Geography Education Divide: University vs. Pre-University

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Boundary Crossings
Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Geography without borders
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Noel Castree*, Duncan Fuller** and David Lambert†
*Geography, School of Environment and Development, Manchester University, Manchester M13 9PL
email: [email protected]
**Geography, School of Applied Sciences, University of Northumbria, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 8ST
†The Geographical Association, Sheffield S1 4BF
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divide between university and pre-university
geography. This divide, to be sure, is unevenly
developed and in some countries scarcely exists.
But in Britain, and more particularly England and
Wales (where the three of us live and work and
where geography remains enormously visible at
the levels of both teaching and research), the university/pre-university schism is very stark indeed.
What is the exact nature of the divide to which we
refer? And why has it become a problem – one that
should concern far more geographers than it
apparently does?
There was a time where university and preuniversity geography were closely connected in the
British system. For instance, as recently as the mid1980s, university geographers played a central role
in determining the old O and A level syllabi (both
content and assessment). But over the last 20 years
pre-university geography has lost significant
points of connection with post-18 geography. Ironically, one of the last attempts of research-active
geographers to write for geography teachers –
the two Horizons volumes of 1989 (Gregory and
Walford 1989; Clark et al. 1989) – occurred at a time
when such cross-over activities became ever less
likely to happen. Similarly, the A level magazine
Geography Review – established during the mid1980s at Oxford University – found it harder to
attract writers from research universities within a
decade of its creation.
This detachment between pre- and post-18 geography has a number of causes and dimensions.
First, the several Research Assessment Exercises
since the mid-1980s have focused many university
geographers’ minds on publishing higher-level
research outputs. Second, attempts to get university geographers’ apparently ‘haphazard’ teaching
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Until relatively recently, at least, one of us would
have been on the receiving end of this message,
rather than its (co)author. However, people change
– often as a consequence of being gifted an
unexpected opportunity to reflect (or being forced
to!) upon their modus operandi. We want to convey
a simple message: namely that British geography is
beset by at least one quite fundamental problem.
And something must be done – for all our sakes.
Let us explain.
Debates about the ‘state of geography’ are as old
as the discipline itself. In metaphorical terms, the
idea of a border (‘hard’ or ‘soft’) continues to animate these discussions. It appears in writings
about geography’s ‘internal’ problems (if problems
they really are) – such as the human–physical
‘divide’ or the sub-disciplinary ‘fragmentation’ of
the two ‘halves’ of the discipline. It is also to be
found at work in ruminations on geography’s
‘external’ challenges – such as its apparent inability
to influence the policy world ‘out there’ or its supposed failure to stop other disciplines treading
on its ‘turf’. Whilst talk of borders may well be inappropriate and unhelpful (the notion of ‘networks’,
for example, creates a very different sense of geography’s internal configuration and its wider connectivities), such talk might continue to serve a
very useful purpose because it obliges us to reflect
on whether real (as opposed to imagined) divisions
are currently constitutive of what geography’s all
about; and it obliges us to ask whether such divisions are a ‘problem’ (for they aren’t necessarily).
There is one aspect of professional geography
today that is barely discussed in print and where,
in our view, the metaphor of a border (and a ‘hard’
if not consciously policed one at that) is wholly
appropriate. We are talking about the very real
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Trans Inst Br Geogr NS 31 000–0000 2007
ISSN 0020 -2754 © 2007 The Authors.
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some would say, for this has challenged the traditional notion of a ‘curriculum’ in many departments).
In sum, university and pre-university geography
in this country are like distant relations: there is a
family connection but it is fairly weak. Though no
one is actively prohibiting closer ties between the
two ‘worlds’ of geography, the institutional and
personal constraints are such that we could think
of them as distinct domains of thought and practice. Most university geographers in Britain know
virtually nothing about pre-18 geography and yet
many readily and regularly bemoan its apparent
lack of contemporary focus and irrelevance; likewise, teachers, teacher-trainers, set-text writers and
syllabus-setters in pre-18 geography scarcely have
the opportunity or the time to get a handle on university geography or to engage with university
geographers. There are, of course, exceptions – but
by definition they prove the rule. Worse, they are
often stigmatized. It is a measure of how haughty
some university geographers have become that
colleagues who involve themselves in, say, the Geographical Association (GA) or GEES (the national
subject centre for Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences) are regarded – if coffee room and
corridor chat is to be believed – simply as people
who can’t ‘cut it’ as researchers.
Obviously, one view is that this state of affairs is
not all problematic. There are, perhaps, two main
reasons why some might assure themselves that
there is no real need for the current situation to
change; no real need to make the ‘border’ easier to
cross. First, around 20 000 students are currently
studying for geography degrees, diplomas and certificates in numerous universities and colleges. So
pre-18 British geography is doing just fine because
– so one argument goes – it’s producing an unprecedented number of post-18 geography candidates.
Second, it arguably doesn’t matter that pre-18
geography is, today, as often as not a far cry from
degree-level geography, because once at university
and college students have three or more years to be
(re)educated into a different kind of geography –
the kind that we academics value and (hopefully)
the wider society too.
Would that things were so simple. In fact, the
estrangement between university and pre-university
geography has a range of highly negative consequences. Intellectually it is, to say the least,
careless to allow ‘school geography’ to be shaped
and governed without awareness or concern from
the academy. At worst, professors of geography
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practice in order led many of them to focus-in on
their syllabi and pedagogic practices (if only
because they were obliged to). The Quality Assurance Agency and its inspectors helped to ‘professionalize’ teaching in British universities (for better
or for worse). In so doing it arguably contributed,
in tandem with the RAE, to reduced traffic in ideas
between pre- and post-18 geography teaching. But
this reduction in traffic had several other causes too.
Following the 1988 Education Reform Act the
school curriculum was codified for the first time
and a statutory ‘school geography’ came into
being. This was monitored and administered by
agencies such as the schools’ inspectorate (Ofsted)
and the Qualifications and Curriculum Agency
(QCA). School geography was characterized by the
government of the day as ‘content rich’ and even at
the time looked strangely set in aspic. Its details
were, perhaps inevitably, laid out in a phenomenally successful textbook series (Waugh and
Bushell 1991) in a ‘winner takes all’ market. The
significance of this is that investment in textbooks
tends to set the tone for many years. In practice, a
single author’s interpretation of the newly codified
school geography was able to withstand successive
QCA reforms (largely designed to loosen the rigidity of the original curriculum) in a large proportion
of secondary schools in England.
Meanwhile, the attention of school teachers has
been drawn to a massive government investment
since 1997 in generic pedagogic skills development
(though the so-called ‘national strategies’). Strategy
consultants have literally replaced subject advisers
in local education authorities, driven by the intense
pressure of performance league tables. Thus, in
many schools today, the professional focus of leadership teams is on ‘standards’ (meaning ‘performance’ measured by test results) and it is now very
difficult indeed for geography teachers to pursue
professional development through the subject –
even when opportunities to do so exist. There is
now deep confusion in the pre-university system
about the role of subjects. Increasing numbers of
school leaders talk about the ‘skills curriculum’
and ‘learning to learn’, demoting subjects to tired
lists of statutory ‘content’ that needs to be ‘delivered’. Geography, possibly more than most subjects, suffers greatly when stuck with such
impoverished language, in a kind of educational
doldrums. By contrast, even in the aftermath of the
QAA era, university geography has continued to
diversify and innovate teaching-wise (too much
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ISSN 0020 -2754 © 2007 The Authors.
Journal compilation © Royal Geographical Society (with The Institute of British Geographers) 2007
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content via a discipline of the same name. But in
countries where geography is no longer (or never
was) central as a primary and high school subject,
university geography is (or has become) either
small or merged with cognate subjects. Australia is
currently a prime example here, while in the early
1980s a fair number of important US geography
departments were closed down. But we have
already had a taster of possible things to come here
in Britain (albeit not caused by a decline in GCSE
and A level geography enrolments): the well-known
closure of the Lampeter Geography programme a
decade or so ago, since when some other small
geography departments have fallen by the wayside.
There are several possible ways forward to
address the difficulties we have outlined here. A
prominent initiative is the Action Plan for Geography (http://www.geographyteachingtoday.org.uk),
a two-year £2m programme, jointly and equally led
by the Geographical Association and the Royal
Geographical Society (with the Institute of British
Geographers). Through its geography ambassadors
scheme, professional support and curriculum
development projects, the Action Plan seeks to
‘provide a clear vision of geography’ and significantly to enhance the attraction of geography to
school students and their parents. It has set out to
boost the confidence of school teachers of geography by promoting creative activity across the
whole community of geography.
From the higher education perspective, there are
actions that individuals can take (and, of course,
many already do) that range in required effort,
scale of engagement and resources needed (time
included). But all can contribute, somehow, somewhere. A few ideas: join the GA – a key, active,
passionate and professional geographical body – to
remain in touch with school geography debates
and issues which feed interest in the geographical
world amongst our communities of budding
geographers; attend the GA conference (http://
www.geography.org.uk/conference) every two or
three years for the same purpose; and of course,
where possible, accept or seek-out invitations to
speak at teacher or school events. More recently the
GA has led a range of funded curriculum development projects and it has proved highly valuable to
engage academics on the various sounding boards
and steering groups. The ‘Valuing Places’, ‘Where
Will I Live’ and, currently, ‘Building Sustainable
Communities’ curriculum projects (http://www.
geography.org.uk/projects) all have frameworks and
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claiming their work is ‘post-disciplinary’ and
refusing to dirty their hands with ‘what makes it
geography’ are risking the elimination of the subject at school level. Already a new subject has been
invented called ‘citizenship’. Setting aside whether
citizenship is a subject with a disciplinary hinterland like geography or history (it is not), it is
already possible to study it to GCSE (the examination taken at 16 years old). Citizenship is a statutory requirement until 16 years, and there may
soon be a 16–18 A level examination course. Make
no mistake, unless geography can confidently
claim its disciplinary focus and value it will suffer
a consequential loss of young people wanting to
study it beyond 14 years – and, indeed, head teachers
wanting to go on even offering it as an option.
There are schools already where geography is no
longer available at GCSE. More generally, since
2000 geography has experienced a loss of nearly 20
per cent of candidates at GCSE, part of a long-term
downward trend (to 213 469 candidates in 2006).
At A level the pattern is more erratic, but here too
the last six years have shown a decline in popularity of about the same proportions (32 522
candidates in 2006). It is hard to imagine that a
continued collapse of geography examination candidates at school will not have a knock-on effect on
applications to higher education courses. Some
university and college departments may feel that
they do not need to worry too much about this in
the short term. Others may feel it would be reckless to proceed on the basis of current reputation,
in a marketplace where the wider perception of
geography may become increasingly less favourable.
But, surely, ‘They can’t do away with geography?!!’ Whatever next!! Ironically, such a doomsday scenario does not necessarily mean ‘less geography’ for school students. Young people need to
experience an education process that exposes them
to thinking productively about a range of global
issues such as migration, intercultural understanding, climate change, the impact of economic globalization, and so on. Make no mistake again: if
geography continues to wither in school settings
(and ultimately this trend is repeated in higher
education settings too), these issues will still be
covered – only not by geographers. So we come to
the heart of the matter: what would be lacking if
this came to be? And do we (or others) care? Naturally, most geographers might argue that ‘geography matters’ in a double sense: that is, in terms of
both content and the institutional delivery of that
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ISSN 0020 -2754 © 2007 The Authors.
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(pejoratively) as ‘the teaching-and-learning’ types
were to use their continued energy and enthusiasm
to break down the prejudice behind this label. At
the very least, all so-called ‘research’ departments
in British geography should organize in-house
events that update staff on the current nature of
(and issues facing) GSCE and A level Geography.
The arguments we’ve put forward do not, we
hope, make us as unlikely a writing trio as we
might otherwise seem to be. One of us is based in
an international ‘research university’; one of us
in an ostensibly ‘teaching university’ engaged in
many out-reach activities in its city-region and
beyond; and one of us is head of the Geographical
Association, a body commonly seen as being about
pre-university teaching and ‘teachers’. These differences do not, and never should, confine us to
different worlds of geographical practice, nor insulate us from the pressing need to play our own role
in averting a potential curriculum crisis – indeed, a
crisis of geographical literacy in the wider society.
It’s time to recognize some of the shared agendas
and interests that bind together otherwise disparate members of the geographical community. If
not, we will only have ourselves to blame.
References
Clark M, Gregory K and Gurnell A eds 1989 Horizons in
physical geography Macmillan, London
Gregory D and Walford R eds 1989 Horizons in human
geography Macmillan, London
Waugh D and Bushell T 1991 Key geography Stanley
Thorne, London
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content that have benefited from interacting
directly with university geography. Get in touch
and network with fellow local geographers, of
whatever ilk.
To aide this process, and in order to broaden the
scope of such ‘cross-border’ involvement, the GA is
now set on a course to re-form its academic journal
Geography. With a new editorial collective (that
spans higher education and schools), it will remain
a journal in which academics will be invited to
write – but specifically for a wider professional
audience of teachers and education professionals.
From a researcher’s perspective this is in the interests of creating a journal that will provide an overt
opportunity for knowledge transfer – and hopefully contribute to the subject’s dynamism across
the academic communities of school and higher
education.
These initiatives are important, but very much
led (or likely to be led) from the pre-18 ‘side’ of the
border to which we’ve been referring. What is still
needed is more vigorous and widespread involvement from geographers in and throughout the
university system. This will not be easy, and it is
very much up to the Royal Geographical SocietyInstitute of British Geographers, heads of university
geography departments and the GEES subject
centre to devise strategies to facilitate this process.
It will be necessary to take risks – for instance, to
incorporate the need for ‘external liaisons’ and
cross-border fertilization into workload spreadsheets, seminar programmes or appraisal discussions for example. It would also help if those
university and college geographers often tagged
Trans Inst Br Geogr NS 31 000–000 2007
ISSN 0020 -2754 © 2007 The Authors.
Journal compilation © Royal Geographical Society (with The Institute of British Geographers) 2007
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