Critical Geographies of Education

Terms and Concepts

In traditional conceptions, the terms space and place are used interchangeably, with little to no distinction. To geographers, however, the difference between the terms is the basis of their entire field of study. Geographers begin to think of space as the physical attributes of the world around us or, more theoretically, the spatial forces at work on people. While this is what most of us think of as geography—things like mountains, rivers, borders, and capitals—spatial forces also include less tangible forces such economics, politics, and culture. Geographers point out that something like a national border certainly represents the spatial but is human made, can change all the time, may have varying levels of importance, and ultimately may mean different things. Space, therefore, can be both natural and human made, with key characteristics within which humans interact with both constraints and possibilities.

Place, on the other hand, is a particular form of space—one in which people have imposed meaning onto particular locations or spatial characteristics. All people have places that hold special meaning to them for any variety of reasons, good or bad. Recent theoretical geographers, informed by parallel developments in Marxist, feminist, and poststructural social theory, have become interested in the processes involved in space becoming a place and what that might mean for the people involved. As these processes undoubtedly involve issues of power and identity and operate in simultaneous and complex ways, to take up this field of study requires some distinction; that distinction is known as critical geography.

Power, for critical geographers, is always a key component in spatial relations. For example, school spaces for young people are defined by restrictions and privileges. At certain times of the day students can be only in certain parts of the school property; simply being in a particular area can mean big trouble for adults. This shows how those that have power—in this case, teachers and administrators—can define the limits of where youth can and cannot go. This happens all the time in social relations.

Furthermore, young people themselves engage in similar practices. A common example could be how seating patterns in a school cafeteria are divided up. Although there are usually no official rules as to who sits where, students typically think of certain areas as their own or, sometimes dangerously, clearly belonging to another group. Critical geographers would think about all the factors that come into play in the process of making those spatial divisions for students and then think about what those separations might mean in the development of their identities.

Identity—commonly expressed in the question “Who am I?”—involves how people come to see themselves as individuals and as members of larger society. Critical geographers suggest that this process of identity formation always happens in spaces that both construct and limit possibilities and the places that have already been invested with meaning. A critical geography of education insists on including all the varying forces that act on young people, educators, and community members as they come to know themselves and their place in the world.

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