What Do Invisible Architectures in Education Imply and What Do They Entail?

What Are Invisible Architectures?

In the field of education, invisible architectures can regulate entry or access to training and studies, scholarships, or competitions in our favor or against us, whether we want or not.

Invisible architectures have diverse origins, which are based on an initial reason, a need, a constraint, a more or less understandable and logical a priori fear that gradually created a funnel effect: from then on, access that was supposed to be open to everyone beforehand is no longer so, it is filled with obstacles of all kinds discouraging those who coveted a choice of studies in a specific institution that will no longer be within their reach. And most surprisingly, this funnel effect has even been able to create itself in spite of the institution, such as; some inappropriate requested requirements, failing to adapt to the changing life demands of students and instructors.

Understanding and knowing how to decode these invisible architectures in education can be compared to seeing, finding, and understanding the organization of spider webs in the most unlikely places.  Despite the fact that these invisible architectures do imply a significant constraint, by refining our knowledge and equipping ourselves with new strategies. However, these constraints can be surmounted. 

To do this, strategies such as Myles' SOLVE (2004) cited by Africa Center shows where to fix our attention to better decode these invisible architectures:

SOLVE Strategy

What Does Invisible Architecture Entail in Education?

The effect of education on the development of an individual and the life of a collective is more powerful than we think. In the book "La France Invisible", there are many examples that show the great difficulties faced by those who are confronted with invisible architectures in all fields.

With regard to the educational sector, Laurent Ott presents and describes the situation and the consequences involved in the solitude of children from working-class neighborhoods who feel enclosed doubly within and outside of schools.

Claire Bernot-Caboche in her study on IRES states:

The existence of invisible architectures that go from the organization of an educational center to all their relationships and interactions as to the curriculum used imply avoidances, dropouts, slackness, and failures that can go beyond the framework of educational institutions and relationships since the constraints suffered do not remain on paper. The students live them intensely, making the continuation, resumption, and success of studies and the professional future of these students really complicated.

Vincent Houba, who has a site devoted to them and speaks in training sessions to better understand them, talks about them saying that the effects of these invisible architectures are particularly energy-intensive underground life that generates a number of psycho-social disorders (loss of meaning, demotivation, relational problems, stress, harassment, burn-out, absenteeism, suicides,...) and that negatively affects the very performance of the organization in question. He suggests the following ways to deal with it, or to equip oneself and see beyond appearances:

1. Returning to the hidden root of the organization's problem: identifying in the system (family, personal, professional...) the conscious or unconscious spaces or situations where the flow of life is blocked or impeded.
   
   
2. Decoding the components of the problem rather than focusing on it: in "what is wrong", what is preventing its "betterment"?
3. Stop bringing solutions to organizational problems from the outside (through external advice that will help improve a situation piecemeal but not sustainably) and instead offer access to internal individual and collective resources by offering the "experience" of transmutation.
   

Thus, it is really a question of open-mindedness, values, and outlook for the well-being of our students and our educational centers that makes sense already in the present moment and even more so in the long term.

Many answers can reveal themselves when we facilitate and have a real listening to the school experience of each one.

Image of Tanteloe on Pixabay

References:

Africa Center for Strategic Studies. URL: https://africacenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/2019-02-AMEP-MULLIS-Hidden-Curriculum-FRENCH.pdf

BEAUD, S., CONFAVREUX, J., LINDGAARD, J. La France invisible. Éditions La Découverte.
https://www.decitre.fr/livres/la-france-invisible-9782707153746.html

BERNOT-CABOCHE, C. Les jeunes "invisibles" : Ni en education, Ni en formation, Ni en emploi et Ni en accompagnement en France et en Europe. IRES. URL: https://www.ires.fr/etudes-recherches-ouvrages/etudes-des-organisations-syndicales/item/5664-les-jeunes-invisibles-ni-en-education-ni-en-formation-ni-en-emploi-et-ni-en-accompagnement-en-france-et-en-europe

HOUBA, V. Les architectures invisibles. URL: https://www.architectures-invisibles.com/

HOUBA, V. Education: Is there an ideal method? FemininBio. URL: https://www.femininbio.com/developpement-personnel/actualites-et-nouveautes/education-ya-t-il-une-methode-ideale-52070

PASSEGGI, M., LANI-BAYLE, M. - Raconter l'école: À l'écoute de vécus scolaires en Europe et au Brésil. Éditions L'Harmattan.
https://www.decitre.fr/livres/raconter-l-ecole-9782343035659.html

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