22 Kostas Dimopoulos
perceived. Therefore, one could argue that strong framing is equivalent to users‘ (students‘)
surveillance.^8
This kind of argumentation explains why non-teaching spaces are important because they
are less formal than classrooms, are rarely the centre of attention and ̳behind the scenes‘
rather than ̳front of stage‘ (Goffman 1956) and therefore where actors feel out of the
spotlight. Moreover, they constitute elements of hidden curricula and how ̳organisations
work when no one is looking‘ (Morgan 1997, p.145).
In summary we could argue that a school environment characterized by many embedded
explicit and specific criteria of its legitimate use and proper conduct in it signifies strong
framing. Material features that might realize this perspective could be: a) color coding of all
services, b) signage, c) wall displays echoing the official voice of school^9 or d) labeling of
artifacts or of proper places these artifacts should be put or stored.
As already mentioned framing is also related to the extent students‘ vision and mobility is
controlled by the material arrangements of schooling. Visibility and spatial mobility, as
Foucault (1977) has shown, are fundamentally linked to governmentality and control.
Certain forms of knowledge and control require a narrowing of vision. The great
advantage of such tunnel vision is that it brings into very sharp focus certain limited aspects
of an otherwise far more complex and unwieldy reality. This simplification, in turn, makes
the phenomenon at the centre of the field of vision far more legible, and hence far more
susceptible to careful measurement, calculation, and manipulation. A typical example of this
narrowing and tunneling of vision is the placement of windows in classrooms. In older school
buildings windows were placed at the higher parts of the classroom walls, far beyond
students‘ eyesight level (Solomon, 1992). This was a purposeful choice so as not to allow
students‘ gaze to be distracted by irrelevant stimuli from the outside world. A similar purpose
is served by placing teacher in a central position in the classroom. This position which
usually, as we have already seen, coincides with the frontal part of the classroom plays the
role of a single focal point which aims at attracting students‘ gazes.
Apart though from the narrowing of vision, explicit control over students and thus strong
framing is also realized by material conditions which tend to restrict students‘ mobility. On
the contrary, when children‘s movements are self-regulated, school environment is
characterized by weak framing. Features of a school environment that can control students‘
mobility are: a) orientation signs^10 , b) reduced free space (e.g. students are seated in
proximity to each other with little space between chairs), c) long and narrow corridors which
(^8) According to Foucault‘s analysis of schools and other institutions one of the most effective technologies of power
rests on the Bentham‘s notion of the panopticon: the capability of surveillance of the many by the invisible
few (1977). In the panopticon, bodies are subject to a universal gaze but the inmate never knows for sure when
the gaze occurs. The so-called ―Prussian‖ school design, popular from 1873 onwards-both within and outside
Germany-and still around today constitutes a typical example of this technology. This type of school has the
top half of classroom walls glazed, to allow the headmaster to keep an eye on things (van Leeuwen,
2005).Through this technology of power rendering something noticeable appears to make it potentially
problematic and worthy of further inquiry. In a very different vein, Sacks (1972) makes a similar point: ―For
Western Societies at least, being noticeable and being deviant seem intimately related. The notion that one is
suspect whose appearance is such that he stands out, have the deepest foundations. Indeed, in Judeo-Christian
mythology, human history proper begins with the awareness of Adam and Eve, that they are observable. The
9 next bit of social information thereupon we learn is: to be observable is to be embarrassable.‖ (pp. 280).^
In many schools one can still find wall displays in the form of epigraphs, visual representations, posters or other
10 media containing dictums in the form of guidelines for proper behavior and morale.
For example in Kings Avenue Primary School Lambeth a bright colour-coding system including a continuous
yellow stripe in the studded rubber corridor flooring, provides orientation (BCSE, 2006).