Decentred education: suggestions for framing a socio‐spatial research agenda

This paper explores the trend towards a decentred social organization of learning that has become evident over the last 30–40 years. This is illustrated by the shifting imagery of education, from the red brick school to dispersed learning networks, or ‘learning bubbles’, that constitute new learning spaces. In the context of our large funded research project that aims to assess new learning spaces, we problematize this decentring of education and consider theoretical social and spatial resources that help us to understand this shift in the social organization of learning. We draw these insights together as suggestions for framing a socio‐spatial research agenda and the key themes that help us to interrogate decentring and the emergence of new learning spaces, how these trends are manifest in educational practices, and the implications for affective learning, learners and their life chances.