The purpose of this study is to investigate the kind of experiences that elementary school students have within the school space, and to find the meanings of this phenomenon that students have in relationships with school spaces. Recently, school spac...
The purpose of this study is to investigate the kind of experiences that elementary school students have within the school space, and to find the meanings of this phenomenon that students have in relationships with school spaces. Recently, school spaces are not viewed as a physical environment, but as an existential educational space. Using this concept, spatial experiences are widely studied in urbanology and in geography. But in pedagogy, the study on this area is very rare. Nowadays, the schools are changed in innovative ways. The needs for new school spaces are arising, but there is a lack of studies on students' experiences within school spaces. Accordingly, this study will focus on elementary school students' experiences within school spaces. The method for this study is Phenomenological Study. The resources for this study will be elementary school students' spatial experiences. The research question will be from elementary school students' point of view: (i)what is the spatial experiences of students within school, (ii)how is the relationships between the students and the school spaces.
Researcher's understandings and suppositions were revealed in advance, so during the research period, the factors which can influence the results were consistently observed and advised by experts. The collection of the resources were done by in-depth interviews of 4 elementary school students. The analysis was done by the method proposed by Van Manen.
The results suggests that elementary school students are related to the school spaces in three ways. Firstly, the elementary school students can have pleasant or unpleasant emotions toward the spaces according to their interactions with peer groups. If interactions with their friends are positive, they can have pleasant emotions towards the place. But if their interactions are negative and the places are unfamiliar to them, they can have unpleasant emotions toward the place. Secondly, the fact that whether the subjects are an insider or an outsider can partly influence their spatial identity and isolation. Subjects, categorized as an insider, were not restricted to the space and their spatial awareness was low. But subjects, categorized as an outsider, perceived the place as isolation and escape. Thirdly, a space within the given space allows subjects to experience public order, dignity and have spatial identity which can be used to regulate and control the place. But the concept of space is formed by bodily experiences, and our bodily experience and space can be coordinated by a point of anchor. If subjects lose a feeling of involvement within the place as a point of anchor, subjects have a crisis of their spatial identity and may become anxious about the place.