Practices of Including a Student in the School Space Based on the Example of Selected Visual Representations

Abstract

Abstract The main subject of this work is the school space considered from the perspective of including a student in it. A starting point of the analysis is the assumption taken from Erving Goffman and Anthony Giddens that the space defines the social situation at school and imposes the framework for interpreting the behavior and interactions that occur within it. In this perspective, the term “space” refers not only to physical space, but also to the psychological space of life. People strive to personally organize it by placing their own works/creations there so that they can give it their own meanings and symbolic senses, identify with it, and thereby transform the untamed/unknown space into their "own"/tame place. The main aim of the work is to determine how much of the school space is the space of the students and for the students, and to what extent it is transformed into place. In this context, the authors take into consideration the pedagogical practices that involve students in the school space. They are illustrated with selected visual representations, indicating both constructive practices aimed at actively involving students in the school space as well as feigned (and as a result exclusive) activities. The methodology of work is based on visual ethnography to recognize the visual image of the school, its culture, and on the use of photographs that refer to the anthropology of the picture (following R. Barthes, H. Belting, S. Sontag, P. Sztompka, J. Nowotniak).