Mapping Student Flow Through Fragmented School Buildings (Poster 2)

• In Event: Mapping the Field: The Role of Space in Educational Equity

Abstract

Objectives
More research is needed to understand the lived experience of school architectures, and to empower young people to engage with the built environment in creative and critical ways. This poster reports on a project that used sensory ethnographic mapping techniques to study NYC schools where space is at an absolute premium, and where distinct urban constraints on the distribution of education resources force new kinds of spatial arrangements. The project focuses on NYC schools serving under-resourced communities of color where funding for school building renewal cannot compete with real estate speculators targeting low-income neighborhoods.

Methods
We are focused on the spatial and racial politics of complex urban contexts, where student spatial practices and engagement with place are in rapid transformation. Our methods include sensory ethnographic methods and district-wide visual maps to increase public understanding of spatial justice issues related to student experience. In this poster, we discuss findings related to three research questions: (1) How does economics shape the specific spatial practices associated with the school? (2) How do students and staff imagine the school building? What is their mental map of the building? How does this mental map reveal affective attachments and alienation?

Theoretical Framework
This project is framed by theories of spatial justice (Kurgan, 2013; Saldiarraga et al, 2017) and investigative aesthetics (Fuller & Weizmann, 2021). These theoretical approaches use data visualization to show how the built environment facilitates different kinds of agency and participation. Spatial justice theory uses spatial data to reveal the inequitable distribution of resources and people across urban environments. This involves innovative mapping techniques, and ethically monitoring the mechanisms by which data is visualized and disseminated (Kurgan et al, 2019). Investigative aesthetics reclaims computational techniques and repurposes software to serve social justice causes and public concerns (de Freitas & Trafi-Prats, 2023). We also draw on theories of critical cartography (Crampton & Krygier, 2005) to develop alternative data-maps of student mobility across school districts. We address limitations in conventional ethnography by developing mapping techniques that avoid simplistic coding of relational ecologies, and show both situated experiences in particular schools and district-wide spatial justice patterns (de Freitas & Trafi-Prats, 2023; Pink et al, 2015).

Findings
Our findings shed light on the impact of NYC efforts to transform old school buildings into small school campuses in the early 2000s. Although these schools were meant to offer a sense of community to students (Kurgan et al, 2005; Meyer, 2015), we are finding that the fracturing of the building into separate school spaces has led to unexpected changes in school cultures and student dis/connection to place. The schools are no longer strongly linked to the building (its location, physicality, history), but are instead simply occupying particular floors. Small schools “collocated” in large buildings are often separate islands with little to no contact, competing for resources through district wide policy initiatives. We posit that our sensory data maps make visible the imperceptible but no less powerful pedagogical force of architecture and the built environment.

Authors

• Matthew X. Curinga, Adelphi University

• Elizabeth De Freitas, Adelphi University