Place-related identity, texts, and

transcultural meanings

Dominic Wyse*, Maria Nikolajeva, Emma Charlton,Gabrielle Cliff Hodges, Pam Pointon and Liz TaylorUniversity of Cambridge, UK

The spatial turn has been marked by increasing interest in conceptions of space and place in

diverse areas of research. However, the important links between place and identity have received

less attention, particularly in educational research. This paper reports an 18-month research pro-

ject that aimed to develop a theory of place-related identity through the textual transactions of

reading and writing. The research was an in-depth qualitative study in two phases: the first

phase involved the development of an interdisciplinary theory of place-related identity, which

was ‘tested’ in a second empirical phase. Two contrasting primary school classes were the site

for the research that included the development of a unit of work, inspired by the book My place,

as a vehicle for exploring place-related identity. The data were interviews, classroom observa-

tions and outcomes from pupils’ work. The construct of transcultural meanings, established

from the analytic categories of localising identity, othering identity and identity as belonging,

was identified as a defining phenomenon of place-related identity. The conclusions offer reflec-

tions on the development of our initial theory as a result of the empirical work, and the implica-

tions for practice and future research.

Introduction

The spatial turn is characterised by the interpretation of space as a vital existential

force shaping lives (Soja, 2009). A central idea is that ‘where events unfold is inte-

gral to how they take shape’ (Warf & Arias, 2009, p. 10). The spatial turn has

influenced thinking about literacy and its development (cf. Leander & Sheehy,

2004), identity (cf. Newman et al., 2006), attitudes to the environment (cf.

Grunewald, 2003), attitudes to others (cf. Anderson, 2004), social justice (cf.

Comber et al., 2006), curriculum (cf. Comber & Nixon, 2008) and educational

structures (Paechter, 2004a). New understandings of globalisation in relation to

*Corresponding author. University of Cambridge, Faculty of Education, 184 Hills Road,

Cambridge, CB2 8PQ, UK. Email: bdw28@cam.ac.uk

British Educational Research Journal

Vol. 38, No. 6, December 2012, pp. 1019–1039

ISSN 0141-1926 (print)/ISSN 1469-3518 (online)/12/061019-21

� 2012 British Educational Research Association

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01411926.2011.608251

place and identity are reflected in much of this work. For example, globalisa-

tion framed as a compression of time and space (Castells, 1996; Giddens,

2002) is a phenomenon that can result in a trivialisation of place; of creating a

world in which lives occur in places that ‘could be anywhere’ (Cresswell, 2004,

p. 43).

Increased mobility through migration is one arena where spatial theory has

been applied, for example in exploring the benefits and tensions that are a fea-

ture of such migration (cf. Christou & King, 2010; Jones, 1999; Sidhu & Chris-

tie, 2006; Valentine & Sporton, 2009). These benefits and tensions are often

expressed in binaries of familiar/foreign, local/global and same/other, resulting

from a way of viewing the world that is territorial and political and a notion of

place that connects a group of people with a site. However, this diversity within

place is a socio-spatial formation that binds the local and the global, the particu-

lar and the abstract (Kostogriz & Tsolidis, 2008). While some point to the

under use of spatial theories in education (cf. Kostogriz, 2006; Paechter, 2004b;

Usher, 2002) the evolution that is part of the spatial turn has already opened

new possibilities, for example research into the ways people interpret and create

the world through reading and writing (cf. Bavidge, 2006; Leander & Rowe,

2006).

This paper reports an 18-month research project that focused on children’s

thinking about place-related identity. Following a review of key studies in the field

we outline the interdisciplinary theoretical framework that oriented the research.

The findings of the research illuminate the construct of transcultural meanings as a

defining phenomenon of place-related identity.

Place, identity and the links with texts

Early theoretical influences on our research included the idea of simultaneity of

time–place or place–time, seen, for example, as a bundle of trajectories (Massey,

2005, pp. 47, 61). Massey drew attention to the way that each living and non-

living thing, which together comprise the place, has come from somewhere and is

going to somewhere and that this can be reflected in a range of temporal and spa-

tial scales. Thus, to travel is to come into contact with many different bundles of

trajectories, each with its distinctive histories that have been changed by every

encounter (i.e., place as process). Massey recognises that spatial heterogeneity,

always involving inequalities in power, can lead to conflict. Thus place can be seen

as an event, as a ‘meeting place’ (Massey, 1994, p. 154), as ‘contact zones’

(Anderson, 2004, p. 45; Warren, 1997, p. 4), and as ‘the simultaneity of stories-

so-far’ (Massey, 2005, p. 9). Seeing place in this way emphasises the inseparability

of time and place: place and identity, like place and time, are co-constitutive

because self and place are essential to the being of the ‘other’ (Anderson & Jones,

2009; Sheehy & Leander, 2004). One effect of examining the relational and mutu-

ally constitutive context of the local and global is that the spatial ideology that

shapes understanding of different environments can become apparent (Massey,

1020 D. Wyse et al.

1994, 1995, 1998). Making the relationships between local and global apparent

opens up possibilities for negotiating different solutions for different issues in

different places.

While place and identity are linked, notions that suggest that identity is simply

reflective of place need critical attention. Communities exist without being in the

same place and multiple communities exist in each place. Thus the specificity of

place comes from being constructed out of a particular constellation of social rela-

tions, meeting and weaving together at a particular locus, positively integrating the

global and the local. In doing so the common association between penetrability

and vulnerability that makes invasions by newcomers so threatening is problema-

tised. Rather than a sense of place defined by a close connection between a singu-

lar form of identity and place, and a need for a clear sense of boundaries around a

place separating it from the world outside, place is a process, it is defined by the

outside, it is a site of multiple identities and histories and it is unique as defined

by its interactions. Reflection on all places can offer insight into the individual

power-geometries through which particular places are constructed. To understand

a place the connections between places need to be traced. A progressive, inclusive

and outward looking notion of place is also a response to how a sense of a local

place and its peculiarity can be maintained within a context of globalisation

(Massey, 2005).

Our early theoretical thinking was also shaped by relationships between texts

and readers, whether inscribed or actual (Iser, 1974). Text was defined inclusively

in expectation of printed and electronic forms with or without images. An impor-

tant idea was the transaction (Rosenblatt, 1978/1994) that is part of the ‘dialogue’

between the text and the reader. The product of this transaction, the reading, is

viewed in reader-response theories as an event in time rather than an object and

something centrally related to the identity of the reader and the context of the

reading. Following a transactional theory of reading, we took reading of texts to

mean the active engagement of a reader with any authored text through which a

new reading takes shape in the imagination as the reader’s experiences and ideas

encounter those of the text (Rosenblatt, 1938/1995, 1978/1994). Writing was seen

as a process, one where writers’ compositional choices were mediated by stimuli to

write provided by teachers within a socio-cultural context for writing such as that

described by Prior (2006).

In their edited collection Leander and Sheehy (2004) considered how literacy

practices turn spaces into places; how real and imagined geographies constrain and

enable movement outside and in-between; and how spatialities and literacies are in

a process of mutual construction. They argue that space constructs those within it

and that discursive practices are simultaneously located in space and are produc-

tive of space. Moje (2004) examined how material spaces and places are shaped

by and reflect the social, ethnic identity and literate practices of those that move

through them. Leander (2004) looked at how classroom interactions, such as the

discussion of texts, produce and are produced by historical and spatial processes.

And Sheehy (2004) drew attention to the in-between space and the tensions that

Place-related identity and texts 1021

occur between a known space and the making of a new space in order to disrupt

the spatial inscription of learners. In different ways these kinds of studies conceive

of discursive practices as spatial and temporal, and meet Hirst’s (2004) challenge

that theories of literacy need to address the connections between the construction

of social identities and the construction of national, corporate and global social

relations.

In the ‘talking spaces’ research project Leander and Rowe (2006) made con-

nections between multimodalities and the body through a rhizomatic analysis of

a pupil group presentation on Upton Sinclair’s novel The jungle. In their cri-

tique of conventional representational elements of the literacy performances,

Leander and Rowe highlight the methodological and theoretical challenges in

relation to the problem of reading space and of reading space. Reading space

summarises their move away from text/voice/performer-centred readings towards

multimodal relational analysis. Reading space involves analysis of performance as

it unfolds by imagining with the performance rather than decoding it as a

received text.

Kostogriz and Tsolidis (2008) investigated diaspora in Australia and the power

relations and tensions of inclusion and exclusion. Data were provided by pupils

who, after completing a unit of work on identity, constructed multimodal texts

about their sense of belonging. Pupils’ movement across different places and

spaces were traced through the texts, photographs, cultural artefacts and draw-

ings they provided as their self-representations. Kostogriz and Tsolidis made

sense of these representations as a transcultural scale of identification relating to

travel, communication with family abroad, learning about cultural heritage and

international pop-culture. Kostogriz and Tsolidis connected the politics of place

with the politics of literacy, promoting connections between literacy and nation-

state.

Our early theoretical ideas were augmented and synthesised in order to pro-

vide a framework for the empirical phase of the research. In summary, our

consideration of trajectories, narratives and literacy processes provided a theo-

retical frame for a research agenda (see Charlton et al. [2011] for the frame-

work and its rationale in full). The shift from the singular place-related

identity into the plural place-related identities that are an outcome of multi-

plicity suggested a grounding for our new configuration of place, identity and

text. This multiplicity seemed to emphasise dialogue between binary divisions,

such as the local and the global, presenting such binaries as mutually consti-

tuted. The mutual constitution, or complementary relationship, implied an

ongoing dialogue in which relationships were to be constantly renegotiated.

Texts could reveal place-related identities through the transactions they offered,

and the wider processes of reading and writing. Ultimately these ideas contrib-

uted to a new construct which we came to refer to as transcultural meanings, a

phrase intended to evoke the simultaneity of movement, crossings and mean-

ing-making in which we subsequently found the children in our study to be

engaged.

1022 D. Wyse et al.

Methods

The research design was an in-depth qualitative study of children’s thinking about

place-related identity. It consisted of two phases: the first phase involved

developing an interdisciplinary theoretical framework, which was to be ‘tested’ in

the second empirical phase of the research. The objectives of the research were as

follows:

1. to draw upon conceptualisations of place-related identity and theories of

reading and writing to generate a theoretical framework to be tested in an

empirical phase,

2. to analyse children’s perceptions and representations of place-related identi-

ties using their reading and writing as a stimulus and

3. to identify the ways in which children’s responses to texts and their creation

of texts revealed their place-related identities.

The work for Objective 1 drew on a methodology for interdisciplinarity. Central

to this methodology was the integration of perspectives (Moran, 2002), with

the aim to develop new theory. Theoretical perspectives from the fields of cul-

tural geography, literacy, reading and writing were blended (Repko, 2008; Rog-

ers et al., 2005) in order to develop theory on place-related identity. Our

interdisciplinary thinking included reflection on the nature of the team and their

theoretical interests and experience (Klein, 2005). The heterogeneity of the

team was represented by different theoretical and professional interests, but

interconnected through the discipline of education. The team brought knowl-

edge of primary, secondary and/or tertiary education, English literature, narra-

tology, literacy, and curriculum and pedagogy. It was recognised that true

interdisciplinarity is difficult, not least because multidisciplinarity, where multi-

ple perspectives on a problem or object are drawn upon using tools, theories

and methods from different disciplines (Rogers et al., 2005), is an easier

although still valuable outcome. Early work in bringing together disciplinary

perspectives involved a negotiation of multidisciplinarity and interdisciplinarity

in relation to the children’s text Gaffer Samson’s luck by Jill Paton Walsh (Cliff

Hodges et al., 2010).

One feature of our interdisciplinary approach was work towards a common

vocabulary to facilitate understanding of the different disciplinary perspectives

(Epstein, 2005). The main language of our common vocabulary is signified in the

words ‘place’, ‘identity’, ‘text’ and ‘literacy’; however the ‘uncommon ground’ that

is part of the meanings of this vocabulary was also important to our thinking. We

recognise difference because misunderstandings and conflicts can be productive

(Klein, 2005; Levin, 1993; Moran, 2002; Repko, 2008; Sell, 1994) and the neces-

sary creativity in interdisciplinary processes can come from ‘the transformative

effects of struggling with alien ways of thinking’ (Maza, 2006, p. 6). However, one

of the main goals of the research was to take disciplinary perspectives into a

Place-related identity and texts 1023

configuration where something new results from integration (Easterlin & Reibling,

1993; Levin, 1993; Repko, 2008; Rogers et al., 2005). As an outcome of our

interdisciplinary work this paper theorises place-related identity in particular

through the construct of transcultural meanings.

Sites and participants

Two primary schools from contrasting locations in Eastern England were selected.

The selection of schools was driven by purposive sampling, in particular the team’s

perception of the need for contrasting social, cultural and physical places in order

to explore dialogues of similarity and difference within the constitution of binary

concepts. The selection of schools also benefited from the long-term partnerships

with schools established by the Faculty of Education at the University of

Cambridge. Loftyrock Primary School had 415 pupils and a higher than average

proportion of pupils with learning difficulties and/or disabilities. It also had a

higher than average proportion of pupils eligible for free school meals. The vast

majority of pupils were of Pakistani heritage and were at various stages of learning

English as an additional language. The school site was dominated by the class-

rooms and had limited outdoor space. The upper primary pupils had rotated play-

times so they could make use of a small hard surface play area. The grounds were

surrounded by a high fence.

Willowmarsh Primary School had 140 pupils drawing from three small rural

communities. The student population was predominantly of white British heritage

although there were a small number of pupils of Asian, African and other

European heritage. The percentage of pupils eligible for free school meals was well

below average and the proportion of pupils with learning difficulties was in line

with the national average. Unlike Loftyrock, the outdoor grounds of Willowmarsh

were extensive, including an impressive woodland area with multiple paths, a

building constructed by the community, sculptures, gardens designed by the

pupils, vegetable patches, composting and chickens.

At Loftyrock a year five class with 28 pupils aged 9–10 was selected and at

Willowmarsh the group selected was a composite year five/six class with 30 pupils

aged 9–11. It was felt that older pupils in the primary school would be most likely

to benefit from the text selected to stimulate thinking about place-related identity

and associated activities. In addition to the focus on whole classes a sample of six

pupils from each of the classes was selected for more in-depth study. Three pupils

at each school were selected for whom it was thought there would be a stronger

sense of local place and three pupils were selected who had multiple experiences

of place, including having a close connection with another country. These pupils

were selected by the researcher in consultation with the teachers and the research

team.

The text, My place by Nadia Wheatley and Donna Rawlins (2008), was used to

stimulate thinking about place and identity as well as the creation of texts by the

pupils. It was chosen because its characteristic structure and content seemed likely

1024 D. Wyse et al.

to provoke thought and classroom discussion about place-related identity as spatial

and temporal, not merely locational. My place was first published in Australia in

1987 and re-released in a 20th anniversary form in 2008. It takes one house/site

and tells the story of this place from the perspective of a child living in the house,

moving in reverse chronological sequence decade by decade from 1988 back to

1788. On each double spread a different decade is represented and the story is

narrated by a new inhabitant, aged between 7 and 12. The text traces the stories

of people who lived in Australia, or who migrated to Australia at different times

and under different circumstances; thus it is about movements and journeys

through time and space. Some families remain in the house for several generations,

others for much shorter periods. While promoted as a children’s book My place

defies genre classification. Although its appearance is of a picture book for chil-

dren, the text on each page is demanding and lengthy. It has a repetitive structure

built on the physical and temporal elements more so than character and plot. In

many ways it can be seen as an information text, yet it breaches the conventions

of information texts as well.

Prior to the beginning of data collection, members of the team discussed with

the class teachers how a term of weekly lessons with a focus on the book might be

structured. These discussions also addressed the ways in which the kinds of activi-

ties might facilitate the aim of the research to analyse children’s thinking about

place-related identity. Each school was provided with a class set of My place and

suggestions for the ways this book could be drawn upon and other activities that

would be of relevance to the project. Although these suggestions were offered the

teachers made the decisions about the nature of all classroom activities carried out

during the research.

Data collection and analysis

The researcher made 10 visits to Willowmarsh and 8 visits to Loftyrock between

January and April 2010 and spent between half a day and a whole day with the

pupils on each visit. Other members of the research team visited periodically dur-

ing the data collection phase. As a result of their involvement in the research, the

schools decided to organise exchange visits that took place at the end of the aca-

demic school year. The exchange visits were documented as part of the research.

The exchanges gave the pupils, their teachers and head teachers the opportunity

to directly experience a place that contrasted with their own.

Observations of the classes and their activities were recorded as field notes for

each visit, including the school exchanges. The theoretical framework provided a

lens for the observations that was progressively focused as key themes emerged.

Field notes were augmented by audio recordings of pupils engaging with classroom

activities. Semi-structured group interviews were held with the six focus pupils

selected for more in-depth study at the beginning and end of the data collection

process. The first set of semi-structured interviews, conducted with small groups

of the pupils, focused on the pupils’ sense of place: home, school and other places

Place-related identity and texts 1025

they would go; where they identified as their place; how they felt about the local

place; how they used and moved through the local place; and whether/how they

moved beyond the local place. The second set of semi-structured interviews were

conducted individually and focused on the texts that the pupils had engaged with

and created. In addition we asked again where the pupils identified as their place

and about their sense of belonging.

The data consisted of 18 sets of field notes; 4 semi-structured group interviews

with the focus pupils at the beginning of the research; 12 semi-structured individ-

ual interviews with the focus pupils at the end of the research; 378 photographs of

texts that the pupils created; 292 photographs of the pupils participating in activi-

ties; and 32 photographs of texts produced/used in group activities. Texts that the

pupils produced included maps of ‘their place’, reading journals, family trees, tim-

elines, a ‘my place’ autobiographical text and a similar text written from the point

of view of a tree, an animal and a human in the past. The six focus pupils also

wrote two stories ‘about a place I know’. All field notes were typed and all record-

ings were transcribed.

An abductive orientation to the analysis was adopted (Atkinson & Delamont,

2005; Blaikie, 2004) that allowed for a priori theoretical ideas to be combined with

categories emerging from the data. The theoretical framework developed in the

first phase of the research directly influenced the level one codes in the coding

framework. The level one codes were as follows:

� Representations of place: references to physical and social aspects of a place.

� Locality: perception of places as local or not local.

� Familiarity: extent to which places were familiar or unfamiliar.

� Belonging: orientation as insiders and/or outsiders in relation to places

referred to.

� Othering: ways in which people were positioned as the same/different or

excluded/included.

� Time/place: changes in places over time and connections between past and

the future.

These were refined inductively as the data analysis progressed including adding

level two and level three codes.

The categorisation and analysis of data using the codes was facilitated by Hyper-

RESEARCH qualitative data analysis software. The criteria for selecting codes for

a subsequent phase of analysis (cross-code analysis) included, (1) codes with the

highest frequency of codings and (2) codes that included instances across all data

sets to enable triangulation by data (Denzin, 1970). The cross-code analysis led to

the development of the construct of transcultural meanings as a consequence of

uniting several of the main codes, particularly locality, othering and belonging.

The construct was further developed in early written drafts then subject to critical

responses from the team followed by some re-analysis to check for trustworthiness.

1026 D. Wyse et al.

Hence the findings reported below represent our new thinking grounded in the

data but are also directly informed by the critical synthesis of theory in the field

that led to our initial theoretical framework. This is explicitly evident in the con-

ceptual organisation of the findings section and the language used for the analytic

narrative. Because this represents a significant journey from the original theoretical

ideas, direct additional citation to publications is not deemed appropriate in the

findings section.

Ethics

Voluntary informed consent was gained from the pupils, who were verbally

informed of the research and their right to withdraw at any time, and written

informed consent was gained from head teachers, class teachers and the parents of

the pupils involved in the research. Interviews were conducted in English at each

school and adopted established ethical codes for working with children and young

people. Consideration was given to the possibility that some aspects of the

research could have been sensitive for some of the pupils—while all issues of iden-

tity are sensitive, those of transcultural identity are especially so. There were no

instances within the research in which participants seemed uncomfortable or dis-

tressed. The classroom activities that related to the research were integrated into

the pupils’ units of work and the texts the pupils produced for this research were

not additional to the class work they would have normally done. Teachers were

consulted at all levels of the research to ensure their comfort with the research pro-

cess. Pseudonyms were given to the pupils using the names of relatives from their

family trees in order that the pseudonyms might accurately indicate ethnicity and

gender whilst protecting the identities of the pupils. Pseudonyms were also given

to teachers and schools.

Findings

The concept of place-related identity was represented, in the most fundamental

way, by the trajectories of individual pupils’ stories of their lives. For example

Kate, a child from Willowmarsh, said that her family were traceable in the local

area back to the 1600s. She talked about associations with the local: ‘It’s actually

sort of special because it’s where all my family’s been and if I move it’s going to

like change everything, because it’s like from 1609 to 2010, and if I moved to like

London, that’s just going to break it I suppose’. By contrast, Dora, from

Loftyrock, revealed multiple associations with place. Her parents had moved from

East Timor to Portugal, where Dora was later born. When Dora was five years old

her family moved to England. Asked where she saw herself as being from, Dora

talked about both Portugal and East Timor, although she had never been to East

Timor. Throughout the research Dora raised the topic of East Timor regularly,

claiming it as her place and rejecting England as her place, despite having resided

in England for almost half of her life.

Place-related identity and texts 1027

The individual stories that were a contrast between local and not local, such as

those of Kate and Dora, were one powerful aspect of the data. However, the anal-

ysis also focused on the ways that pupils described and represented identities more

generally. The code with the highest frequency was representations of place. In

particular, the pupils’ descriptions referred to physical and social elements, for

example through the concept of play. Where they played, how they played and

what they did in their free time provided a grounding for their understandings of

place-related identities. The pupils’ physical representations of their place were ori-

ented around shops and school; their social representations through family and

religion. This emerged in maps that the pupils drew where they included the

houses of friends, shops and fields for playing sports. For example, Callum

included the football field (Figure 1), and Nadia’s map (Figure 2) reveals the con-

stellations of her place as home, mosque, school and shops. These static places

were contrasted with ideas of movement, including routes across local, regional

and international locations that were a feature of the pupils’ thinking about place

and their identities. Callum’s map illustrates local and regional pathways such as

indicating the way to the next village and city.1

Another code with a particularly high frequency was locality, characterised by

the shifting associations between local and not local. These ideas, which touched

on local, regional, international and global aspects (overlapping with the pupils’

representations of place as movement), were directly reflected by the pupils’ own

Figure 1. Callum’s map of his place (Willowmarsh)

1028 D. Wyse et al.

thoughts but also, importantly, were mediated by a range of influences, in particu-

lar the views of members of their families. The pupils’ sense of locality was often a

singular place, perhaps called home, but regularly the sense was plural, depicting

homes in different places including in countries other than England. The experi-

ence of different places was regularly used in defining what a particular place was,

by saying what it was not.

Although representations of place and locality had separate meanings, these and

other significant categories in the data were most powerfully understood through

the construct of transcultural meanings. The construct, which emerged as part of

the cross-code analysis, is characterised not only by the antithetical thinking of

local/not local, same/other and outsider/insider but also by the relationships

between these binary positions that were renegotiated by the pupils through dia-

logues (oral and/or conceptual) of similarities and differences. The following sec-

tions explore the nature of this construct of transcultural meanings as revealed in

the data.

Transcultural meanings

Localising identity

The pupils’ reflections often took their locality as a starting point in their position-

ing of other places and people as foreign: strong links were made between the

Figure 2. Nadia’s map of her place (Loftyrock)

Place-related identity and texts 1029

pupils’ lived experience of the local compared with non-local places stimulated by

My place. Santander and Callum, both from Willowmarsh, connected in this way

with aspects of the picture book. Santander’s favourite page was 1828,2 which

featured a pig, ‘Because I like pigs, because when I used to live in Colombia I

lived on a farm. . .we had cows and goat and pigs, and I most liked the pigs’. Cal-

lum’s favourite page was, ‘the farming bit.. . .Because I work on a farm’, but he

said that the character’s clothes ‘don’t connect to me in any way’. Responding to

Sofia, the book’s child narrator for 1968, who observed, ‘There are more people

in the street now because of the flats, but they don’t seem to have any kids’, the

pupils at Willowmarsh talked about the housing in the town depicted in My place

in contrast to their own village, which did not have flats, and discussed why there

might be fewer children in flats. One of the features that engendered a strong reac-

tion from the pupils was stimulated by the 1788 page, the penultimate page show-

ing Australian indigenous people naked on the beach. Kate commented, ‘They

didn’t have no clothes. That’s weird. I like clothes. I’m a shopaholic’. Idriss, from

Loftyrock, suggested that it could not have happened today because ‘you’d get a

ticket. . .for public nudity’. Thus in making their readings of the text, connections

were made between the local and the not local in ways that represented a dialogue

of similarities and differences.

At both schools the pupils talked about their expectations prior to the school

exchange visits: at first this thinking was dominated by the physical aspects. When

predicting what they might experience at the urban school the pupils at Willow-

marsh talked about expecting more concrete, shops, cars, classrooms and children

and fewer play areas, less grass and greenery. At Loftyrock the pupils talked about

expecting more space at Willowmarsh and fewer children, as well as aspects of the

local environment such as fields, crops, trees, farms, tractors and animals. As

Alice from Willowmarsh commented, children also had different expectations of

Loftyrock: ‘I expect it’s got not a lot of wildlife, and not a lot of trees because of

all the roads and cars and pollution’. Going beyond the physical aspects of the

places, Tim and Blake wondered if the children at Loftyrock would celebrate Hal-

loween, have a May fair and celebrate the world cup and discussed how children

might get home from school–whether they walked, rode bicycles, used buses or

parents picked them up. They were curious about homes and whether the chil-

dren from Loftyrock lived in flats, houses, attached houses or apartments. These

initial ideas involved contrasting their local place with their perceptions of some-

where not local. The boys questioned what the local for the children at Loftyrock

might be in the context of their classroom work, a conversation that moved into

countries of origin.

Tim: Would they learn different things to us, would they learn about cities or would

they learn about

Blake: The [their regional area].

Tim: Yeah. Would they learn about where they live or where other people live?

Would they have an attached school from a different country?

1030 D. Wyse et al.

Blake: Well they are basically; they live in England but they come from a different

country.

Tim: Yeah.

The final part of this conversation, in which Blake suggests that the children from

Loftyrock would have less need to ally with schools in other places because the

children in Loftyrock already have connections with places beyond the local, sug-

gests a lack of belonging, perhaps that England is not their place.

Ibrar was one of the case study pupils who exhibited a strong sense of local

place. He talked about his city as his favourite place and wrote about it in his first

‘about a place I know’ story, talking about it as a ‘sweet home’, ‘a place I know’

and where ‘I have everything’. A dialogue of locality emerged in his ‘my place’

autobiographical text where Ibrar wrote about not wanting to leave the city to go

to Pakistan: ‘I say to my family I don’t want to leave’. This element of being torn

between places and of rejecting multiple place-related identities in lieu of a singu-

lar place-related identity, emerged very clearly at the end of his autobiographical

Figure 3. Ibrar’s ‘my place’ autobiographical draft

Place-related identity and texts 1031

text when Ibrar wrote: ‘And my reliogon religoen countrys name is paki pakistan

and I live in England and I follow Islam Bye and my dad got Audi A6’ (The

complete text is included in Figure 3).

The writing and then crossing out of Pakistan was indicative of the tensions in

Ibrar’s thinking. During the exchange visit to Willowmarsh, Kyle and Ben asked

Ibrar and Said whether they spoke languages other than English. In response Ibrar

commented, ‘I speak English ’cause I don’t know that much Urdu’. This comment

offered further evidence about Ibrar’s claim to an English identity. In asking the

question Kyle and Ben revealed preconceptions about pupils who appear to have

multiple place-related identities, yet also opened up this preconception to dialogue

and possible disruption.

The exchanges encouraged dialogues of locality in other ways as well. On the

bus journey to Willowmarsh the researcher, sitting next to Ibrar, commented

about the bumpiness of the road. Ibrar responded by saying that it was like driving

in Pakistan with his father and attributed the bounciness to poor truck suspension.

Later, while walking along a road near farms, Nazia was recorded commenting

that, ‘It smells of Pakistan’. These pupils made connections between places

beyond England and places within England that enabled them to bring the inter-

national into their immediate experience and thus they were able to problematise

the positioning of other places and people as foreign. During the exchange visit to

Loftyrock, Ben from Willowmarsh asked Azar from Loftyrock, ‘Where are you

from? India?’ to which Azar responded, ‘England’. And Ben responded, ‘Oh’. In

asking the question Ben inferred that England was not Azar’s place. But Azar did

not hesitate in claiming England as his place.

Othering identity

In the first interview at Loftyrock, Dora, Darina and Nadia made connections

between place, religion and identity. The identities of English Christian and

English Muslim were explored. The following conversation occurred at the end of

the first interview with the girls from Loftyrock when the researcher asked if there

was anything else they would like to say. While Dora made the comment first, all

three girls made a connection between birthplace and religion and as a result the

researcher asked:

Researcher: So when you say ‘where you’re born is your religion’, what do you mean?

Do you have a religion?

Dora: I’m Christian.

Darina: Catholic.

Nadia: I’m a Muslim.

Researcher: So your place relates to your religion, but not everybody in the same place

has the same religion do they?

Dora: Like Nadia, like Nadia meant to be a Christian but she’s a Muslim, ’cause

she’s born in England.

1032 D. Wyse et al.

Researcher: But not everybody born in England is Christian. Some people are not are

they?

Darina: Some people in my country, we’re not all Catholic, some people are Chris-

tian, some people are Catholic, some people are different.

Dora: My dad said it’s not about where they came from it’s about most of their

religion, it’s part of them.

During the conversation Dora’s thinking moved from her sense that being born in

England is strongly linked with being a Christian, to acknowledging the identity of

being a Muslim born in England. Religion as a marker of identity was an impor-

tant aspect of transcultural meanings. As an example of pupils thinking about reli-

gious differences, Falak and Darina, on an excursion from Loftyrock to a

museum, discussed the differences between their gods, which Darina expressed as

‘Your God and our Jesus’. They also talked about Christmas and the purpose of

religion, agreeing that it was to ensure that ‘nothing bad will happen’. Then, after

asking if she’d like to hear it, Falak recited part of the Qur’an to Darina. While

having different religious views and practices these girls were able to find common

ground.

Religion through dialogue of similarities and differences also emerged at Willow-

marsh. During a group work lesson in which the pupils were creating dioramas

about their local place in the past, Daryl’s preconceptions were challenged by Sim-

reet. It began with Simreet’s response to Daryl mistakenly calling her Shereen, the

other Indian heritage student in the class:

Simreet: By the way, Daryl, my name’s Simreet, not Shereen.

Daryl: Yeah, you’re the same religion. Oh no, she’s aMuslim and you’re Sikh aren’t ya.

Simreet: Yeah.

Daryl: How comes you can speak English then?

Simreet: Me?

Daryl: Yeah.

Simreet: ’Cause I went to play group, and they taught me how me how to speak Eng-

lish. You know when babies first start, that was how I learnt. My mum had to

stay at home when I was at playgroup, until

Daryl: Until she spoke English?

Simreet: Yeah. My mum actually had to tell me what it was she was saying in our lan-

guage.

Daryl’s mistake with his peer’s name was unusual as children and teachers are nor-

mally familiar with each other’s names by this time in the school year. Before he

corrected himself, by way of explanation for his mistake, Daryl initially tried to

suggest that this was because Simreet and Shereen were similar by religion. But

then he implied a link between ethnic background and the speaking of English.

Simreet’s answer strongly located the learning of English in the place of her play

group and gave an example of how language in some senses imprisoned her

mother, an example that related to Daryl’s concept of identity and spoken English.

Place-related identity and texts 1033

The notion of home as a comfortable haven is perhaps challenged by Simreet’s

mother’s experience. Daryl’s notions of sameness were renegotiated through

Simreet’s account of otherness.

Finally, in what is a particularly poignant example, Idriss made a comment

during the whole-group reflection that was a part of the school exchange when

Loftyrock pupils visited Willowmarsh. Responding to the Willowmarsh head

teacher’s question of what was different than expected, Idriss stated, ‘I thought it

would be like a small school with like a miserable head teacher and everybody was

sad and it was small, like it’s dark everywhere, but really it’s nice and happy with

a jolly head teacher’. Later, talking to his head teacher, Idriss commented that, ‘I

thought they’d be racist.. . .Because white children who I meet are’. Questioning

revealed that Idriss had had a negative experience in year two on a school excur-

sion, leading him to the belief that white children are racist, a belief that was chal-

lenged by the exchange with Willowmarsh.

Identity as belonging

During a literacy lesson at Willowmarsh the class were reading a page from My

place in which the child protagonist, a Greek boy called Mike, mentions his

Grandmother, Yaya, who only speaks Greek (1978). He said, ‘I don’t speak very

much Greek, but I kind of always understand what she’s saying’. The teaching

assistant who was working with the pupils drew a parallel between the fictional

Mike and Maria (a child in the class) who, upon arrival at Willowmarsh from

Romania the previous year, had not been able to speak English. Maria’s experi-

ence was also drawn upon in relation to Mike’s mother, who in 1968 felt left out

when she first started dating Mike’s father because she didn’t speak Greek and his

whole family did. Maria was initially an outsider, marked particularly by her inabil-

ity to communicate in the dominant language of English. The experience of Maria

joining the class and her peers’ response enabled the pupils, prompted by the

teaching assistant, to make a connection between the outside of the foreign coun-

try depicted in My place, Maria’s outsider status and their insider perspectives.

In their writing ‘about a place I know’, Dora (Loftyrock) and Maria and

Santander (Willowmarsh) included depictions of migration and the links with lan-

guage. Dora wrote about her move from Portugal to England and, in particular,

about not wanting to move to England and being nervous about starting school.

She wrote:

In 2006 I went to England because my dad needed a job, I did not want to go to Eng-

land because I would miss all my friends. In 2006 in November I went to school, start-

ing in year 1. I started to cry because I was nervous and did not know what to do.

Dora’s depiction reflects being an insider in Portugal, where she had friends, and

being an outsider in England who ‘did not know what to do’. Santander similarly

wrote of his move to England. Although he came from Columbia, Santander

pointed to similar feelings of fear. He wrote, ‘When I got to England I was

1034 D. Wyse et al.

scared because I didn’t know English.. . .I had two friends but I didn’t play with

them a lot because I didn’t know English’. And Maria, in her story titled, ‘My

trip to England’, wrote of being an insider in Romania with many friends and

people that she knew, and feeling sad about leaving them, and then arriving in

England where, ‘I went to school, I didn’t know nothing, by nothing I mean

English’. The emotions that are part of this dialogue of belonging were power-

fully described by Maria:

but after one week or three week I started to get better and better it was fun then, then

I started to make lots of friends I felt like I was in heaven, I was so happy the next

thing that I knew I loved writing, I started to get faster and faster, it was very cool then

and today my life gets better and better.

Outsider and insider perspectives that had been revealed through the pupils’

expectations prior to the school exchanges were renegotiated as part of the

activities during the visits. For example, when the Loftyrock pupils were at

Willowmarsh, as part of an outdoor orienteering activity, they were supported by

Willowmarsh pupils. At Loftyrock there were similar experiences for the Willow-

marsh pupils when they went shopping in the local British-Asian stores for cloth

and fruit. For example, Julia found some of the fruit unrecognisable and she asked

Loftyrock pupils Maria and Zainab what it was. And the Willowmarsh head tea-

cher recounted her observation of Dale who had been looking at a large bag of rice

in the shop. She had asked him what it was and he had said, ‘animal feed’; he was

making sense of the size of things in terms of what he had seen before.

We have shown the construct of transcultural meanings in its complexity

through our analysis of the data that included pupils’ creations of texts, engage-

ment with texts and engagements with others (e.g. as part of the school

exchanges). To conclude we provide a more succinct account and reflect on some

of the limitations of our initial theoretical position.

Discussion and conclusion

The trajectories of life stories in relation to children’s personally meaningful

places is fundamental, as are the static representations of place that interact with

ideas of movement across geographical zones, grounded in shifting associations

between local and other places. The construct of transcultural meanings is a

defining phenomenon of place-related identity. The transcultural meanings are

perceptual, created by children from their individual experiences and through

their interactions, both social and physical: as in other aspects of their lives chil-

dren act as meaning-makers. The construct explains children’s place-related iden-

tity as forged from complex links between their perceptions of locality, identity

and belonging: locality represents the physicality of ‘sweet’ home and identifica-

tion with places; identity is othered through religion, denomination, race and

nation; belonging is subject to the negotiation of insider and outsider perspec-

tives. This theory of place-related identity perhaps makes a contribution to

Place-related identity and texts 1035

‘learning theory that is expansive enough to fill the geographies and mobilities of

children’s actual lives’ (Leander, Phillips & Taylor, 2010, p. 381), in particular

through our focus on children’s perceptions.

The testing of our theoretical framework resulted in findings that confirmed,

refuted, complicated and developed our theory. The refutation and complication

reflect our acknowledgement of the limitations of the initial theory. The plurality

and multiplicity of place-related identity was confirmed as the construct of trans-

cultural meanings. Binary divisions were evident, but not in continua from, for

example local to global, but in oppositional positions in relation to ideas such as

home. Our idea of mutual constitution of such binary divisions turned out to be

too simplistic as ongoing dialogues were characterised by incursion into multiple

oppositions. Text transactions were a powerful site for revelation of place-related

identity and, although the processes of reading and writing were vehicles to inspire

thinking about place-related identity, they were not the focus of analysis in their

own right. To a certain extent this may reflect the limits of time for analysis that is

a feature of any research project.

The research was grounded in the practice of two classrooms, yet providing

implications for practice is not straightforward. My place proved to be a rich

stimulus for thinking about place and place-related identities; however, due to

time constraints, and lack of familiarity with the text and its unique style, read-

ing of the text was sometimes superficial. On the other hand the school

exchanges were a rich opportunity for the pupils to learn. These instances were

highly valued by the staff and pupils at Willowmarsh and Loftyrock. As trans-

cultural meanings are constructed from social milieux there is potential for con-

tinual development of place-related identity, development in which teachers and

schools can play a constructive role.

The serendipity of the idea of school exchange was significant for the research.

The exchanges were physical and practical, but also were a cognitive and intellec-

tual consolidation and extension of the pupils’ constructions of their place-related

identities. The pupils’ exploration of place-related identities perhaps naturally led

to the exchanges. These encounters added to the trajectories of the places through

the pupils’ real-life experience of space and time. What we learned from observing

the pupils during the school exchanges was a consequence of their new thinking.

Possible and actual worlds centred on the meeting place, which portrayed the

shifts in pupils’ thinking about their place-related identities.

Our work suggests a number of possibilities for future research. Pedagogy,

the processes of reading and writing and the place of narrative theory all offer

possibilities for extension of our analysis. Of particular interest were the ways

that our methodology of interdisciplinarity linked with the teachers’ engagement

with the cross-curricularity that was a feature of the classroom work with My

place. Exploring interdisciplinarity and the links with teachers’ thinking about

cross-curricularity in the context of classroom work on place-related identity has

the potential to enhance understanding of pedagogy and curriculum theory.

1036 D. Wyse et al.

Notes

1. Labels have been added to Callum and Nadia’s maps to preserve anonymity.

2. My place does not have page numbers. Pages are represented by the labelling of

each page with a year.

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