Helena Pimlott-Wilson

Geographies of education and the significance of children, youth and families

This paper engages with Hanson Thiem’s (2009) critique of geographies of education. Accepting the premise that education warrants fuller attention by geographers, the paper nonetheless argues that engaging with research on children, youth and families reshapes understanding of what has been, and might be, achieved. Foregrounding young people as the subjects rather than objects of education demands that attention be paid to their current and future life-worlds, in both inward and outward looking geographies of education. It also requires a broadening of our spatial lens, in terms of what ‘count’ as educational spaces, and the places where we study these.

International education and the employability of UK students

A common theme within the literature on higher education is the congested nature of the graduate labour market. Researchers have highlighted the lengths to which many students now go, in response to this congestion, to ‘distinguish themselves’ from other graduates: paying increased attention to university status; engaging in a range of extra-curricular activities; and pursuing postgraduate qualifications. Studies that have focused on the strategies of Asian students, specifically, have pointed to the important place of studying abroad as a further strategy in this pursuit of distinction. Given that there is now some evidence that the number of UK students enrolling on a degree programme overseas is increasing, this article explores the extent to which an overseas education can be seen as part of a broader strategy on the part of British students to seek distinction within the labour market and whether such an education does indeed offer tangible employment benefits.

Enriching Children, Institutionalizing Childhood? Geographies of Play, Extracurricular Activities, and Parenting in England

Geographical research on children, youth, and families has done much to highlight the ways in which childrens lives have changed over the last twenty-five years. A key strand of research concerns childrens play and traces, in the Global North, a decline in childrens independent access to, and mobility through, public space. This article shifts the terrain of that debate from an analysis of what has been lost to an exploration of what has replaced it. Specifically, it focuses on childrens participation in enrichment activities, including both individual and collective extracurricular sporting, cultural, and leisure opportunities in England. The research reveals that middle-class children have much higher participation rates in enrichment activities than their working-class counterparts. Parents value enrichment activities in very similar ways across the class spectrum—seeing them as fun, healthy, and social opportunities. The ability to pay for enrichment, however, means that it is incorporated into, and transforms, middle-class family life in ways not open to working-class families. Nevertheless, support across the class spectrum for these instrumental forms of play that institutionalize childhood in school, community, and commercial spaces leads to calls for subsidized provision for low-income children through schools. The article thus traces the “enrichment” and “institutionalization” of childhood and draws out the implications of this for how we think about play, education, parenting, and class in geography.

Youthful escapes? British students, overseas education and the pursuit of happiness

This paper draws upon the findings of a recent project examining the motivations of UK students seeking higher education overseas. We argue that notions of fun, enjoyment and the pursuit of happiness abroad featured strongly in young peoples stories, in contrast to an emphasis in recent academic and media accounts on overt strategising around educational decision making. Several students wanted to escape the UK, particularly the rigidity of British higher education; the perceived flexibility of a liberal arts education was extremely appealing. Others saw education overseas as a chance for personal reinvention. Moving the focus away from stressing the negative effects of academic-related pressures upon young people, in this paper, we argue that education can offer up new possibilities for fun and excitement, which for privileged individuals work alongside more strategic objectives around the accumulation of cultural capital.

The politics of aspiration: neo-liberal education policy, ‘low’ parental aspirations, and primary school Extended Services in disadvantaged communities

Geographical research on education has grown rapidly in both volume and scope during the first decade of the twenty-first century, and one relatively new theme to emerge from this growing literature is that of education and aspiration. Much of the nascent interest in aspiration concerns access to quality schooling and University education. In this paper by contrast we highlight the importance of studying the ways aspirations are (re)produced within the school community. Our empirical focus is on low-income England under New Labour. Here we pursue a two-fold approach: firstly examining how education professionals define parental aspirations for primary-aged children as low; before secondly considering their alternative understandings of appropriate aspirations and the practices through which they seek to promote these, both in school and through the use of Extended Services for parents and children. In conclusion we highlight the importance of inward and outward geographies of education which ‘recouple’ schools with their social context, and discuss the moral and political ambiguities involved in practices designed to raise aspirations.

Editorial introduction: Geographies of education and aspiration

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Childrens Geographies in 2011, available online: 08 Feb 2011 http://wwww.tandfonline.com/10.1080/14733285.2011.540434

The role of familial habitus in shaping children's views of their future employment

As the field of Geographies of Children, Youth and Families grows and diversifies as a testament to the active and vigorous interest in this area of research, the collection of papers presented within this Special Issue proves timely in addressing developing research on education and aspiration. At a variety of spatial scales and from different perspectives, the contributors have shown how educational settings are invoked by politicians, educators and practitioners as sites where the aspirations of future citizen-workers can be managed for perceived individual and collective benefit. It is unsurprising that young people remain the focus of policy attention and analyses in relation to ‘raising’ aspirations, given normative understandings of their chronological proximity to transitions to adulthood. What emerges alongside efforts to affect the aspirations of young people through education is a strand of thought which acknowledges the role of the family in the lives of young people. Research has shown distinctions in parental aspirations for their children according to ethnic and socio-economic background (Coleman, 1988; Portes and MacLeod, 1996), and has highlighted how families are viewed by educationalists as key to the academic success of their children (Holloway and Pimlott-Wilson, this issue). Whilst young people and parents remain central to considerations of aspiration (Nairn et al., 2007), the hopes of young children are also crucial when we take into account the implications which may arise when children judge one path of action feasible as a future goal whilst others appear unattainable. In this article, I argue that the voices of children need to be included in research which considers aspiration, acknowledging the influence of the family on these imagined futures whilst also recognising that children reflexively develop their own perspectives as they encounter new experiences. In the next section of the paper, I engage with policy interest in families and discuss further my conceptualisation of habitus and how this relates to children’s hopes for the future. In the central section I present a case study of children’s future employment plans, putting forward evidence to show that family socialisation predisposes children to consider particular occupational types over others. To this end, I utilise the concept of habitus as a flexible and non-deterministic method for understanding children’s perceptions of what courses of action are most appropriate for their future. Thirdly, I provide evidence to suggest that children’s aspirations are not simply a reflection of parental practices but rather show how the habitus is continually evolving, illustrating children’s agency in their reflexive resistance of particular occupational types in light of family experience. In conclusion, the article calls for further consideration of children’s hopes for the future and the factors which influence the dispositions of individuals, highlighting the imperative for educationalists to remain cognisant of children’s dispositions in efforts to (re)shape aspirations.

Any advice is welcome isn't it?: neoliberal parenting education, local mothering cultures, and social class

Geographers have shown considerable interest in neoliberal educational restructuring as states across the Global North have sought to respond to the challenges of economic change through the development of a skilled population. Existing research provides a wide-ranging analysis of the ways neoliberal states seek to shape individual citizens through their own learning. Greater attention now needs to be paid to new and developing ways in which they seek to influence the context in which future citizen-workers are raised. This paper focuses on parenting education which is growing across OECD countries. Social science critiques suggest that parenting classes are part of a professionalisation of parenting which has sought to impose middle-class mores on working-class parents, at the same time as parenting has been unwarrantedly cast as a context-free skill. This paper uses quantitative and qualitative data to explore the attitudes of parents of different social class positions to parenting education, tracing the ways these emerge in and through particular sociospatial contexts. The paper reveals the importance of local class-based cultures of mothering in influencing both the attitudes of individual mothers to parenting classes, and the success of neoliberal policy implementation in diverse socioeconomic neighbourhoods. In conclusion the paper emphasises: the importance of geographical research into newly emerging forms of education; the value of engaging with the subjects of neoliberal education policy because their attitudes influence its implementation in practice; and the need to set educational provision in its wider geographical context, as this can shape the success of policies delivered in and through educational institutions. Keywords: geography, education, parenting classes, good mothering, place, local parenting cultures

Visualising children’s participation in research: Lego Duplo, rainbows and clouds and moodboards

This paper examines the use of visual methods during research encounters with children and young people when investigating their perspectives and feelings towards their home and school life. By revealing the advantages and constraints of three visual approaches, including Lego Duplo, rainbows and clouds and moodboards, the paper contributes to the range of techniques available when conducting research with children and young people. In conclusion, the paper highlights the depth of information which can be elicited from visual techniques as well as the oral data which can be obtained through the utilisation of visual methods.

Effectiveness, inequality and ethos in three English schools

Purpose – This paper aims to explore the nature of effective schools serving socially disadvantaged communities, and to point to an overlooked feature in the literature on school effectiveness in relation to social inclusion.Design/methodology/approach – As part of a trans‐European project, three English schools are investigated. A qualitative case study approach is utilised. The schools selected have high proportions of ethnic minority students with low socio‐economic status backgrounds, yet demonstrate successful results.Findings – The data show the importance of high expectations, and the development of classroom and school‐wide systems to translate these into practice. This reflects areas highlighted by earlier research on schools in disadvantaged communities. The data also point to important conclusions about school ethos.Research limitations/implications – The findings are based on a sample of three schools. Though purposively selected (as successful in challenging circumstances), further research i...