School design participation as dialogic space for children and architects
Abstract
Children’s involvement in decision-making processes at their school and broader social environments is often associated with the concept of dialogue. Despite being a critical dialogic condition, however, children’s and adults’ perspectives rarely interlock in two-way communication within so-called participatory processes. The paper explores manifestations of dialogue in child-architect design collaboration contexts. Dialogue is here addressed as a meeting space for diverse actors (Lodge 2005), while the ‘hundred languages of children’ are acknowledged as enabling them agency (Clark 2010, Christensen and James 2008). The study is based on a three-year research project and four case studies at two schools, a children’s department store cafe area, and a woodland area for children’s hands-on activities. A multi-method data collection process included, among others, interviews, role-play and non-participant observation. Findings show that educational practices commonly found at structured learning environments, together with children’s everyday relationships and symbolic creativity that develop in their broader social contexts are interwoven in participatory design, revealing a transformational potential for dynamic adult-child relations and roles. The paper highlights the role that interpersonal relations, multimodal expression and polyphony have to play, catalysing children’s collective, symbolic and experiential relationships with their surroundings and the people around them.
Article Details
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- THEMATIC FIELD Ι Transformations of schools’ spaces and educational change
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