For some very general historical information, see T. Markus, _Buildings and
Power_ (Routledge, 1993) and Daphne Spain's _Gendered Spaces_ (UNC Press,
1993). Keith Basso's _Wisdom Sits in Places_ (U. of New Mexico Press,
1996) is a very nicely written account of the spatialization of "wisdom" in
Western Apache society. For the most part, however, I have found the work
of geographers most useful in thinking through these issues. One seminal
text is Henri Lefebvre's _The Production of Space_ (trans. 1991), which
argues that space is a social product and a producer of social relations,
that we move through multiple, layered, intersecting spaces. Lefebvre's
influence extends to Michel de Certeau's _The pratice of everday life_
(California, 1984) (both in his discussions of "everday life" and of
"spatial practices"). Lefebvre's work has also been taken up by M.
Gottdeiner, _The social production of urban space_ (Texas, 1984), E. Soja
_Postmodern Geographies_ (1989) and his more recent _Third Space_
(Blackwell, 1996), and many others (The journal _Environment and Planning
D: Society and Space_ is very good for this kind of stuff). A very good
introduction to the field is D. Gregory, _Geographical Imaginations_
(Blackwell, 1994) (but see criticisms by Cindi Katz and others). An
introductory text drawing more on sociological work is Friedland & Boden,
_NowHere: Space time and modernity_ (California, 1994). Nancy Duncan (Ed)
_Body Space_ (Routledge, 1996) and Gillian Rose _Feminism and geography_
(U. of Minnesota Press, 1993) provide feminist perspectives (generally
ignored in the work of writers like David Harvey). And see also Doreen
Massey's "Power geometry and a progressive sense of place" in J. Bird et
al, _Mapping the futures_ (Routledge, 1993, which also contains an
interesting piece on scale by N. Smith), and Massey's collection of essays
_Space, Place and Gender_ (1994). There's lots more, but what all of this
work seems to reinforce is the idea that settings like schools and
classrooms probably aren't really viable units of analysis for studying
learning or everyday life (unless, that is, we can see them as
intersections or articulations of networks of practices extending far
beyond their walls). I've written a couple of partially successful books
on these topics: _Knowledge in Motion: Space, time and curriculum in
undergraduate physics and management_ (Falmer, 1994) and _Tangled up in
School: Politics, space, bodies, and signs in the educational process_
(Erlbaum, 1997).
Jan Nespor
Department of Teaching and Learning
War Memorial Hall 305
Virginia Tech
Blacksburg, VA 24061-0313
nespor who-is-at vt.edu
phone: 540-231-8327
fax: 540-231-9075