Utopian Spaces of 'Robust Hope': The architecture and nature of progressive learning environments

Source: Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, Volume 35, Issue 3 August 2007 , pages 243 - 255

Utopianism, which is a distinctive vocabulary of hope, teaches us that society, including its physical sites of social and political practice, are both imagined and made and that we can accordingly believe they can be reimagined and remade. This paper exemplifies how exercises of the utopian imagination within teacher education curricula are able to do just that for teachers wishing initially to imagine and subsequently to realise progressive learning environments which privilege human agency, collective action, sustainability, community and equity, which together constitute the values said to underpin "robust hope".