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Schoolchildren's embodied subjectivity has often been understood as a bio-political tool to 'clean up' and modernize poor and marginalized communities. In many post-colonial contexts, school uniforms frequently appear as visual symbols of a child's clean, schooled body and democratic access to education. Through ethnographic research with 10–14-year-old schoolchildren in urbanizing areas in northern Tamil Nadu, my paper asks how children inhabit and co-construct the school uniform code's cleanliness discourse in their everyday lives. Studying plural school uniforms through a spatial lens, I explore schoolchildren's embodied and relational work in negotiating with the equalizing school uniform codes within the schools and the circulation of multiple school uniforms in the community outside. Engaging with a shifting visual aesthetic of embodied cleanliness in a context of class segregated schooling. I argue that school uniforms are discursive sites where exclusions of class and gender, with undertones of caste and age, are simultaneously reinforced and negotiated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years there has been a growth in outdoor learning opportunities for children of primary school age in part due to concerns that children spend less time outdoors and have become disconnected from nature. This paper draws upon ethnographic fieldwork conducted during the school year 2014–2015 in a school garden and two forest schools with children aged 3–11 years old. This paper explores how mud is used to form gendered and class-based identities through its management and social construction as dirt. The empirical research finds that the mud kitchen and wearing of waterproofs worked in part as assemblages to govern individuals and their experiences through the creation of cuts between bodies and mud. Yet, there were times when children's encounters with materials exceeded their intended pedagogical function and resistances emerged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Geographical research on education has grown rapidly in both volume and scope during the first decade of the twenty-first century, and one relatively new theme to emerge from this growing literature is that of education and aspiration. Much of the nascent interest in aspiration concerns access to quality schooling and University education. In this paper by contrast we highlight the importance of studying the ways aspirations are (re)produced within the school community. Our empirical focus is on low-income England under New Labour. Here we pursue a two-fold approach: firstly examining how education professionals define parental aspirations for primary-aged children as low; before secondly considering their alternative understandings of appropriate aspirations and the practices through which they seek to promote these, both in school and through the use of Extended Services for parents and children. In conclusion we highlight the importance of inward and outward geographies of education which 'recouple' schools with their social context, and discuss the moral and political ambiguities involved in practices designed to raise aspirations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the interest of enhancing children's environments, many school grounds around the world are being ‘greened’ as asphalt and manicured grass are replaced with a diversity of elements and spaces, such as trees, shrubs, gardens, art, and gathering areas. Despite a growing body of research from a number of disciplines that is exploring the potential of these spaces, very little is known about how issues of socio-economic status (SES) influence school ground greening initiatives. In this paper, I explore what (if any) relationship exists between school ground greening and SES in a Canadian school board where approximately 20% of more than 500 schools have begun the greening process. A mixed methods approach was used: (1) 149 questionnaires were completed by administrators, teachers, and parents associated with 45 school ground greening initiatives; and (2) 21 follow-up interviews were conducted with administrators, teachers and parents at five greening projects across a range of SESs. Three significant, and arguably troubling, patterns emerged as a function of socio-economic status of the school community. Participants associated with schools across a range of SESs had different: (1) perceptions as to the importance/adequacy of green school grounds; (2) access to adult support; and (3) access to funding. The implications of these findings are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]