Innovación mediática y arquitectura escolar. La transformación de los espacios de aprendizaje en secundaria

Abstract

This dissertation explores the stress placed on educational contexts by the new paradigms in the international discourse concerning the renovation of the school spaces, as well as by the introduction of ICTs, both in classrooms and in wider school environments. In recent years, there has been growing international interest both in scientific research and in distinct political agendas concerning educational architecture and, specifically, learning environments. The broad introduction of ICTs, offering new spatiotemporal boundaries via educational devices and virtual platforms, is placing stress on teaching within traditional educational spaces. At the same time, educational policies –even in relation to a standardization of the European educational space– often consider ICTs a paradigm shift in themselves, even in some cases, harbingers of an educational revolution. However, in many cases there is a gap between a possible paradigm shift in practices and traditional configurations of classrooms. The gap between model and actual practices appears in the history of school construction, which has shown that innovations can generate scenarios that are not always predictable or can even lead to conflicts concerning pedagogical practices. This dissertation employs a multidisciplinary theoretical framework to outline conclusions on the concept of spatiality in school contexts. Specifically, it explores the material context of classrooms through an ethnographic study carried out in two public schools in Spain (Autonomous Community of Catalonia) and in Italy (Autonomous Region of Sardinia). It offers a synthetic analysis of the evolution of school spaces during the last century and explores recent proposed policies for the renovation of learning environments. The dissertation highlights the mechanisms behind innovation and the dialectic between imposed models and local practices by analyzing the re-signification processes to which technological devices are subjected when entering into semiotic educational spaces. Employing a multidisciplinary research approach, the dissertation uses particurarly theoretical conceptualizations from the field of STS (Science and Technology Studies) and reveals possible areas for future research.

Date of Award	10 Oct 2017
Original language	Spanish
Supervisor	Jose Manuel Perez Tornero (Director)