Chapter 7: School Has a “Place” … Every Place Except Farmville, Prince Edward County, Virginia

This chapter examines the growing scholarship in the emergent field of geographies of education and its relationship to “place.” The field has expanded since its beginning in the 1970s, as a key sub discipline of human geography in the area of education analysis. To situate the school closings in Farmville, Virginia, from 1959 to 1964, on the analytic perimeters of the field of geographies of education, “place” becomes a critical area of study. Through the examination of inter-disciplinary literature, a synthesis develops of not only the historical significance of the acquisition of education in the lives of African Americans in Virginia broadly, but also presents the possibilities of delivering additional understandings of “place” as an investigative area.