Semiotics

Signifying the Transition from Modern to Post-Modern Schooling... 27

placement and thus it is highly likely to attract students‘ gaze. Finally, the closed

shutters in the far left hand corner (just below air conditioning machine) do not allow

students to have visual contact with the outside environment (only some attenuated

sun rays are let into the classroom).

e) Similar high levels of control also exist as far as students‘ mobility is concerned. The

classroom is overcrowded with desks so that there is littke space left for students to

move around. In reality the narrow corridors formed between the rows of desks

constitute the only space allowing students to freely move.

f) The material culture of this particular classroom does present significant

differentiations implying differential social status between teachers and students.

Specifically, all the students are seated in similar desks, share a uniform school dress

code, and are allocated an equal small amount of space. On the contrary the missing

(but easily imagined in the front part of this classroom teacher) must at least have

more space allocated to him/her and must be differentiated by his/her students by

having a personal (not uniform) dress code.

Case study 5: Analyzing the material culture of a classroom characterized by weak
framing
In sharp contrast with the classroom of the previous case study, the material culture of the
classroom represented in Figure 9 clearly implies weak framing.

Source: Personal archive.

Figure 9. A classroom characterized by weak framing.

The features that contribute the most in the weakening of framing in this case are:

a) There does not seem to be any obvious or easily recognizable criteria of space use in

this classroom. Specifically, there are no features directing students‘ behavior in

preferred ways. This is possibly the reason that in this particular depiction students

seem to be seated in a rather arbitrary way.