16 Kostas Dimopoulos
universality of materials and apparatuses, deliberate avoidance of any feature that might
provide a school unit with a unique identity (e.g. logos, flags, uniforms, names, colours, and
other symbols that represent any local collective identity), and emphasis on functionality with
its associated lack of any decorative element. All these features contributed a lot to the so
called institutionalization of schools.
As Goffmann, (1961) reminds us, individuals in institutions are subject to an intense
period of de-personalization, in which they are to substitute their previous identity with a
new, institutional identity. In other ways the implication of this phase on the level of students‘
identities was to foreground their collectivity as a uniform and normalized group rather than
their individuality and variation. Furthermore, this industrial phase in the production and
reproduction of the material culture of schools tended to signify remarkable classification
between school life and community life. In figure 3, a typical example of this kind of school
is shown.
However, standardized plans and construction techniques were gradually replaced by
tailor-made designs adapted to each specific site. As a result, considerable effort has been put
so that each school built to be different, unlike the standardized models built between 1965
and 1970, which were all virtually identical.
This new phase came to serve the new policy imperatives for opening up schools to the
wider community; and to extend opportunities for learning to the whole community (CABE
2007). Later, during the nineties, this phase was further reinforced by the momentum of
sustainability as a horizontal social discourse undercutting many different domains of social
life.
According to a definition jointly provided by the British Council for School
Environments (BCSE) and the British Educational Suppliers Association (BESA)
―Sustainability means designing, constructing, operating and procuring schools in ways that
minimize harm to the environment, and, where possible, improve the landscape in ways that
encourage biodiversity. A sustainable school is also a school which supports the development
of the local community, initiatives for regeneration and the „whole child‟‖ (2006, p.7). This
type of school eliminates its distinctiveness from its local community and thus it reduces its
barriers with it. This can be realized through two main procedures.
Source: Personal archive.
Figure 3. An industrial standardized Greek high school.