Quiet Classrooms, Educational Soundscapes, and the Power of Silence: Towards an Acoustic History of Education (Routledge Research in Education)

This highly novel book provides an exploration of the role of silence in the school setting and interrogates the value of silence and quiet in contemporary educational practices, looking at pedagogies and classroom practice to guide this increasingly popular subdiscipline of the history of education. Arguably the first contribution written in English on the educational value of silence within the history of education more broadly, this book interrogates the way in which we encounter and label sounds and noises within the classroom, and the ways in which these have come to dictate relationships between teachers and pupils in our contemporary society.The chapters investigate sociocultural reasons for a Western problematization of silence and shyness of children, and the wider impact on class participation and treatment.The issues around children’s sense of identity and teachers’ authority are explored in relation to silence as a powerful tool for a progressive understanding of learning.U