Making home as school: Construction of alternative education space at home among Chinese undergraduates in the context of COVID-19 pandemic

ABSTRACT

In the context of COVID-19 pandemic, schools from China and even in the world have carried out online teaching. Currently, online teaching has turned"future”into"reality” and created phenomenon of"taking home as school”. The existing geographical literature has paid little attention to the practices of home schooling and construction of learning space at home in the special context of the pandemic. Borrowing the concept of alternative education space from geography of education, and employing questionnaire survey and semi-structured depth interview as research methods, this paper aims to examine college students' practices and processes of place-making of home schooling during the pandemic. The tension and strategies of spatial negotiation during home schooling are unfolded. Furthermore, this paper explores students' perception of home and school after experiencing home schooling. The findings include (1) Home schooling during the pandemic is a complex process of integration between educational space and home space, which produces rich social implication that enriches the spatial meaning of educating and learning at home. (2) Construction of space of home schooling involves reconciliation between study and livelihood-making, as well as study and ordinary family activities. Among them the area and quality of learning space are closely related to economic and social conditions of family and community. Once learning practice is embedded in family daily life and space, the boundary between learning space and family space becomes blurred, which brings disturbance to home learning. (3) Students have the initiative and autonomy to construct learning space at home, and flexibly use space, time and identity strategies to interpret the spatio-temporal relationship between home space and learning space and to coordinate the identity expression of "family” and "student”. Through learning practices, home space is endowed with new educational meanings. The findings of this study enrich the current research on home space in the context of COVID-19 pandemic, echo geographers' raising concern on the construction of multiple educational space, and has great significance for understanding the relationship between education, learning practice and everyday space, as well as reflecting and supporting the needs of home schooling of different groups. © 2022, Science Press. All rights reserved.