Chapter 13: Theme 4 – Emplacing Learning, Emplacing Research: Performances, Power and Inequalities

The phrase ‘out-of-school’ inherently refers to the whereabouts of learning. This chapter thus discusses the role of place in learning itself and in its research. The idea of place does not envelop only physical locations, but rather how these integrate with social dynamics, personal meanings and attachments and with the matter of power and inequalities. Reflecting on the case studies presented in the book, the chapter focusses on two issues. First, it considers what role place plays in the constitution of different forms of learning. It questions where ‘out-of-school’ learning actually takes place (at home, in the community, in other institutionalised environments) and how these places differ in terms of relationships between children and adults as well as among children themselves, in terms of materialities and embodied activities and in terms of rules and expectations facilitating the learning process. It also considers how places like home, community and school are connected, revealing patterns of power and agency that foster and transform children's learning experiences. Second, the chapter notes that place also influences the process of researching out-of-school learning, showing that researchers' emplacement is critical for the form and scope of knowledge research can produce. Examples in the chapter show the importance of where the research activities are located, where researchers engage with their participants, how their presence sits with the pre-existing power dynamics that constitute the place itself and how the question of emplacement has both epistemological and ethical implications in research on children's learning.