TheAffordancesOfContexts

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Some constraints can become structurally fixed entities; they may become encoded in some fixed form in the environment . . . . Yet the function of such materialized constraints is maintained by dynamic semiotic processes, and once the latter undergo the breaking of their status quo in the psychological systems of persons and the social discourses of social institutions, the materially fixed constraints can be broken and turned into symbolic tokens for tourists or collectors. (Valisner, 1997, p. 181-182)

Schools contain the perspectives of all participants—the “ideological complexes” (Hodge and Kress, 1988) of the institution—and the many ways these are embodied, embraced, rejected, hidden, and adapted in the places where educational activities occur. The programs that were studied had very different ideological complexes and very different physical structures and resources. Their comparison supports a need for educators to attend to the different aspects of their material environments, but it is not because environments determine school activities or what students take from them. Rather, it is that the tools students have access to, the manner in which access is regulated, the images arranged for students to see, the furniture they occupy, and the walls and doors that limit their movement all participate in what is akin to a dialog with students and teachers—a dialog that typically is unremarked upon and outside people’s awareness. The structure of such dialogs define “the relationships between [educational] contents” (“classification”) and “the specific pedagogical relationship of teacher and taught” (“frame”) (Bernstein, 1971, p. 205). Many specific dialogs, at different levels and from different data, have been described throughout this dissertation, but bringing them together to build an understanding of the processes behind them and an account of common concerns that can easily be applied to reform efforts is more difficult.

The material environment 1) constrains the actions of teachers and students, (2) affords particular activities that could not occur without pertinent objects or arrangements, (3) promotes some actions and identities over others, (4) embodies symbolic meanings that can potentially influence student-school relations, and (5) contains semiotically rich places that can be altered and borrowed. The environment thus participates in student-school relationships. Many activities are impossible in classrooms that lack the necessary resources, and authorities further constrain actions by imposing particular meanings. Whether intended or not, whether broadly understood or perceived by no one, the material environment contains messages and silences others. The environment’s power arises in the way it structures activity—limiting and directing its movement—and simultaneously in the way it reflects actions, identities, agendas, in short, the ideologies of a wide range of people.

The buildings and grounds of a school immediately reflect the ideologies—the priorities and orientations—of those who design, build, and maintain them, but finding concrete ways in which these broad aspects of school contexts participate in student activity is difficult. They set a tone that was often consistent with observed activity. Students were forced to adapt to what was available or to leave the campus when they were afforded this opportunity, frequently leading to the existence of an activity in one school and its complete absence in the other schools. Murals presented such an affordance: They and other postings on the wall were engaged by students at Boarding High to define identities and interests. The murals in this way promoted a sense of solidarity with the school. The absence of meaningful displays at the other two schools, however, were reflected only in their absence in student videos and a greater inattention to environments. As already noted, assignments and program ideologies at Urban and Suburban Highs discouraged a visual exploration of the environment, but the schools offered very little for them to explore and clearly nothing in which student identity was reflected. Thus the uses of spaces within schools as neutral contexts and the choice by many students to record away from school supports the assertion that they did not see themselves or their interests reflected in their schools, but the evidence is inconclusive. More importantly, the moments when students did engage with the material world serve as dramatic examples of the fluidity of meaning and salience of objects in school environments.

The processes connecting activities and the environment were more clearly visible in the classrooms: The classrooms at Suburban and Boarding Highs thoroughly reflected the programs and classroom activities. Only at Urban High were the programs invisible; the rooms maintained an institutional bareness, either as an out of date culinary classroom with computers stashed in the closet or as a large warehouse stuffed with a wide array of objects. Rivlin and Wolfe (1985, p. 194) noted that the classrooms they studied were clearly under the control of teachers and that students perceived the room as belonging to their teachers, but in these classrooms that seemed to belong to nobody, the authority of teachers was more openly contested and ignored. The existence of the programs was the least visible. Student identities were also absent. Paired with the fact that it was only in this school that the program did not originate with the instructors, a lack of “ownership” was demonstrated by teachers in relation to both their classrooms and their activities. Did the condition of classrooms participate in making the adoption of program ideologies more difficult? The effort to shape the “Studio” for the program was half done and forgotten, and though if afforded their needs, it remained a warehouse. The evidence of how this atmosphere impacted student activity is, however, spotty, but at the least, the environments symbolically embodied a disconnect between the program and the school and perhaps contributed to the disconnect between teachers and students.

The reaction of students to specific items in their environments is rarely visible under normal circumstances. As consumers of education, the ways students have of reflecting particular meanings are limited. The art classroom at Boarding High, far more than most classrooms and more than many art classrooms I have observed, displayed student activity, but this too was controlled by the teacher: by her assignments and her choices as to what projects to display and where. The introduction of video cameras allows audiences to observe how students consume their environments. It makes consumption visible. Students were able to find opportunities via cameras for asserting their own meanings onto objects and places. At its extreme, such actions are referred to as video graffiti. Thus audiences are led to potentially new ways of seeing familiar objects and places, and students have a more substantial way of creating meaning.

Students’ uses and definitions of places confirm many observations and make visible the process of negotiation that exists. In general, students recorded in what had conceptually been considered student-owned places or the spaces between places, such as doorways and the borders of room areas, that belonged to nobody and asserted no agendas. Their uses of these areas reflects the lack of authority students had and the transitory nature of the solidarity students experience with schools. The moments of recording in classrooms or more defined places were few and far between, occurring usually when students “played” with the camera rather than working on a project.

Particular places, however, were defined by students during exploration and in narrations. Student narrations of videotapes have thus far been underutilized, but they offer important additions to interpreting campus meanings from student perspectives. The labeling and relabeling of places occurred in original recordings and later narrations, and students expressed their sense of belonging and lack of belonging by where they positioned themselves in relations to people, places, and objects. For instance, the interest and comfort Wicket and Jerome expressed in the music department distinguished it as a place where students had a greater sense of belonging. The placement and movement of camera and interviewer in the only non-video classroom where multiple interviews were recorded (Urban High’s “Sex Talk,” Project 8) showed a reluctance—even when given permission—to assume the teacher’s position, and the teacher’s reluctance to yield her power was equally indicated by her position at the head of the class. Remarkably, students at all the schools failed to rearrange classrooms for their video projects except when using the “sets” in the Urban High studio or doing the “news” as Suburban High. Thus, the only times students altered a place was when the teacher explicitly promoted such actions.

Such examples affirm the meanings of places as well as the interest students have or lack there of in changing their meanings. Moreover, the utility of using the placement of the camera operator in defining relations verifies the significance of material relations, including open spaces and human bodies. For example, the fact that height—the use of upward and downward tilts of the camera—was found nearly always to correspond to circumstances rather than choices reflects both the students’ lack of experience with cameras and their lack of awareness of the potential effects of such positioning. With a larger sample of videos, including some by more experienced students, this and other issues that confound camera experience and potential meanings could be further explored.

The greatest evidence of how material environments participate in activities arises in how the use of a video camera changes student activity. First, the camera has an inherent power that students can use to ask questions or initiate dialog in places where students are typically denied these rights. Closely related to this is the power to control who is seen and heard, at least in the world the students create on the video. The videographer also gains the ability to determine how the subject is seen or heard, creating a certain loss of power for the video’s subjects that could be particularly threatening to some teachers. The camera creates a fundamental change in the way students relate to the material environment because it gives students permission to move around the school building and to alter the environment materially or symbolically. Cameras promote engagement with both the material world and other people, forcing students in some sense to initiate relations. Furthermore, the two phases of videography promotes reflection as the initial experience of recording is reengaged in the editing phase. At the school level, video production encourages some integration of educational content (Bernstein, 1971) as the science behind the technology, the art of the presentation, and the substance of what is communicated are potentially addressed. Most importantly, video cameras afford students the opportunity to become agents in their education as they choose how to use the tools of production.

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The Affordances Of Contexts As Active Participants