The Black Box of Schooling: A Cultural History of the Classroom

This book is about the classroom, the most important meeting place for teachers and pupils in an education building. Individuals' knowledge, however, about what happens inside this space is limited. In many respects the classroom is still the black box of the educational system. To open up this box, this volume brings together scholars from the disciplines of Art, Architecture, History, Pedagogy and Sociology. They present a wide variety of new perspectives, methodologies and sources for studying classrooms. The book examines images and representations of classrooms (photographs, paintings and pictures on school walls), writings and documents inside the classroom (school exercise books, teachers' log books and observer reports), memories and personal experiences of classrooms (egodocuments from teachers and pupils, and oral history interviews), the space and design of classrooms (architecture, school murals and the transformation of space), and material objects in the classroom (school furniture, primers for reading and school wall charts). The essays are illustrated with a unique collection of more than fifty photographs of classrooms in Europe. Contents include: (1) Opening the Black Box of Schooling. Methods, Meanings and Mysteries (Sjaak Braster, Ian Grosvenor, and Maria del Mar del Pozo Andres); (2) Educational Change and Dutch Classroom Photographs. A Qualitative and Quantitative analysis (Sjaak Braster); (3) "To Act on the Minds of Children". Paintings into Schools and English Education (Ian Grosvenor); (4) Classroom Genres. Aspects, Values and Interpretations of Painted School Interior Scenes (Jeremy Howard); (5) Peeking into the Classroom of Post Civil War Spain. Children's Classroom Work, Routines and Dynamics (Ana Badanelli and Kira Mahamud); (6) Classroom Cultures. Researching the Pioneer Ethnographical Research (Madrid, 1950-1970) (Maria del Mar del Pozo Andres and Teresa Rabazas); (7) Inside the Black Box? Log Book from Late 19th and Early 20th Century English Elementary Schools (Susannah Wright); (8) Teachers' Egodocuments as a Source of Classroom History. The Case of Autobiographies, Memoirs and Diaries (Antonio Vinao); (9) Pandora's Box. Classrooms and Equipment in the Memory of Autobiographers (Arianne Baggerman); (10) Oral History and the Black Box of the Classroom. A Personal Journey (Theo Veld); (11) An Architectural View of the Classroom (Alexander Koutamanis and Yolanda Majewski-Steijns); (12) "Education through Art". The School Mural as Extended Architecture (Catherine Burke); (13) The Organic Growth of the Decroly School in Brussels. From Villa to School, from Living Room to Classroom (Frederik Herman, Angelo Van Gorp, Frank Simon, and Marc Depaepe); and (14) The Material Classroom (Jacques Dane, Sarah-Jane Earle, and Tijs van Ruiten).