Abstract:

The post modern paradox seems to revolve today around the dichotomy between a “borderless” or a “fenced” world. Yet, it is undeniable that 65 countries have already erected barriers along their international borders in a self-contradictory attempt to...foster conviviality? Extending the metaphor of fences to educational contexts, we find that schools seem to be no exception. Despite experiences that are now challenging conventional boundaries in terms of time and space or teaching methodologies, the fact is that over the years, the basic grammar of schooling has been decoded through images of walled spaces, compartmentalised knowledge, classified students, overly-rigid Professional Learning Communities (PCL), scripted curricula, and expected outcomes. Furthermore, this futile attempt at homogenising “what is deeply diversified” (Schriewer, 2004) still coexists in Argentina with initiatives that intend to bring about “fresh air” to schools. Although substantial work in the field of pedagogical innovation has scrutinized the impact of collaborative learning, project-based education, thinking-based learning, gamification, design thinking, to mention a few, when discussing the grammar of schooling, we seem to have overlooked the fact that social ambience intersects all the paths of that innovation surge.

The present study aims to explore learners´sensitivity to the character and atmosphere of school culture of a primary school in Santa Fe, Argentina, which has been chosen on the grounds that it has recently launched a process of innovation.The study intends to track down this process in order to unveil how grammar of schooling innovations may have an impact on the perceptions of students´ schooling experiences, so much so they may either hamper or enhance their possibilities of making sense of learning situations. Research adopts an interdisciplinary approach, using the complexity standpoint, allowing the articulation of variables as they intersect to create certain grammar of schooling frameworks. Inkeeping with this quest, the analysis of field data gathered in interviews with the actors and observations of the territory recorded on video and photographs, reveals aspects of both the surface and deep structures of the grammar of schooling. Findings concerning the management of school time and space, continuities and discontinuities, choice of contents and methods, as well as the nature of interactions that weave a specific social fabric behind and outside school walls, may shed light on the existence of hidden mechanisms in its culture (Tyack y Cuban, 2000). In this light, research findings should eventually contribute to model interventions to strengthen schools, not only to fulfill their primary mission of fostering socially meaningful learning, but to upgrade student experience in social learning spaces. Finally, empowering schools to tear down fences might eventually pave the way for the ultimate goal: creating a culture of opennness and co-development.

Keywords:

Pedagogical innovation, grammar of schooling, ambience, complexity, social learning spaces.