Lauren Elise Hammond Reporting Research - A journey from MA to PhD *Part Time PhD student at the Institute of Education (18 months in) *Head of Geography.

Lauren Elise Hammond

Reporting Research - A journey from MA to PhD

*Part Time PhD student at the Institute of Education (18 months in)

*Head of Geography from June 2012 in Enfield, London

MA dissertation:

‘An exploration of how year 7 students at The Royal Docks Community School understand and relate to

the cultural landscape of East London’

Key questions:1) To explore how the children understand and relate to their cultural landscapes.2) To discuss the costs and benefits of using photography as a research tool with children.3) To investigate what school geography’s role is in enabling children to both understand their locality, and actively participate within it.

PhD focus:

An exploration of how storytelling can be used to explore young people(s) understanding of London.

Continuations:

*Participatory methodology*Focus on place

*Context: London

London as the context, London as a place…

In the Key Stage 3 Geography curriculum, ‘place’ is one of 6 Key concepts that pupils are expected to study:

‘Place:a. Understanding the physical and human characteristics of real places.b .Developing ‘geographical imaginations’ of places. ’ QCA (2007, page 102)

What is ‘place’?

‘The ‘world’ is man’s mirror because man makes it: it is the task of his practical everyday life to do so. But it is not his ‘mirror’ in a passive way. In his work man perceives and becomes conscious of his own self. If what he makes comes from him, he in turn comes from what he makes.’ Lefebevre (1992, page 163)

‘Places can be described in terms of three elements: location, locale, and sense of place. A location is a point in space with specific relations to other points in space… the term locale refers to a broader context for social relations, while sense of place refers to subjective feelings associated with a place.… place always exists between objective fact and subjective place.’ Cresswell (2008, pp 115)

‘the city is in part a storehouse of fixed assets accumulated out of previous technology….urbanism is a spatial for a way of life predicted in, among other things a certain division of labour and a certain hierarchical ordering of activity which is broadly consistent with the dominant mode of production.’ Harvey (1973, page 203)

‘if space is rather a simultaneity of stories-so-far, then places are collections of these stories, circulations within the wider power-geometries of space.’ Massey (2005, page 130)

The Geographical Imagination:

*Balderstone (1996, page 22) ‘how we imagine the world to be, and how we represent it to others.’

*Massey (1996, page 48), states that ‘a lot of our ‘geography’ is in the mind. That is to say we carry around with us mental images, of the world, of the country in which we live (all those images of the North/South divide), of the street next door…’

Key Question: Rawling (2010, page 93) ‘Do we in school Geography, give sufficient weight to the value of engaging senses, emotions and feelings about places? Or do we leave it to other disciplines particularly English Literature and so miss the opportunity to use literature?’

London

*Capital city of England and the United Kingdom, a world city, and a city of 7.75 million people ‘(which is) 12.5 per cent of the UK population living on just 0.6 per cent of the land area’ (London.gov.uk, 2010).

*Global financial centre

*History of migration

*City of villages (spatial division of the population)

How are young people perceived

in London?Where does this

come from?

Images of young people removed for copyright reasons

Bavidge and Gibson (2003, page 42) state ‘the capitals children have long been the stuff of legend. In the section of his biography of London devoted to children,

Peter Ackroyd tries to hear the voices of London’ children themselves as they ring through street games, rhymes and riddles. But he also cites a range of sources from the eleventh century onwards that show how far London’s children have been both sanctified and demonised. As rogues, victims, ragamuffins, urchins, or little angels, metropolitan children have always been mythic figures, and as such, a source of adult disquiet.’

An example of past storytelling about London

‘As he glided stealthily along, creeping beneath the shelter of the walls and doorways, the hideous old man seemed like some

loathsome reptile, engendered in the slime and darkness through which he moved: crawling forth, by night in search of offal for a meal.He kept on his course, through many winding and narrow ways, until he reached Bethnal Green; then, turning suddenly off to the left, he

soon became involved in a maze of the mean and dirty streets which abound in the close and densely-populated quarter.

The Jew was evidently too familiar with the ground he traversed to be bewildered at all, either by the darkness of the night or the intricacies

of the way…’

From ‘Oliver Twist’ by Charles Dickens (1994, page 138)

Significance of Fagin appearing deeply entrenched in his placeSignificance of Fagin appearing deeply entrenched in his place

Why storytelling?

Harrett (2004, page 2) states that ‘effective oral communication is the basis of our society.’ Before stating (page 39) ‘storytelling may be used to expand understanding of cultural and historical narratives’, allowing young people to explore the places and cultural landscapes in which they live.

Bavidge (2006, page 321) when she states (in regards to children’s literature) ‘children’s literature represents one of the most powerful manifestations of the ways the world is interpreted and explained to children.’ However, Bavidge then goes on to state (on page 323) that ‘children’s literary criticism has not paid enough attention to questions of spatiality (particularly urban space) and has rarely attempted to theorise the nature of place and space in children’s literature.’

My Research…

*Is still being planned!

*I hope to explore with Key Stage 3 pupils how they understand London as a place by storytelling by asking them to respond to stimuli about the capital – e.g. the Olympics, pictures of central London and explore how they view place and where their ideas come from.

Thank you for listening

Any questions and/or comments?

Bibliography

*Ackroyd, P. (2000) London The Biography Chatto & Windus: London *Balderstone, D. (2006) What’s the point of learning geography? In Secondary geography Handbook (Balderstone eds) Geographical Association: Sheffield*Bavidge, G. Gibson, A. (2003) The Metropolitan Playground: London’s Children in London from Punk to Blair (Kerr, J. Gibson, A. eds) Reaktion Books: London*Bavidge, J. (2006) Stories in Space: The Geographies of Children’s Literature in Children’s Geographies Volume 4, Number 3, Pages 319-330*Cresswell, T. (1996) In Place Out of Place – Geography, Ideology and Transgression University of Minnesota Press: Minneapolis*Dickens, C. (1994) Oliver Twist Penguin Books Ltd: London*Harrett, J. (2004) Tell Me Another… Speaking, Listening and Learning Through Storytelling United Kingdom Literacy association: Hertfordshire*Harvey, D. (1973) Social Justice and the City Edward Arnold Publishers Ltd: London*Lefebevre, H. (1992) Critique of Everyday Life Verso: London*Massey, D. (1996) The geographical mind In Secondary geography Handbook (Balderstone eds) Geographical Association: Sheffield*Massey, D. (2005) For Space SAGE: London*QCA (2007) Geography Programme of study for key stage 3 and attainment targets available at: http://media.education.gov.uk/assets/files/pdf/g/geography%202007%20programme%20of%20study%20for%20key%20stage%203.pdf (accessed on 19th February 2012)*Rawling, E. (2010) The Severn was brown, and The Severn was blue – A place for poetry n school geography in Teaching Geography Volume 35, issue 3, pp 93-95