Schoolscapes: A Linguistic Landscape Approach to Learning Environments

Abstract

In this chapter, we first review the evolution of schoolscape research. Based on a narrative review of academic literature, we identify the main topics, methodological solutions, and applications that emerged since the concept first developed in 2005. Beyond our focus on schoolscapes, we consider related conceptualizations such as educationscapes and other linguistic landscape expressions of educational spaces. Our research review focuses on custom-designed and adapted learning environments, including daycares, schools, universities, museums, and educational centers maintained by various organizations, with special attention to integrative approaches that contextualize such environments in a wider ecology of semiotic resources in interconnected spaces. With this ecology in mind, we showcase examples from empirical research on higher education schoolscapes to demonstrate how schoolscape research frames language and educational practices as spatialized, materialized and embodied. Finally, we draw attention to the ways select research attends to power within these schoolscapes – to challenge dominant educational norms, language policies, and methods of language education to include a variety of voices and to expand inclusive learning environments.

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