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Session 36

Geography and Education: Research, Practice and Reflection in Dialogue

Organisers: Emilia Fakou (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens), Zoi Karampini (University of the Aegean)

  • Saturday, 28 November 2026 · 11:30–13:00, 14:00–15:30

    Room 7, Harokopio University of Athens (HUA)

About this session
This session aims to shape a dialogue between geography and education to explore concepts, key ideas, and methodologies that enrich the Geographies of Education field, in times of uncertainty, fragmentation, and social exclusion. We seek to highlight interdisciplinary approaches that examine how current socio-spatial processes may enrich pedagogical thought and practice, and how contemporary and critical pedagogies can, in turn, reshape geography education. In contrast to static views of space, a critical geographical perspective foregrounds the constitutive relationship between education and multi-scalar socio-spatial dynamics. The 'spatial turn' in education compels us to examine how educational spaces are produced within urban transformations, spatial inequalities, and everyday socio-spatial practices. From this standpoint, children's and young people's everyday worlds—their movements, encounters, and communities—are understood as meaningful sites of knowledge production, recognizing that learning is embedded in relational space rather than confined within institutional walls. This framework also provides insights into how axes of social identity are formed and negotiated across (in)formal learning spaces. At the same time, critical pedagogy, together with experiential and contextual learning approaches, reconceptualizes geography education as socially grounded. By emphasizing dialogue, participation, reflexivity, and democratic engagement, it challenges technocratic models of instruction and highlights embodied knowledge as central to learning. Scholarship in Geographies of Education further examines how structural inequalities and power relations are enacted and contested through educational practices. In doing so, it invites reflection on how spatially grounded pedagogies can foster transformative learning that is inclusive, embedded in students' everyday realities and connected to broader questions of spatial justice. The session welcomes theoretical, empirical, and practice-oriented contributions that explore, but are not limited to, the following axes: - Conceptual dialogues on time, place, space, scale, power - Fieldwork, participatory and visual methodologies - Pedagogical practices and experiential learning approaches - Sociospatial inequalities and (in)justices, - (In)formal learning spaces

Presentations are currently listed in alphabetical order (by first author). The final order of presentations has not yet been confirmed and will be announced soon.

Presentations10

  1. Neighbourhood Social Identity and the Sociospatial Production of School Segregation in Athens

    Ioulia Antoniou

    • University of the Peloponnese, PhD
    Abstract
    This paper examines the sociospatial production of school segregation in the urban context of Athens, focusing on how neighbourhood-level social dynamics shape the functioning and social positioning of schools. Despite the institutional uniformity and centrally prescribed curriculum of the Greek educational system, significant geographical disparities in student outcomes persist, as schools are embedded in unequal urban environments that contribute to patterns of school segregation. These environments influence student composition, academic performance, infrastructure, and informal school choice practices. The study investigates the relationship between urban space and school differentiation across areas with distinct sociospatial profiles. It explores how the social identity of neighbourhoods contributes to the hierarchical positioning of schools within the local educational field. The empirical analysis is based on qualitative data from semi-structured interviews with parents and teachers in public lower secondary schools in the inner city of Athens and its suburbs. Findings show that schools in socially and ethnically heterogeneous areas, particularly in the city center, are subject to territorial stigmatization, which is associated with higher concentrations of disadvantaged students, lower academic performance, and increased dropout rates. In contrast, schools in higher-status areas, such as the Northern suburbs, benefit from spatial advantages that enhance their perceived value and attract students beyond their designated catchment areas. These dynamics contribute to the formation of socially and ethnically homogeneous school populations, reinforcing patterns of school segregation and broader sociospatial inequality in Athens. In this context, urban space operates as a structuring force that actively produces differentiation, segregation, and unequal educational opportunities. Keywords: Territorial Stigmatization, School Segregation, Sociospatial Inequality, School Choice Practices, Athens

  2. The Geography of School Choice: Spatial, Socioeconomic, and Institutional Dynamics in the Educational Trajectories of the Filipino Second Generation in Athens

    Constantina Corazon Argyrakou

    • Harokopio University of Athens
    Abstract
    This paper examines the educational experiences of the Filipino second generation in Athens, with a focus on the spatial, socioeconomic, and institutional dimensions that shape their schooling trajectories. It explores how urban space and parental labour conditions influence educational decision-making and structure young people’s access to different school regimes. Drawing on ethnographic research, the analysis develops around three main axes. First, it highlights the significance of geographical distance. The location of the Philippine School in Greece in Vyronas, at a distance from major areas of Filipino residential concentration such as Ampelokipoi, combined with parents’ demanding work schedules, often resulted in children attending the local Greek public school. At the same time, the paper identifies a socioeconomic and spatial paradox: the attendance of some students at high-status English-medium private schools in the suburbs, financed by their mothers’ employers within the context of live-in domestic work arrangements. Second, the paper approaches the school as a legal and administrative border. Attendance at Greek public schools often functioned as a strategic pathway towards the acquisition of Greek citizenship, whereas exclusive attendance at international schools was, in some cases, associated with bureaucratic obstacles and delayed institutional recognition. Third, the paper traces emerging transnational educational geographies and forms of educational mobility. Linguistic barriers and the avoidance of the Greek national entrance examinations frequently directed members of the second generation either towards private English-medium colleges in Greece or towards university studies in the Philippines. Overall, the paper argues that the spatial organisation of the city, labour dependencies, and legal-institutional requirements actively produce unequal educational geographies, reshaping access to both education and urban belonging.

  3. Online schooling during the COVID lockdowns in Greece

    Myrto Chronaki

    • Aristotle University if Thessaloniki
    Abstract
    The paper examines online education in Greece during the COVID-19 lockdowns through a spatial lens, focusing on learning, students’ socialisation, and the emerging ethics of a digitalised society, which prioritises technologically-mediated interactions in education and social life. The presentation takes the form of a thinkpiece based on personal observations (2020–2022), combining parental experience with insights from social geography, philosophy, and education theory, alongside engagement with sociopolitical developments. During the lockdowns, online education was implemented across all levels—from kindergarten to university. Schooling was conducted through digital platforms, where microphones and cameras replaced physical co-presence, marking a shift from embodied, collective learning environments to digital ‘non-places’. This spatial reconfiguration generated multiple challenges. The relocation of schooling into the home blurred boundaries between public and private realms, disrupting domestic routines and giving rise to new forms of absenteeism and reduced participation. Students were present and absent—digitally connected yet mentally disengaged, as interaction was constrained by technological mediation. These effects were particularly evident among younger pupils and among socially and economically disadvantaged groups lacking learning resources. The loss of school as a social space affected students’ mental health and development. Prolonged confinement within the home, combined with the absence of peer interaction, contributed to withdrawal, irritability, and increased screen dependency. The erosion of spatial conditions supporting collective engagement and concentration resulted in learning outcomes falling below expected standards. While authorities maintain that remote schooling allowed for continuity and digital skills, it can also be seen as part of a shift toward dematerialised and mediated environments, where social and educational life are increasingly detached from physical co-presence. Hence, the experience of remote schooling underscores the importance of defending education as an embodied, spatial practice grounded in shared material environments, which remain essential for meaningful learning and the formation of social relations.

  4. Embodied Spaces of Learning through Theatre-based Inquiry

    Sabine Hostniker, Elena Flucher

    • University of Graz
    Abstract
    Neither social research nor pedagogy is neutral; both are political practices, entangled in power relations and intertwined. Educational spaces emerge through spatial inequalities and everyday socio-spatial practices, while reproducing and contesting these dynamics. Processes of identity formation, spatial belonging, and justice are inseparable from the environments where learning takes place. Yet education also holds transformative potential - not only reflecting existing conditions, but reconfiguring them. Drawing on one author's work with improvisational theatre in social research (Hostniker & Meyer 2024), we argue for methodological approaches that access what conventional methods overlook: the implicit, the affective, and the embodied. To amplify voices muted in public discourse, we conceptualize theatre as an art-based methodology that redistributes epistemic authority and enables the co-creation of knowledge, echoing Paulo Freire's (1968) pedagogical philosophy. Augusto Boal (1974) extended this liberatory project into embodied techniques for social transformation. Building on this tradition and drawing on Massey's (2005) understanding of space as relational and always in the making, we propose theatre-based methods as a vital tool for engaged pedagogy in the sense of bell hooks (1994). Space, in this view, is not a neutral backdrop but a constitutive force in identity formation: the everyday spaces young people inhabit – neighbourhoods, schools, streets – are sites where social identities are produced, contested, and negotiated. Theatre-based methods make these spatial identity-making processes visible and open them to collective reflection, disrupting the "culture of silence" that marginalized youth often internalize. This dialogue, however, is not one-sided. A critical pedagogical understanding of learning as transformative and relational can also inform social research, where participants engage reflexively with their own socio-spatial conditions. In this way, we hope to contribute to conversations about how research and pedagogy – as inherently spatial and political practices – can work together toward greater epistemic and spatial justice.

  5. Between two worlds. Spaces and identities of three Roma women

    Xanthippi Konstantinou Sgourou

    • National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
    Abstract
    A spatial perspective on education offers me a different lens through which I can (re)approach concepts that, thanks to my studies in education, seem more familiar. This allows me to question them again and ultimately design a small-scale research for my undergraduate thesis. The theoretical tools used to formulate questions and analyze research material are drawn from the intersection of two fields: geography and education. When the concepts of identity, power relations, and educational inequalities are viewed through a spatial lens, they highlight how space influences them and vice versa. More specifically, the resulting thesis concerns the relationships, spaces, and identities produced by three women who come from Roma communities and have pursued higher education -thus following an upward social trajectory- and who now occupy a position of social distance both from their community of origin and from the dominant group. They find themselves in an intermediate spatiality from which they (re)negotiate their relationships with Roma communities and the dominant group, as well as their sense of belonging and their identities. Through thematic analysis of three semi structured interviews, the study highlights the liminal it’s that characterise the life paths of the three women, who are also the founders if an organisation that works to combat school dropout while simultaneously constituting a space of support and solidarity -one that is continuously built alongside the ever evolving identities of each members.

  6. Notes from a teacher's informal diary: documenting with the children the transformations of Kypseli

    Niki Konstantinou-Sgourou

    • αναπληρώτρια δασκάλα / μεταπτυχιακό στην κοινωνική ανθρωπολογία
    Abstract
    For the past two school years, I have been working as a substitute primary school teacher in a large school in Kypseli, and through the children’s experiences I have come to know their neighborhood — a neighborhood that is being transformed, changing, dug up: “here, miss, there used to be a playground,” “when I first came and didn’t know Greek well, I thought it was a dead dog under the statue.” Through an informal diary of my experiences, which records the pedagogical practices and activities I implemented as a teacher in both the general classroom and the reception class, that were centered around space, I reflect and observe how space functions as common ground for communication, storytelling, and claiming. With what words do children describe their neighborhood? How does a multilingual poem about Kypseli look like? What do street names tell us? How do we map through the birdsong of blackbirds on Fokionos Negri and Agias Zonis? What do the routes of swallows and the desert dust settling in the schoolyard mean? By drawing on interdisciplinary approaches and teaching practices, space, neighborhood, and everyday life become intertwined with the subjects taught in primary school. The examples I choose ultimately speak about the right to history and to the city: as I document the children’s perspective, I wonder what connections are formed with the past and present of a dense neighborhood with an uncertain future.

  7. Creativity as Spatial Practice: Exploring the Interplay of Space, Time, and Materials in the School Classroom

    Krystallia Kyritsi, Georgios Nikolaou

    • University of Patras
    Abstract
    Recently, there has been a growing interest in the study of creativity in education. Previous research (Kyritsi, 2018) suggests that within school settings and other collaborative learning environments, creativity is not merely an individual trait. Rather, creativity is experienced as a dynamic process that extends beyond the individual and is shaped by interactions among participants, space, learning materials, and the relationships and interdependencies that develop among them. Responding to the ‘spatial turn’ in education, this presentation offers a theoretical contribution that frames the study of creativity in education as a geographical concern. More specifically, it proposes a pedagogical approach that conceptualises creativity through the interplay of space, time, and materials. Within such a framework, space is understood as a dynamic process constituted through embodied interactions between human and non-human entities. The presentation also draws on preliminary findings from a case study conducted in two primary school classrooms in Achaia, Greece. Using semi-structured interviews and classroom observations, the study explores how children’s creativity is embodied and enacted within collaborative processes. It also examines how children interact not only with other children but also with space, time, and materials. By bridging geographical and educational theory and practice, the presentation argues that attention to the interrelationships among space, time, and materials can contribute to rethinking creativity in spatial terms, in ways that foreground embodied experience, support inclusive and participatory practices, and promote spatial justice.

  8. School differentiation, spatial dynamics and parental practices in a socioeconomically mixed neighborhood: A Case Study in Athens

    Vasiliki Soltatou, Nelli Askouni

    • National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
    Abstract
    This presentation examines how social divisions are constituted within public education by analysing the school map of a mixed urban area in central Athens. It draws on research into divergences in parental educational practices and informal school choice strategies. The study focuses on neighbouring public primary schools with different social profiles due to the uneven distribution of students in terms of ethnic and social characteristics, as well as differences related to the neighbourhood context. We argue that school differentiation at the local level is shaped by spatial variations, distinct school identities, and diverse parental educational practices. The research was conducted in an ethnically and socially heterogeneous area comprising two neighbourhoods with contrasting social and built-environment characteristics. The analysis places particular emphasis on spatial dynamics at the micro-scale: we examine the socio-demographic profile of the area, as reflected in its class and ethnic composition. As enrolment in Greek public schools is determined by residential address, the social and ethnic characteristics of the local population are consequently reflected in school populations. Moreover, we investigate the symbolic dimension of the neighbourhood. Drawing on interviews with parents, this study explores their perceptions of both the local area and the school. The findings suggest that spatial heterogeneity and differentiated school spaces (in terms of infrastructure and facilities) interact to produce diverse school contexts. At the same time, neighbourhood morphology and the profile and status of the local school activate specific forms of parental agency.

  9. Geography Education and the Educational Commons: Towards an integrated pedagogical framework

    Naya Tselepi1, Aggeliki Botonaki2

    • 1Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
    • 2University of Thessaly
    Abstract
    How can primary schools become a space where children not only learn about places, but also understand, decide for, and co-design the environments they inhabit? This paper argues that bringing Geography Education into dialogue with the Educational Commons offers a powerful pedagogical response. Grounded in critical geographies and the ‘spatial turn’, we approach Geography Education as a socio-spatial practice constituted through spatial imaginaries, relational processes, and lived experience. The Educational Commons are understood as the creation of inclusive, participatory learning spaces that challenge hierarchical and market-based models of education. In this paper, we explore an integrated pedagogical framework that combines methodologies from both fields: collaborative mapping and participatory planning from Geography Education, alongside sociocratic practices and active listening from the Educational Commons. Collaborative mapping is understood as a collective process through which learners critically engage with and re-imagine their environments, while participatory planning further extends this by positioning them as active agents and co-creators of shared spaces. Sociocratic practices -such as circle-based dialogue and decision-making by consent- combined with active listening, establish the conditions for inclusive participation, mutual care, and shared responsibility. Together, these approaches enable learners to critically engage with their environments, participate in collective decision-making, and co-design shared spaces. The paper draws on work in Greek primary education across three interconnected fields: doctoral research in human geography (University of the Aegean) and teaching in Geography Didactics (University of Thessaly), the HORIZON 2020 SMOOTH project (UTH) on educational commons in diverse educational settings and, applied participatory planning initiatives developed with schools and community partners, including the ‘Parko ton Rodon’ project, in collaboration with the Department of Planning and Development (AUTH) and the Municipality of Kalamaria. Through these examples, we propose an integrated pedagogical framework for Geography Education in primary school contexts.

  10. Tools and Practices for Spatial Exploration in Situated Critical Pedagogy

    Eirini Vallindra

    • NTUA
    Abstract
    This contribution examines methodologies drawn from the fields of critical geography and critical pedagogy, which enrich school education with tools for exploring place and understanding the situatedness of learning. Tools such as mapping practices, neighborhood walks, discussions of everyday life, and connections between place and broader historical events provide children with the opportunity to engage in an ongoing reflection on their self-in-place, through conscious, continuous practice and observation of their embodied geography. At the same time, these tools equip them with creative means to invent their own cognitive pathways, fostering personal and collective modes of learning that inherently enact their own here-and-now. Drawing on research material collected over the past eight years through outdoor teaching programs and workshops on mapping, reflection, and participatory design with elementary school students in Athens, this study offers a review of how tools and activities that move beyond the strictly structured spatiotemporal boundaries of the school curriculum create essential connections between the generalized and siloed approach to taught material and the developments in children’s lives. These connections—between the spatiotemporal micro-scale of children’s embodied experience and the theoretical framing of the school curriculum—not only enhance the learning process itself, but more importantly highlight the political dimension of education, strengthening awareness of everyday realities and revealing the power relations inherent in both the school and the broader social context of their existence. The analysis of activities that engage children with spatial concepts through the processing of their lived experiences provides valuable research directions for changes and developments in educational practices and primary education curricula, with the aim of approaching learning as a free and transformative process.