One educational built environment. An example for school administrators and planners
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/09578231011054725 |
| Published date | 06 July 2010 |
| Pages | 468-489 |
| Date | 06 July 2010 |
| Author | Sheila M. Fram |
| Subject Matter | Education |
One educational built
environment
An example for school administrators
and planners
Sheila M. Fram
School of Education, Colorado State University, Laramie, Wyoming, USA
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to offer an example, for, school administrators and planners,
of the cohesiveness of community policies and school design and planning endeavors during the 1980s
in Arizona, USA.
Design/methodology/approach – The paper reports the results of a qualitative, discourse analysis
involving images of the exterior and interior of a high school.
Findings – The built environment included three separate discourses which supported a community
ideology that was common in the late 1980s. The three discourses involved natural surveillance,
fostering neighborly interactions, and planned diversity of spaces.
Practical implications – This paper provides insight into school design and planning, the
integration of the surrounding community and how schooling practices can be influenced because of
this context.
Originality/value – Tanner’s article in 2000 discussing the influence of school architecture on
academic achievement introduced this discussion to administrators and planners and articles in the
May issue of Journal of Educational Administration continued the discussion. This paper furthers the
discussion through a qualitative, visual study; so as to generate new understandings.
Keywords United Statesof America, School buildings, Architecture, Community planning
Paper type Conceptual paper
As published in an earlier volume of the Journal of Educational Administration (JEA),
C. Kenneth Tanner(2000) discussed in his article, “Theinfluence of school architectureon
academic achievement”, how the higher standards being promoted in the restructuring
movement have not trickled down to the design and planning of educational built
environments. Tanner (2000) argued that the problem is, “Communications barely exist
between the research branches of education and architecture” (Tanner, 2000, p. 311). To
further compound theargument, Roberts (2009) added that:
Conventional measurements of school facilities use an engineering “property management”
perspective which takes no account of the purpose of schools. When such measures are used,
little connection to learning outcomes is evident (p. 369).
In the recent May 2009 issue of JEA, Tanner and Roberts, along with other authors,
continue discussing specific elements of school built environments and how they
influence the actors in the teaching and learning environment. Uline (2009) summarized:
This themed issue [...] examines what we know about the relationship between educational
facilities and students’ and teachers’ work and learning, as well as the role the public plays in
shaping these learning places and joining the community of learners” (as paraphrased from
Uline, 2000).
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/0957-8234.htm
JEA
48,4
468
Received June 2009
Revised July 2009
Accepted August 2009
Journal of Educational
Administration
Vol. 48 No. 4, 2010
pp. 468-489
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited
0957-8234
DOI 10.1108/09578231011054725
The main assumption of this issue is the need to examine the school built environment
as a context. Tanner (2009) stated the importance of contemplating “the interaction
between people and their environments” (p. 382). To continue, Uline (2009) further
explained that “[...] schools exist within larger social, political and fiscal circumstances
[...]” In the special issue, each article described situations in and elements of such social,
political and/or financial contexts. Uline (2009) highlighted the need for those of
us interested in investigating the school built environment and the practices that occur
within to work together to “generate new understanding[s]” about the school built
environment. Thus, the intent of this pap er is to continue to generate new
understandings.
Uline et al. (2009) underscored the need for further discussion in this journal on those
interactive influences which are related to “social factors” and “somewhat more difficult
to define and quantify” (p. 403). Many of the articles were quantitative, while some
integrated qualitative elements of data collection. Only the Uline et al. (2009) study was
qualitative; but extended an examination of two “high-poverty” schools from a previous
quantitative study. Uline et al. (2009) stated about their study that, “[...]the school place
influenced and shaped the identities of the human occupants, individually and
collectively [...]” (p. 417, as paraphrased from Cooper as cited in Proshansky et al., 1995).
Such qualitative studies, like Uline et al. (2009), can bring about the richness of data
needed to understand what influences shaped individual and collective actions.
In addition, only Ornstein et al. (2009) and Uline et al. (2009) offered visual images of the
interiors and/or exteriors of the school built environment, from a post-positivist
perspective of “reading” the images as probabilistic statements (Philips and Burbules,
2000). As Uline et al. (2009) stated, “Photographs are useful artifacts in documenting and
obtaining knowledge” (p. 407, as paraphrased from Harper, 2005; Collier and Collier,
1986). These comments brought attention to the significance of visual research for
investigating the school built environment as a context wherein social practices occur.
Mason (2002) stated:
The idea that everything we are interested in exists in language or text, or is expressible in
those ways, and that we can explore it using words or readings texts, can be argued to be a
rather limited and uncreative one (p. 104).
Visual research offers another avenue for generating new understandings about the
school built environment. As Wagner (1979) stated and what Ornstein et al. (2009) and
Uline et al. (2009), inadvertently, uncovered was that, “We simply have not seen enough
of what people do and the physical contexts in which it is done” (p. 286).
This paper intends to see more of the physical context and extends thought on the
special issue articles with a qualitative, visual study that examines the built
environment of one American high school in the state of Arizona. The aim of this visual
study is to offer school administrators and planners an example of the cohesiveness of
the community orientation and the built environment of the high school as a context
under study.
The Arizona high school was built in the late 1970s due to the population growth
in the region. I had attended this “campus-style” high school in the Phoenix Metro area
for two years from 1987 to 1989 after attending a “factory-style” high school near
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In June 2007, I obtained informed consent with limited access
from an assistant principal to photograph the school built environment. Owing to
One educational
built
environment
469
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