How pedagogical diversity can afford parallaxes of competence: towards more inherently inclusive school

How pedagogical diversity can afford parallaxes of competence: towards more inherently inclusive school

An historical commitment to child-centred pedagogy notwithstanding, classrooms for an increasing diversity of young people are constituted by their constrained affordances for learning; a single teacher, configurations of tables and chairs, and digital resources. The remit of teaching in such confines perpetuates passivity, a one size fits all approach, and variations of twenty ‘somethings’, complimenting testing as evidence of learning. This article draws from a critical ethnographic case study in a mainstream primary school of an appropriated space, one of detournement (Lefebvre, H. 1974. The Production of Space. Oxford, UK: Blackwell.) from classroom to Studio–a maker-space, and contemplates how the pedagogical diversity afforded by the altered space and its operations, contributed to inclusivity at the site. Ecological psychology, a theoretical tool to better understand the mutuality of person and place, is utilised to analyse and explain how this repurposed classroom and its altered pedagogy flipped notions of success, causing parallaxes of competence. The implications of these findings include not only evidence of the need to pursue the diversification of pedagogical approaches that support learning in schools, but also the need for further consideration to how success might benefit from locally agreed outcomes that consider place-resonance. This research particularly contributes to a research gap that exists to specify exactly how child-centred pedagogy supports a more inherently inclusive school.

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