Methodological Problems in Economic Geography

The author uses the techniques of paleogeography and archeology to trace climatic fluctuations in inner Asia and the rise of nomadism in the 1st millennium B. C. replacing a settled mode of stock herding and agriculture. Previous papers in this series appeared in Soviet Geography, June 1964 and February 1966.     

Concerns,Attitudes, and Abilities of Early-Career Geography Faculty

Professional experiences during graduate school through the first few years of an academic appointment shape patterns of work and social behavior that prefigure the long-term success of new faculty members, including prospects for tenure and promotion. We explore these experiences through interviews and surveys with a sample of early-career faculty in postsecondary American geography. Our analysis reveals that teaching is the primary source of anxiety among new professors, many of whom begin their first academic positions with little or no preparation in learning theory, course design, or pedagogy. Many new faculty members struggle to maintain healthy personal and family lives, while adjusting to unfamiliar norms of their new institutions. New professors benefit from support offered by their department chairpersons and from working in collegial environments. Among women, we found a greater sense of self-doubt about their scholarly abilities and futures despite having records comparable in accomplishment to their male peers. Many women cope with this sense of marginalization by forming supportive mentoring relationships with other women faculty on campus and through disciplinary specialty groups. Networking with colleagues on campus and at academic conferences enhances the job performance and satisfaction of all faculty members irrespective of gender. Our findings underscore the importance of examining the social, professional, and disciplinary contexts of higher education to acquire a broader understanding of faculty development. This knowledge can help departments prepare new faculty for successful and satisfying academic careers.     

The Scientific Principles of the Content of a Geography Course of the Soviet Eight-Year School

The author, a member of the Geography Department of Kursk Teachers' Institute, makes two points about the teaching of elementary-school geography in the Soviet Union: (1) The present topical approach should be replaced by a genuinely regional method; (2) physical geography should not be taught in isolation from human society, but as a condition for the development of society.     

Mathematical Training of Students in the Economic-Geography Department of Moscow University's Geography Faculty

Courses offered in the mathematics training of economic geographers at Moscow University are reviewed. A total of 350 hours, stretching over the first four years of the five-year course of study, includes two courses in mathematical principles (higher mathematics and statistics) followed by two courses that deal with particular applications in economic geography (including one on location models). A need is seen for revising the present program with a view to expanding the total number of hours to 500–600, providing more rigorous training in mathematical techniques and computer programing at an earlier stage, and leaving the actual applications to courses in economic geography proper.     

Embedding Research-Based Learning Early in the Undergraduate Geography Curriculum

This article discusses attempts to revive gender in the context of the geography curriculum at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. The reluctance of Dutch geography/-ers to embrace gender geography is related to the way in which the discipline has been understood and practised in the past and by whom as well as to the neglect of gender issues at the societal level. Both trajectories may account for a lack of awareness by students and staff of the relevance of gender to Dutch geography.     

Methodological Problems of Soviet Geography as Interpreted by Some Foreign Geographers

The author reviews writings by David Hooson, Ian Matley, and O. H. K. Spate and welcomes publicity given abroad to methodological discussion in Soviet geography. In Saushkin's view, the three Western authors concede there is no unity of geography in the West and no theoretical foundation on which such unity could be based. That is why, Saushkin feels, Western geographers are hopefully watching Soviet methodological discussions for a possible solution to their own problems.     

Pedagogical benefits of fieldwork of the students at the Faculty of Geography in the light of the Bologna Process

Students’ opinion and assessment of the quality of teaching presents an important segment of the evaluation of the quality of teaching at university level in accordance with the principles of the Bologna Process. In this study, we have examined opinion of students at the Faculty of Geography, University of Belgrade on the pedagogical benefits of fieldwork, which presents an important determinant of geographers’ education. A total of 215 students evaluated pedagogical benefits of fieldwork in relation to didactic-methodical aspects such as: immediate contact with objects of knowledge; interdisciplinary study of a problem; application of various methods of teaching; enhancement of motivation for learning; improvement of social relations, and development of skills necessary for fieldwork. Research results indicate that students recognize and positively evaluate benefits of fieldwork. Final-year students as well as students who had more days of fieldwork evaluate benefits of fieldwork in a more positive way. Research results indicate the need to improve the quality of fieldwork and increase its share in the curriculum of the Faculty of Geography in accordance with the constructivist paradigm in education, which places a student at the centre of educational process, and fundamental principles of the Bologna Process.     

Geography and the Australian Curriculum: Unfulfilled Knowledges in Secondary School Education

The introduction of geography as a separate discipline within the Australian Curriculum offers hope for revitalisation of the subject in Australian school education after decades of decline. Since the 1990s, the subject has been largely submerged within an integrated curriculum framework that has had significant consequences for the presence and character of secondary school geography. Its inclusion in the learning area of SOSE (Studies of Society and Environment) within schools has diluted the degree, breadth and depth of geographical education. However, in spite of the hope provided by its re‐institution, the process of national curriculum construction has had disconcerting consequences for the type of geography being offered to Australian students at the secondary level. Building on critical overviews of the history of secondary geography as an Australian school subject since the 1980s, recent philosophical discourse on approaches to geographical knowledge in a school context, and the author's personal experience as a geographical educator and researcher, this paper argues that the nature of knowledge embodied by the new geography study design in Years 7–10 is flawed in both its scope and its direction. While reflecting many of the characteristics of a social realist approach to geographical knowledge, the Australian Curriculum minimises the elements of critical analysis that provide geography with its unique educational identity and value.     

A Geography of Consumption and a Geography of Services

Professor Kovalev, a specialist in rural settlement, proposes the development of two new branches of economic geography in the Soviet Union that would be concerned with the study of regional differences in consumption and services. The proposal reflects the increasing concern of the Soviet party and government for raising the living standards of the population. Kovalev discusses a number of methodological problems, such as the availability of data.     

The Geography of Population and the Geography of Services

In discussing a methodology for a geography of services, a new branch of Soviet geographic research, the authors propose geographically meaningful classifications of services, the use of value and labor-input indicators, the problem of a typology of service regions, and other aspects of research in this new discipline. The geography of services is found to be closely related to population geography because of the correlation between the distribution of services and the distribution of population.     

From a Geography of Labor to a Labor Geography: Labor's Spatial Fix and theGeography of Capitalism

Mainstream neoclassical economic geography and its Marxist critique have largely failed to incorporate active conceptions of working class people in their explanations of the location of economic activities. Neoclassical approaches tend to conceive of workers simply as factors of location, whereas Marxist approaches primarily focus on how capital structures the economic landscape in its search for profit and frequently relegate labor to the status of "variable capital." Both approaches present Geographies of Labor. They have not really examined how workers try to make industrial landscapes. In contrast, I argue that workers have an interest in how the economic geography of capitalism is made; consequently, they seek to impose what we might call "labor's spatial fix" and so play an active role in the unevenly developed geography of capitalism. Examining how workers try to develop their own spatial fixes allows us to incorporate a more active sense of workers as geographical agents into understandings of the production of space under capitalism. Recognizing that workers' efforts to create "labor's spatial fix" are significant allows us to theorize how workers attempt to make space as an integral part of their social existence (a Labor Geography ) and so to write less capital-oriented economic geographies.     

Toward a Geography of American Civil Religion

The concept of civil religion has been of considerable interest to students of American culture during recent decades. Little attention has been given, however, to regional variations in the practice of American civil religion. The purpose of this study is to explore basic patterns in the popular observance of the Bicentennial, as one possible approach to understanding the geography of American civil religion. The study is based on the register of Bicentennial events compiled by the American Revolution Bicentennial Administration during 1975 and 1976. Findings indicate that the strongest commitment to public celebration of the Bicentennial occurred in a large region reaching from the western prairie states across the Great Plains into the northern Rocky Mountains. This commitment was expressed both in the region's large number of Bicentennial events and in the distinctively celebrative quality of many of those events. Civil religion's prominence in this region probably reflects several factors: the importance of religion generally in providing a sense of community in a region characterized by cultural isolation; the effect of rural and small-town conformity and the influence of a regional culture that is closely tied to the traditional mainstream of American culture.     

Surviving the First Time Through: A New Instructor's Views on Designing and Teaching Economic Geography and how Mentoring Early-Career Faculty Can Help

This article presents the reflections of a new instructor of economic geography in the USA. The author offers practical advice for designing and delivering a course for the first time. Suggestions are given in support of the view that sharing knowledge of effective teaching practices is an important component of mentoring early-career faculty. By producing and publishing practical examples of teaching materials, experienced faculty may assist novice instructors in balancing time spent on teaching and research. The author encourages economic geographers to contribute to the health of the sub-discipline by supporting new faculty in this manner.