Social Inclusion · Creating Inclusive Learning Environments, Socially and Physically for all Children: An Affordance-Based Approach

Creating Inclusive Learning Environments, Socially and Physically for all Children: An Affordance-Based Approach

Title: Creating Inclusive Learning Environments, Socially and Physically for All Children: An Affordance-Based Approach 1. Introduction: “The richest and most elaborate affordances of the environment are provided by other people.” (Gibson, 1979/1986, p. 135) Many children face social exclusion daily, based on (dis)abilities, race, ethnicity, and LGBTI status, amongst others, which increases their risk of mental health problems and diminishes academic success. The way the physical environment of their school is shaped plays a role in that. Traditionally, schools have focussed on the academic subjects they teach. Yet, many children and adolescents go to school not only to learn math and grammar but also to meet friends, play, socialise, share, and discuss important matters. Therefore, in addition to academic learning, schools are also where children of all ages develop other skills crucial for healthy, successful development into adulthood, physically, mentally and socially. An urgent task of European society is to create an inclusive social environment for all children, both at school and in other urban settings where children play or spend leisure time. The key to establishing such an inclusive setting is first-hand knowledge of the outsider perspective, which problems outsiders face on a daily basis. In other words, outsider children hold crucial information on what should be addressed to create a more inclusive environment. Equally important is a holistic framework that involves all stakeholders, including those responsible for the built environment (the physical context of social interaction): architectural and urban designers, policymakers, town planners, as well as school staff (teachers, mentors, deans) and classmates. The public area in learning environments is where all social relations are agglomerated. Children meet and play in their unstructured free time e.g., school breaks (Aminpour, Bishop, & Corkery, 2020; Aminpour & Bishop, 2021). Through informal, often physical activities, children develop social and emotion-regulation skills (Veiga, de Leng, Cachuco, Ketelaar, Kok, Knobbe, Net, & Rieffe, 2017). Unfortunately, not all children have access to informal group encounters. For various reasons, many children and adolescents miss out on these vital learning opportunities on a day-to-day basis, e.g., children with barriers to communication, such as hearing loss, autism, or language disorders. These children may either spend their free time alone, outside the group process or not come to school at all. Yet to date, a few schools offer such programmes, including during time spent outside the classroom, where much social and emotional learning takes place. Quality of social inclusiveness derives from the variety of social behaviours within communities. Ecological psychology has brought the attention of designers to both the environmental and the psychological aspects of human behaviour. In particular, affordances - the opportunities for action provided by the environment - are a central notion in ecological psychology, addressing the user’s behaviour in the environment (Gibson, 1979/1986). Affordances, thus defined, are the functionally significant properties of the physical and social environment, which are established through individual-environment relationships (Heft, 1988). Affordances promote new design approaches in which user comfort and safety are a primary goal, transparently linked to both the design of the physical environment and user behaviours. However, in architecture and urban design, it is not yet clear how this concept can be applied to the built environment design and life cycle. The complementary concept of action capability, which refers to an agent’s abilities and competencies, is essential in using affordances in the built environment (Withagen, De Poel, Araujo, & Pepping, 2012). It highlights the connection between properties of the environment and agents’ ability to use those in meaningful ways. A big question, therefore, is which action capabilities relate to specific affordances of the built environment. We still have an incomplete picture of how children’s and adults' action capabilities differ from each other and which types of action capabilities should be considered. There are essential differences in visual acuity, mobility, sensory awareness, and cognition. We will clearly identify these differences to provide a solid analysis and better synthesise this study. The analysis and evaluation of built environments (school buildings, playgrounds) are based on their affordances and child’s action capabilities: a swimming pool generally affords swimming, but not to a child with chlorine allergy. Outsider children have different action capabilities: a deaf child with a Cochlear Implant (CI) cannot use the CI in the swimming pool and cannot hear what others say, which may impede socialising. Also, they may have other action capabilities that healthy children may not have, and of course, they share many action capabilities and hence affordances. Although affordances are recognised in the fields of design and architecture, there is a need to develop its practical usefulness in the different parts of the architectural design process, but we lack both concrete methods to understand users’ reciprocity to the built environment and a clear framework of the roles of affordances representation in the school design process (Mohammadi, Pepping, Saghafi, & Nadimi, 2017). As it stands, it can be challenging to see the benefit of affordance-based methods, and more work needs to be done. Otherwise, we are in danger of repeating solutions that fit other societies with different needs and structures. Making the physical design of the environment ergonomically comfortable, safe, and suitable for inclusive use and constructive social inclusion is paramount. Therefore, we have to know what affordances can do for inclusiveness in architectural design in general and then move to what is already happening in the cases and utilise the output to advance architectural design methodology to describe social issues in a built environment. We will identify children’s action capabilities and relate them to the affordances of environments, concerning three main dimensions: the physical (the design of schools), the cultural (what is customary or permissible), and the social (interaction with other users). Based on the notion of affordances, we predict that creating an inclusive learning environment involves critical nudges at key places where children play and socialise. Such nudges necessitate joint action by three relevant parties: school staff (or similar agencies for urban space and facilities) for the cultural dimension; classmates/peers for the social dimension; and designers and managers of the built environment for the physical dimension (Koutamanis, 2006); Tweed, 2001). This project aimes to achieve these specific objectives: 1) To develop empirically-based knowledge on children’s social behaviour in the open spaces of schools. 2) To develop an affordance-based intervention model for describing and designing social inclusiveness in learning environments.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union