Through the looking-glass: How nineteenth century asylums shaped school architecture and notions of intellectual abnormality shaped public education

This paper utilizes Henri Lefebvre’s work to examine nineteenth century school architecture, in relation to asylums. The deployment of the asylums occurred in unison with the development of public schools. Based on archival research this paper seeks an examination of this interrelated development. T...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inPolicy futures in education Vol. 15; no. 4; pp. 481 - 494
Main Author Roof, David J
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published London, England SAGE Publications 01.05.2017
Subjects
Educational History
Educational Policy
Governance
Ideology
Institutionalized Persons
Intellectual Disability
Intelligence
Periodicals
Psychiatry
Public Schools
Residential Institutions
School Space
Social History
Special Needs Students
asylums
education
history
Architecture
schools
space
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Summary:This paper utilizes Henri Lefebvre’s work to examine nineteenth century school architecture, in relation to asylums. The deployment of the asylums occurred in unison with the development of public schools. Based on archival research this paper seeks an examination of this interrelated development. The social/spatial arrangement of asylums and schools was not independent and random. The relation between institutions and modes of governance were conditioned through contingent systems of knowledge and practices. This produced separation between lived space, social practices and discursive practices. This paper explores this separation using Lefebvre’s idea of a triad of the perceived, the conceived, and the lived within social space. In other words, the practices and routines constituting production and reproduction (conceived), the symbols and images (representational), and the lived as the complex politically contested aspects formed in social space. Consideration of these domains coincides with deconstruction of the codified meanings and discursive formations, those which often conceal more than they reveal.
ISSN:1478-2103
1478-2103
DOI:10.1177/1478210317715795