfold
• Exploring their own projects through a spatial approach allow the participants to investigate the potential of this approach for their particular project.

Through hands-on assignments and excursions, the participants will be acquainted with spatial methods that are valuable for studying the importance of place for learning.

Requirements for participation

This course requires participation in person during the whole course including the excursion.

Prior to the course, participants have to create a collage where they present their own project through the theoretical perspective offered by the literature. Further information will be presented after registration.

Target group/Participants

• The course is relevant for PhD-students at any level interested in issues pertaining to the interlinkages between space, place, and education, where education is understood broadly as learning in different contexts.  

Workload

• Course/ teaching hours: 21
• Preparation hours: 40
• Written assignments etc.: 14

Language 

• English

Lecturers

• Hanne Kirstine Adriansen, Associate Professor, DPU, Aarhus University
• Lars Emmerik Damgaard Knudsen, Associate Professor, DPU, Aarhus University
• Ning de Coninck-Smith, Professor, DPU, Aarhus University
• Niels Bjørn, PhD, independent consultant http://www.nielsbjorn.dk/

Literature

This is a preliminary reading list, a full list will be available after the application deadline

The literature will be distributed after the application deadline.

• Adriansen, H. K., Juul‐Wiese, T., Madsen, L. M., Saarinen, T., Spangler, V., & Waters, J. L. (2023). Emplacing English as lingua franca in international higher education: A spatial perspective on linguistic diversity. Population, Space and Place, 29(2), e2619.
• Berisha, T. (2023). Racialized spatial attachments: Researcher positionality and access in a Danish suburban high school. Kvinder, Køn & Forskning, (2), 63-79.
• Casey, E. S. (1996). How to get from space to place in a fairly short stretch of time: Phenomenological prolegomena. In S. Feld & K. H. Basso (Eds.), Senses of place (pp. 13–52). School of American Research Press.
• Crang, M., & Thrift, N. (2000). Introduction. In Crang, M., & Thrift, N. (Eds.) Thinking space, pp. 1-30. London: Routledge.
• Evans, J., & Jones, P. (2011). The walking interview: Methodology, mobility and place. Applied geography, 31(2), 849-858.
• Gruenewald, D. A. (2014). Place-based education: Grounding culturally responsive teaching in geographical diversity. In Place-based education in the global age (pp. 161-178). Routledge.
• Juul-Wiese, T. (2023). Imagined geographies of learning: Student perceptions of what can be learned where. Globalisation, Societies and Education, 1-15.
• Livingstone, D. N. (2010). Putting science in its place: Geographies of scientific knowledge. Chapter 1 and 5, pp. 1-16 and 179-186. University of Chicago press.

Venue

• 27 January 2026. 09.00-16.00: Emdrupvej 101 , 2400 København NV. Building 7210/Building A, room A412
• 28 January 2026. 09.00-16.00: Emdrupvej 101 , 2400 København NV. Building 7210/Building A, room A412
• 29 January 2026. 09.00-16.00: Emdrupvej 101 , 2400 København NV. Building 7210/Building A, room A412

Course dates:

• 27 January 2026 09:00 - 16:00
• 28 January 2026 09:00 - 16:00
• 29 January 2026 09:00 - 16:00