Changing Horizons in Geography Education - HERODOT Network ...

3. The strength of school and university geography today depends on the degree to whichthe subject in the past was considered to further the cause of national identity.4. The status of the discipline is dependent on the degree to which geography ismaintained as a united discipline encompassing both man and nature5. Leading personalities (iconoclasts) or lack of such may in many cases explain thegrowth or decline of the discipline.6. The status of geography is to a large extent dependent upon its image in the pressand among common people.7. The status of geography today is dependant upon the degree to which it hassucceeded in educating candidates for planning and other jobs outside the educationalsystem.8. The status of geography is dependent upon its ability to adjust to new developmentsin society and to adopt new research trends.9. Growth has a tendency to foster growth, decline may accelerate decline.10. Student enrolment reflects current happenings and ‘fashions’ as reflected inthe media, disciplines that market themselves by what is seen as ‘old-fashioned’descriptions suffer.I will only comment briefly on these hypotheses:On 1. Historically the weak position of geography in universities seems to be a directconsequence of a rather weak position in the school curriculum. Fotheringham (1984)stresses that’ the single most important reason for the popularity of geography inBritish universities is probably its strength in the school system’. A comparisonbetween Finland and Norway seems to confirm the same. In Finland geography istaught as a separate discipline on all levels in the school system, whereas in Norwayit is part of a general ‘orienteering’ subject in primary school and only a definiteseparate discipline for one year in high school. In Denmark however, geographystill exists as a separate discipline in schools and this is also supported by a relativestrong organisation of school teachers in geography, but the position of universitydiscipline is much weaker. Here we may look for other explanations.In general we may also note that up to the 1970s the educational system was themain job market for geography candidates so a correlation between geography inschools and universities seems reasonable.On 2 and 3. The institutionalisation of geography was in most coutries a directresult of the new primary and secondary educational system which superseded theold ‘latin schools’ in the years 1860−1900. New pedagogical ideas gave the basisfor ‘Heimatkunde’, knowledge through experience of the children’s own neighbourhoodand home country (See Holt-Jensen 1999, pp. 30−32). Geography wasfound useful in this connection. The discipline was established in the universitiesoften by political decision, sometimes against more or less open resistance fromthe universities. As pointed out by Stoddart (1986) geography became establishedin Oxford and Cambridge mainly because the Royal Geographical Society coveredthe main costs for the lectureships over a period of 35 years. Other disciplines, suchas biology, geology, anthropology feared that they would lose support from the142