On Taking the Geography Out of Geographical Education: Some Historical Pointers

Abstract

Much concern shas been expressed in recent times over the declining interest of academic geographers in the work of the Geographical Association (GA), and the negative potential of of this for the quality of geography taught in schools. This article suggests wider cause for concern. The historical evidence demonstrates long-standing tensions between geographers and geographical educationists about the balance in the geography curriculum of three critical components: subject content, educational Processes and social purposes. Thus geographers have periodically argued that the education ‘lobby’ has over-stressed processes and purposes, while educationists have been alleged to have down-graded content and simplistically linked it with traditional methods of delivery. Similarly, an excessive devotion to the ‘good causes’ of their time, whether religion, the empire or the environment, has served to divert attention away from distinctive geographical content. During the 1960s and early 1970s there appeared a hopeful convergence towards a synthesis, but the increased politicisation of the curriculum during the 1980s re-opened gaps. Geography educationists became pre-occupied with the detail of curriculum planning and with polemics over the social purposes of the curriculum, neglecting new developments at the frontiers of the subject. The situation has been exacerbated in the 1990s as a result of government policy, with both university geographers and geographical educationists now driven to give priority to rankings in research league tables, rather than service to the GA. The resurgence of interest in ‘place’ at the academic frontiers, and the preferential status given to place study in the national curriculum, are potentially hopeful pointers to a new and distinctive synthesis, but can only be realised by a revived interest of geographical educationists and teachers in ‘stale of the art geography’.

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