This book analyses how time and space are arranged in schools, the rhythms that these arrangements produce, and how these are rooted in education policy. It argues that time and space are not inert and neutral facets of school life but are political and social factors that (re)produce inequalities through how they transform ‘resources’ into everyday activities.

The rhythms of schools are examined by leveraging the timetable as a lens, noticing how this key artefact mediates power and orchestrates time and space at multiple levels of a school. By analysing timetables as critical but under-researched artefacts, the book offers readers a novel understanding of how social and economic advantage translates into beneficial schooling experiences and outcomes, an ongoing concern for scholars and students of education policy. Practitioners and policymakers will also find concrete concepts for thinking about how to resource schools equitably and organize productive rhythms of teaching and learning in schools.

Sara Black has worked in education for nineteen years, including in special needs in the UK and as the head of mathematics in a Cape Town township high school, before moving into academia in teacher development, postgraduate teaching and education policy research. She researches issues that reproduce or amplify social inequalities, with a view to identifying and overcoming these in the education sector.