Changing Horizons in Geography Education - HERODOT Network ...

The status of geography in Norway; an issue of grave concernArild Holt-JensenDepartment of Geography, University of Bergen, Fosswinckelsgt 6N-5007 Bergene-mail: Arild.holt-jensen@geog.uib.noAbstractThe uneven status of the discipline of geography from country to country is a theme thathas not been much analysed. One reason is clearly the lack of data, but this will now besomehow remedied by the survey that has been carried out by HERODOT for the EuropeanCommission on ‘Tuning Educational Structures in Europe’. Some of the data collected forthe survey will make it possible to compare the status of the discipline between the Europeancountries. Still a lot of quantitative date will be lacking. And then we must ask: How tomeasure ‘status’? One measuring rod will be the number of students enrolled for geographycompared to other disciplines, but in some countries the enrolment is controlled and limitedso sheer numbers may not give the right answer. Other ways of measuring ‘status’ wouldbe by the relative mass of scientific publications, by opinion polls for ranking useful disciplinesby the general public, or use position in the school system as a barometer for statusin the decision making system. Here we have used the simple number of students and staffin the university system as basis for saying something on the status of the discipline. Onthis basis we can conclude that geography has a weak position in the Norwegian Universitysystem which also must be seen as an indicator of its weak status in the population. We alsohave found that the discipline is rather strong in many other countries at the same level ofeconomic and educational development. A number of hypotheses can be assessed, tested istoo ‘strong’ word, to give some explanations of these international differences.Key words: Norway, status of geography, survey, curriculum, economic developmentIntroductionAlmost 20 years ago the author carried out a survey intended to give en overviewof the status of geography in the Nordic countries. This was presented at a meetingof the IGU Commission on the History of Geographic Thought, in Bundanoon,Australia prior to the IGU Congress in 1988. My intention was to trigger off a widerIGU study as I had found in my Nordic survey that understanding these differencesin status – in whatever way these were measured – are closely linked to the nationalhistories of the discipline. Such a broad survey has, however, not to my knowledgebeen carried out.Some striking international differencesThrough international contacts, we know that geography is on the verge of extinctionin the university system in some countries, whereas in other countries it belongs to137