The force of habit: channelling young bodies at alternative education spaces

Abstract

This article develops a novel conceptual framework for examining the (re)formulation of habits in education spaces. It is based on the premise that education spaces are key sites for channelling and intervening in children’s habits, to various ends. The article focuses on the ways educators at alternative education spaces in the United Kingdom seek to (re)formulate children’s habits. In some cases, they do so to combat social exclusion, dealing with some of the most vulnerable children in the UK’s educational system. Drawing on the habit-theories of Ravaisson and Dewey, and commensurate post-human, more-than-social approaches to childhood, the article proposes a two-fold conceptualisation of habit: as ‘(re)calibration’ and as ‘contagion’. The article draws on empirical examples taken from 10 years’ research across 59 alternative education spaces in the United Kingdom. Developing recent educational scholarship on bodies, emotions and affects, it develops an expanded, post-human notion of ‘collective’ habits that might offer a conceptual language for challenging and imagining alternatives to the perceived problems of the neoliberal educational mainstream. However, the article closes by posing some critical questions for further scholarship about why educators might specifically choose to intervene into children’s habits – not least in terms of inclusion and social justice.

Keywords:

• affect
• childhood
• embodiment
• emotion
• geographies of education
• inclusion
• post-human theory

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the educators, young people, volunteers, parents and others who supported my research at the 59 alternative education spaces included in the study reported in this article. I would also like to thank the guest editors for inviting me to submit an article to this special issue, and for their constructive and insightful comments on an earlier draft. Finally, I would like to thank two anonymous referees for their generous, positive and constructive critiques.

Notes

1. The italicised sections in this article recount notes from the field diary I kept during my alternative education research.

2. An explanation of the learning sites included in this article is provided in the next section. For a full introduction to these sites, see Kraftl (2013a).

3. Introduced by the UK New Labour Government, Sure Start Centres (and, latterly, Children’s Centres) were located in socio-economically disadvantaged communities to provide support for parents and early years education (Jupp, 2012).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Peter Kraftl

Peter Kraftl is a professor of human geography at the University of Birmingham, United Kingdom. He has published 5 books and over 40 journal articles about children’s geographies, geographies of mainstream and alternative education and architecture.