Geographies of Alternative Education : Diverse Learning Spaces for Children and Young People

This book offers a comparative analysis of alternative education in the UK, focusing on learning spaces that cater for children and young people. It constitutes one of the first book-length explorations of alternative learning spaces outside mainstream education - including Steiner, human scale and forest schools, care farms and homeschooling.Based on original research with teachers, parents and young people at over 50 learning spaces, Geographies of alternative education demonstrates the importance of a geographical lens for understanding alternative education. In so doing, it develops contemporary theories of autonomy, emotion/affect, habit, intergenerational relations and life-itself. The book will appeal to academics and postgraduates in the fields of geography, sociology, education and youth studies. Given ongoing concerns about the state's role in providing children's education, and an increase in the number of alternative education providers in the UK and elsewhere, the book also highlights several critical questions for policy makers and practitioners. Geographies of Alternative Education Contents List of figures Notes on author Acknowledgments 1. Introduction Introducing alternative education in the UK Researching alternative education in the UK: a note on methodology and terminology Structure of the book 2. Conceptual frameworks: towards geographies of alternative education Geographies of education and childhood ‘Radical’ theories of education, informal education, and alternative education Theorising alternatives: diverse economic and autonomous practices Non-representational geographies and the politics of life-itself Conclusion 3. Alternative learning spaces in the UK: background to the case studies used in this book Care farms Forest schools Homeschooling Democratic and human scale schooling Steiner schooling Montessori schooling Conclusion 4. Connection/disconnection: positioning alternative learning spaces Conceptual dis/connections: critiquing and empathising with mainstream education Pragmatic dis/connections Community dis/connections Alternative dis/connections: “little people can do big things” Conclusion: dis/connection and autonomy 5. Mess/order: materials, timings, feelings Emotion, affect and education studies Taking time, creating order, fostering affects Taking time and making space: the absence of ‘uniform’ materialities/temporalities Dis/orderly materialities: “it’s making messmanageable” Bringing it together: a case study of a human scale school Conclusions 6. Movement/embodiment: learning habits (I) Of habit Mechanised movement between places: the experience of homeschoolers Bodily movements: distraction, implication, repetition Channelling bodily movements: articulating habit Conclusion: learning habits (I) 7. Inter/personal relations: scale, love and learning habits (II) Interpersonal relations, interpersonal scales Friendship: intragenerational and intergenerational support Family(-like) relations: on intimacy, love, but “not being too involved” Habit (II): love scaled, love spatialised Conclusion: from mindfulness, to consciousness, to the good life 8. Towards the ‘good life’: alternative visions of learning, love and life-itself Love Nature Food Utopia and endurance: towards a theorisation of collaborative autonomy in alternative learning spaces Conclusions 9. Conclusion: geographies of alternative education and the value of autonomous learning spaces Autonomous learning spaces and ‘the mainstream’ What’s different about autonomous learning spaces themselves? (Collaboratively) autonomous learning spaces: habit and life-itself Ramifications, practical and political References Index This book offers a comparative analysis of alternative education in the UK, focusing on learning spaces that cater for children and young people. It constitutes one of the first book-length explorations of alternative learning spaces outside mainstream education - including Steiner, Human-Scale and Forest Schools, Care Farms and Homeschooling. Based on original research with teachers, parents and young people at over fifty learning spaces, it demonstrates the importance of a geographical lens for understanding alternative education. The book argues that the geographies of alternative education are diverse: from the variegated ways in which alternative learning spaces connect and disconnect with the ‘mainstream’, to the significance of material ‘mess’ in children's learning, to the broader role that some alternative learning spaces play in challenging the increasingly neoliberal mainstream. The book will be of direct interest to academics and postgraduates in the fields of geography, sociology, education and youth studies, in particular those concerned with education. It will have broader appeal to readers from various disciplines, interested in contemporary theorisations of autonomy, emotion/affect, intergenerational relations, habit and life-itself. Given ongoing concerns about the State's role in providing children's education, and an increase during the early 21 st century of the number of alternative education providers in the UK and elsewhere, the book also highlights a series of critical questions for policy-makers and practitioners This book offers a comparative analysis of alternative education in the UK, focusing on learning spaces that cater for children and young people. It constitutes one of the first book-length explorations of alternative learning spaces outside mainstream education - including Steiner, human scale and forest schools, care farms and homeschooling. Based on original research with teachers, parents and young people at over 50 learning spaces, Geographies of alternative education demonstrates the importance of a geographical lens for understanding alternative education. In so doing, it develops contemporary theories of autonomy, emotion/affect, habit, intergenerational relations and life-itself. The book will appeal to academics and postgraduates in the fields of geography, sociology, education and youth studies. Given ongoing concerns about the state's role in providing children's education, and an increase in the number of alternative education providers in the UK and elsewhere, the book also highlights several critical questions for policy makers and practitioners One of the first book-length explorations of alternative learning spaces outside mainstream education, Geographies of Alternative Education offers a comparative analysis of alternative education in the UK, focusing on learning spaces that cater to children and young people. Using original research conducted at over fifty learning spaces, it demonstrates the importance of a geographical lens for understanding alternative education. In doing so, it develops new theories on autonomy, emotion and affect, intergenerational relations, and a number of other topics This text offers a comparative analysis of alternative education in the UK, focusing on learning spaces that cater for children and young people. It constitutes one of the first book-length explorations of alternative learning spaces outside mainstream education