Learning niches: school in the interaction between systems and actors, space and time. A research on South Tyrol’s abandoned small schools

Abstract

This essay analyses the complex interaction between the socio-economic and socio-cultural conditions of learning in peripheral spaces, depicting the “life stories” of some abandoned south Tyrolean small schools. In addition to using the school-theoretical approach through the analysis of the interactions between the main actors at the different organisational levels (Fend, 2006), the research highlights the conceptual models referring to the theories about dominance and supremacy (Foucault, 1992), as well as the peculiarities of the small schools and their actual positioning in confined social surroundings (Lang 2007). Therefore, the closure of small schools allows the creation of a research field, promoting a pedagogic reflection on the interaction between time, space and actors and between the different organizational forms, historically developed and designed to generate formal learning, but connected to informal contexts.