Beyond the Classroom Walls: De-encapsulation in a Change Laboratory Intervention with Adolescents

Description

In an encapsulated classroom, the school text (the knowledge conveyed by teachers and textbooks and reproduced in tests and exams) tends to become the object of the activity instead of being an instrument for understanding the world. The encapsulation of school learning is becoming increasingly dysfunctional due to two major societal transformations. These are the digital world's spread and pervasive influence that captures students' attention and the societal turmoil ranging from racism to the global climate crisis and calls for an entirely new depth and breadth of both conceptual understanding and activist involvement. In order to make sustainable progress in de-encapsulation, we need to identify, document, analyse, and foster a wide variety of actions and practices. In this study, 8th graders from two comprehensive schools in Finland worked on projects chosen and shaped by themselves, with the support of researchers during the school year. The projects were carried out in Change Laboratory interventions. We examined adolescent students’ initiated and enacted steps of breaking out of the encapsulated classroom and school. The de-encapsulation actions of the 11 student groups were analysed along three dimensions by paying attention to the individual or collective nature of the de-encapsulation efforts, the direction of the movement, as well as the composition of the movement (physical vs. imaginative and discursive movement). The findings show that we should seriously notice and nourish students' own attempts at de-encapsulation.

Period	24 Aug 2023
Held at	The European Association for Research on Learning and Instruction (EARLI)