Arenas for implicit education: Looking at leftovers

Abstract

In schools and kindergartens much of education happens in "secondary places" – locations in the territory of the educational institution that are not meant for direct instruction purposes, but where all participants necessarily encounter in their daily lives. We analysed entrances, corridors and staircases from the perspective of semiotic encoding of educational values and objectives into the "secondary places", using, as evidence, ethnographic experiences from Chinese kindergartens and schools. We demonstrate that such encoding completes the fullness of cultural organisation of the environment guaranteeing the redundancy of the educational directions of the messages.

Keywords

• educational spaces
• ornaments
• China
• education
• corridors