Home/School: Popular Discourse and the Social Space of School During Remote Learning

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session 2
  In Roundtable Session: Building on Community Assets in Education

Abstract

Remote schooling during Covid-19 disrupted the boundaries of ‘in’ and ‘out’ of school and the experiences of schooling for countless students, teachers, and parents. This paper examines how school space was produced and the socio-spatial dynamics within and around it during this period. It analyzes discourses around the experiences of remote-schooling in the popular press and on TikTok. Three ‘variations’ of school space arise through this analysis: (1) the physical, affective, and hyperreal reproductions of school space at home and online; (2) the affective shortfalls of this emerging space; and (3) resistance and transformation of school space propagated through socio-techno discourse and negotiation. The author argues further use of socio-spatial analysis and examinations of social media in education and research.

Author

• Michael Samuel Havazelet, Vanderbilt University