Henri Lefebvre and Education

Sue Middleton is Emeritus Professor of Education in the Faculty of Education at the University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand.

• 1. Overview: Henri Lefebvre and Education  2. Production of Space: Labouring Families in a New Colony, 1841-45  3. Everyday Life: ‘New Education’ Activists, 1928-48  4. Dwelling: Sylvia Ashton-Warner at Home and School, 1939-59  5. The Rhythmanalyst: Doctoral Students, 1968-1998  6. The Bureaucratic State: Teacher Educators, 1989 – 2013  7. Conclusion: Lefebvre as Educational Theorist

"The book is a fitting, and important, contribution from an educational historian with geographical roots. As a hybrid educationalist/ geographer myself, I valued Sue Middleton’s carefully assembled interplay between Lefebvre’s concepts and her own insightful spatial history of educational theories in Aotearoa. I learnt a great deal about Lefebvre and education in Aotearoa. Ideas travel, as the chapter on ‘New Education Fellowship’ showed so effectively, and I was recommending the book near and far before I had finished. In straddling the education and geography disciplines,this book is a significant contribution to both, and offers an important guide to other disciplines engaging with critical geography and the spatial turn." - Karen Nairn,University of Otago, New Zealand Geographer"this is a worthwhile book for education researchers in all our many fields. Middleton’s dexterous application of Lefebvre’s ideas shows the range of education inquiries they can be applied to. Throughout, I noticed myself wanting to read original (in translation) Lefebvre texts: specifically, I am resolved to lay my hands on The explosion (written in 1969 in response to the French university student uprisings in 1968) as background reading for a new course on ‘the idea of the university student’. I also found myself garnering helpful insights for a new research project, an ethnographyof academic work. In particular, I am intrigued by the methodology of rhythmanalysis, which encouraged me to trace Lefebvre’s commitment to noticing daily life as comprehensive (cited on page 175) – as an ‘intrication of time and space’ (p. 18) and an interplay between micro- and macro-processes. Opportunities to think anew about our work as teachers and researchers should always be welcome: in writing Henri Lefebvre and education, Sue Middleton offersone such rich occasion." - Barbara M. Grant,The University of Auckland, Higher Education Research & Development"The book in particular is a must read for both researchers and graduates on Master’s and doctoral degrees in educational studies, but also anyone interested in educational, as well as feminist, inquiry. However, with its accessible style and methodological richness, it is also an important text within social sciences more widely aswell as those interested in geography. Furthermore, this book would also be useful for third-year undergraduate students embarking on a dissertation in the social sciences. It would provide such students with an excellent example of howto analyse archival data within a theoretical framework." - Dave Cudworth, De Montfort University, Gender and Education"The book has been carefully crafted by an experienced academic researcher and teacher. It draws on extensive and multi-sited archival and ethnographic research, thus bringing together two very interesting methodological approaches that are on the rise in social sciences today, but still in need of further exploration. The way the author analyses documents of life, such as letters within a sociological frame of reference is also unique and valuable in current debates in the social sciences. Sue Middleton is of course an internationally well known and widely published feminist academic in critical studies in education, particularly so in gender, historical, discourse and narrative analyses, while her specific background and scholarship in geography constitute a solid academic background for the production of this book within an overall interdisciplinary context. But although rigorous and theoretically rich, the book is fully accessible by a wider audience not necessarily versed in space theory of Lefebvre. I therefore think that apart from its contribution to the existing body of scholarship, the book can also become a strong recommended reading not only for researchers and graduate students on master and doctoral degrees, in educational studies and the social sciences more widely, but also for 3rd level undergraduate students in human and critical geography courses." - Maria Tamboukou, University of East London, WS Forum"Henri Lefebvre and Education does make a significant contribution to the history of education with its transnational and theorised appraisals of a range of dispersed historical episodes. It provides, indeed, a shining example of a transnational agenda. Its understanding of historical context is also well grounded. Moreover, its deployment of a number of types of historical source material, including archival, literary and interview-based data, is measured, sensitive and generally impressive." - Gary McCulloch, UCL Institute of Education, The History of Education"I would recommend this book to educational theorists, researchers and policy-makers. Middleton has made a unique contribution to our understanding of how Lefebvre’s work is relevant to the field of education and its many intersections with other disciplines like history, geography, sociology and philosophy." - Catherine Manathunga, Victoria University, Melbourne, Australia"I was energized by every one of these chapters so it is difficult to isolate just one for attention. However, given that I have read and reflected so much on the changes in universities which have occurred as a result of national research evaluation measures, and expect the equivalent is true for much of the readership of Gender, Place and Culture, the chapter which focuses on these changes from the perspective of New Zealand faculty of education staff is perhaps particularly worthy of attention." - Barbara Pini, Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia