Introduction Space- and time-making in education: Towards a topological lens
Publication date
2022
Document type
Research article
Author
Organisational unit
Scopus ID
ISSN
Series or journal
European educational research journal
Peer-reviewed
✅
Part of the university bibliography
✅
Keyword
Relation
Topological methodologies
Topology
Abstract
Over the last decades, the way we think about space and time in relation to the field of education has changed substantially. New societal evolutions have urged scholars to come to grips with the increasing difficulty of approaching educational practices in terms of existing “static” (e.g. topographical) representations of space and “linear” (e.g. chronological) models of time. As a result, different lines of research have been developed that seek to extend our spatiotemporal understanding not only conceptually and theoretically, but also through novel methodologies and new kinds of empirical analyses. This Special Issue extensively discusses and further elaborates on one approach informing these lines of research: (social) topology. In this editorial, we outline the topological lens and discuss its origins in the field of mathematics. After discussing how topology was adopted in the broad field of the social sciences, we show how it has gradually come to inform educational research as well. We argue that the topological lens is particularly fruitful to investigate the (mutual) construction of space and time. Briefly discussing each contribution in the Special Issue, we show how the Special Issue contributes to the further development, and making accessible, of topology as an educational research approach.
Version
Not applicable (or unknown)
Access right on openHSU
Metadata only access