Educational scale-making

The article explores the complexities of educational scalemaking. ‘Educational scales’ are defined as the spatial and temporal orders generated as pupils and teachers move and are moved through educational systems; scales are ‘envelopes of spacetime’ into which certain schoolbased identities (and not others) can be folded. Scale is thus both an object and a means of power in educational practice. Using data from life history interviews with an elementary teacher in the USA, the article illustrates the multiplicity of scale-making processes, and raises the question of how certain scale definitions become more widely accepted and authoritative than others.