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.     

Renewing the purpose of geography education: Eco-anxiety,powerful knowledge,and pathways for transformation

Concerns about the decline in uptake of secondary geography education continue despite arguments supporting the value of geography education, the power of geographical thinking, and geography’s critical role in preparing students to deal with complex challenges. Already constrained by neoliberal politics of disadvantage, young people must plan and prepare for chaotic futures. Consequently, young people are becoming distressed and worried about their futures and feeling powerless as society fails to adequately address these issues. In this article, we ask what schools and universities can do as place-based public institutions to serve young people to effectively respond to eco-anxiety and build capacities to surf the unrelenting waves of change. We draw on journeys that brought three young doctoral candidates to study geography. From their stories, we sketch what a geographical education could offer in terms of relevance, practicality, and engagement with transformative system change. We think that under current world conditions, this is a moment to revive geography education and give it renewed purpose to encourage young people to develop skills and competences to tackle wicked problems.     

Basic Problems of Middle-School Geography Education in the USSR

The author finds geography education neglected because educators lack a proper understanding of the role that can be played by geographic knowledge. He criticizes the present structure of geography courses as being excessively factual and encyclopedic, ignoring general concepts and failing to instill in students an ability to think for themselves in geographic terms. A new sequence of geography courses with improved content and methodology is proposed.     

-graphy: The Remains of a British Discipline

Within Britain, geography as a discipline has been criticized recently for failing either to add to or teach knowledge about the world at large. Instead it has concentrated first at university and then in schools on spatial social science, with examples drawn overwhelmingly from the white Western world. The recent history of geography is reviewed to see why this should be the case. The end of regional integration, the end of the idiographic, and the divorce of physical and human geography are lamented. The ignorance of current students regarding world affairs is demonstrated. Wider influences on these trends such as the end of empire are discussed. The plight of other academic attempts to understand overseas cultures, such as area studies, is also examined. The paper concludes that for the sake of our social responsibility to education in its broadest sense, as much as for the sake of our disciplinary vested interests, we have to reinvest in integrating physical and human geography in regional settings, as our part of academe's response to the threat to area studies.     

Bilingualism and geographical knowledge: A case study of students at the University of Wales,Aberystwyth

This paper explores the role of languages in the constitution of geographical knowledge. We argue that the fact that people speak different languages is significant to the ways in which they engage with geography as a subject. We unpack some of the processes through which languages make a difference to geography through an empirical project based on students at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, where geography is taught bilingually through Welsh and English. Student geography is a particularly interesting arena to further this theme, because of students' mediating role in translating professional geography into the popular sphere, which in the case of students at Aberystwyth is also a different linguistic sphere. Our empirical work suggests that the use of Welsh creates a particular linguistic culture of geography, because of the shared experience of specific practices and politics in bilingual education. This makes a difference to the kinds of geography consumed and produced by bilingual students. Through a discussion of the linguistic identity of Welsh geography, we address some of the implications and limitations of this social formation. We conclude by arguing that a focus on language has the potential to open up new ways of talking about geography.     

The Relationship Between Teaching and Research in Australian Geography

This paper considers how higher education geography is a discipline that can make a significant contribution to addressing inequality and engaging with the agenda for social change. It adopts the view that the teaching of geography can promote social transformation through the development of knowledge, skills and values in students that encourage social justice and equity. The paper explores how teaching about social transformation is closely interlinked with teaching for social transformation and considers some of the pedagogical approaches that might be used to achieve these. It considers how the lack of diversity of higher education geography teachers impacts on these issues before moving on to consider how the nature of different higher education systems supports or constrains geographers' abilities to teach for social transformation. Finally, the paper ends by asking individuals and geography departments to consider their commitment to teaching for social transformation.     

我国中学人文——经济地理教育的演变

本文由以下五个方面阐述了我国中学人文-经济地理教育的演变:1.课程设置的变化;2.人地关系理论思维的转变;3.知识结构的变化;4.思想品德教育的深化:5.教学思想的转变。主要变化是课程设置不单独开设人文-经济地理课程,而将其内容与自然地理综合到区域地理和系统地理之中,以人地关系协调论的观点指导课程和教材;以环境、资源、人口问题为中心组织区域地理和系统地理的教学内容,加强爱国主义、国情教育、国际意识、环境意识、全球观念的思想教育;注意发展学生的智力和能力。     

How and why we should encourage undergraduate geography students to participate in the Erasmus programme

Studying or working abroad during the course of an undergraduate degree has been associated with many positive outcomes and benefits. Despite this, there is scant literature on the role higher education institution (HEIs) play in encouraging outgoing student mobility. There is subsequently limited practical guidance for individuals within HEIs wishing to increase student participation in mobility programmes. Using evidence from the existing literature, and primary research conducted for a PhD study, this paper addresses this gap and offers guidance for encouraging students' participation in the European region action scheme for the mobility of university students (Erasmus). This paper focuses on the mobility of geography students who underperform in terms of participation in the Erasmus programme.     

Searching for good practice in postgraduate education

Regional geography courses have declined in status and number at many North American universities. Yet it is regional courses which students with limited geographical education at the high school level may identify as typical geography, and thus regional courses may play a significant role in recruitment of geography majors. Regional courses on the students' country or state/province offer an excellent opportunity to showcase how geographic perspectives can enrich our understanding of the familiar, both in terms of place and discipline. This paper discusses the pivotal role a regional geography course has been given in a new university's geography curriculum, and the innovative structuring of the course so as to avoid some of the deficiencies of common instructional patterns which may deter some students from pursuing further geographic education.     

Educating geographers in Spain: geography teaching renewal by implementing the European Higher Education Area

This article discusses the current state of the geography discipline in Spanish Universities after putting into action the European Higher Education Area. After decades of geography teaching, following theoretical and expository discourse models, the so-called Bologna Process has been a great opportunity to reflect what geography should be taught, how geography should be taught and why geography should be taught. Aspects such as competences, employability, learning methodologies, assessment, Geographical Information Systems domain have been incorporated into the renewal of geography teaching in Spanish higher education, which has contributed to the strengthening of geography in a context of geospatial technologies revolution and public awareness of spatial challenges.     

Please mind the gap: students' perspectives of the transition in academic skills between A-level and degree-level geography

This paper explores first-year undergraduates' perceptions of the transition from studying geography at pre-university level to studying for a degree. This move is the largest step students make in their education, and the debate about it in the UK has been reignited due to the government's planned changes to A-level geography. However, missing from most of this debate is an appreciation of the way in which geography students themselves perceive their transition to university. This paper begins to rectify this absence. Using student insights, we show that their main concern is acquiring the higher level skills required for university learning.     

After the graduation ceremony: Some thoughts on geography graduate careers

Abstract

An increase in the level of concern with geography graduate careers is needed. Geographers in higher education should undertake fuller and more detailed analysis of career patterns so that they can give careers advice and provide courses that give students some marketable skills. A brief survey of information currently available on geography graduate careers is followed by an analysis of the career patterns of geography graduates from the universities and a polytechnic. Suggestions are made for data improvement and for immediate action.     

Mathematical education for geographers

Abstract

The mathematical topics which are of use to geography students are outlined, as are the methods used for teaching mathematical techniques in geography courses at Leeds over the last few years. The concluding section relates practice to goals, and the problems of providing the student with a framework into which he can fit all the pieces of knowledge he has acquired. Possible future developments are reviewed briefly in the light of the development of new mathematical techniques on the one hand, and criticisms of the existing state of the art on the other. The subject matter of the paper is limited to mathematical education, and there is only indirect and brief concern with statistics.     

Geo-centric education and anti-imperialism: theosophy, geography and citizenship in the writings of J. H. Cousins

While much has been written of the complicity of geography with British Imperialism and projects of the nation state, the focus of this paper is the educational writings of James H. Cousins who advocated geography as a source of ordered knowledge, mystic insight, and resistance to imperialism. Cousins' formulation of nationhood in his writing on national education, his scheme of geographical education and his concern of ideal citizenship are discussed in order to explore his attempt to develop a Theosophical geographical imagination of non-hierarchical difference and global spiritual unity.     

The limits of library user education: arguments for a lecturer‐led,student‐centred approach

Abstract

The author discusses some of the thinking behind programmes of library instruction in higher education. The shortcomings of such courses are examined, with particular reference to a course for first‐year students at Portsmouth Polytechnic. The author argues that library instruction can only succeed when fully integrated with the teaching of the subject. This requires greater consideration by geography teachers of the relationship between bibliographic knowledge and substantive knowledge.     

“Global/local” community engagement: advancing integrative learning and situated solidarity

This article illustrates how “global/local” community engagement, a particular form of experiential learning and political work that draws upon geography conceptually, pedagogically, and programmatically, is well suited to advance integrative learning and invite students into social action. Through specific examples from Mount Holyoke College, we argue that “global/local” community engagement helps students cultivate the skills and dispositions of reciprocity, reflexivity, and place-based and interdependent knowledge production. These are habits of mind and patterns of praxis necessary for enacting “situated solidarity,” a practice with great potential for grappling with the complex challenges and marked divisiveness of the twenty-first century. As our empirical examples demonstrate, the geographic concept of contour lines matched with the pedagogies of accompaniment and co-labor guide “global/local” community engagement. We conclude with a set of recommendations for implementing “global/local” community engagement in other institutions of higher education to reveal the context-specificity of our examples and the possibilities for application elsewhere.     

Student Employability and its Implications for Geography Curricula and Learning Practices

The nature and mission of universities have changed over the past two decades. The move towards mass education with decreased levels of state support has come with greater levels of accountability to stakeholders, including students, employers and the state itself. Graduates are expected to exhibit greater degrees of employability: that is they are more likely to gain and maintain employment, and to progress in workplaces and build careers. In this paper, we discuss the varying mixes of geographical knowledge, technical competencies and personal attributes that graduates require, before examining the implications on the design of geography curricula and learning practices.     

The Interview Hurdle to Postgraduate Studies and the Job Market

Abstract

This paper explores the educational value of a rural trail—a field visit on foot—using as an example a trail in a small area of countryside near Lancaster in northern England. This trail provides those teaching rural geography in higher education with a means of developing their students’ skills of informed observation and interpretation of field evidence based on study and discussion on‐site. A trail can enhance the appreciation and teaching of conceptual matters such as cultural approaches to rural geography. It also encourages the integration of diverse theoretical approaches to rural studies (based on culture, planning and management) and the simultaneous consideration by students of both local (often personal) details and national (or even global) pressures for change. The paper concludes that the rural trail has considerable pedagogical and academic merit for rural geographers.     

Some problems of varying overlap between secondary and higher education

Abstract

This paper identifies some of the problems created by the varying school geography backgrounds of students entering higher education. They are illustrated by examining students’ varying knowledge of the models of von Thunen, Christaller and Weber and some possible solutions to the problems are suggested.     

Examining Gender and Community Through Critical Pedagogy

A growing body of literature in critical geography challenges authoritative approaches to the production (and consumption) of knowledge in higher education. Feminist perspectives have contributed to this literature by emphasising the multiple and often conflicting voices of subjects, including those within the classroom. This paper draws from critical and feminist pedagogy in geography to examine student engagement with gender issues in the community. The case study for this analysis is a project in which students volunteer at community organisations and construct their own knowledges of social and political issues.