Changing Horizons in Geography Education - HERODOT Network ...

It is quite clear that Vidal de la Blache in France, Halford MacKinder and DudleyStamp in Britain had a very strong influence on the development of the discipline,mainly as they influenced national politics. In small countries as the Nordic ones,everything depended initially on one or two persons. In Finland they were verylucky in having three leading geographers following each other; Hult, Rosberg andGranö (Rikkinen 1988). In Sweden, Torsten Hägerstrand definitely was an importantinspiration for modern Swedish geography and opened new job opportunities forthe graduates. The image geography has got in media and in the general public isto a large extent dependent upon the activity of the leaders. In Norway geographershave had problems in attracting attention in media, whereas social anthropologistsare very often contacted and their opinions focused. The rather strange situation isthat social anthropology attracts more students than geography although their jobopportunities are less. And anthropology also has no position in the school system.Since the 1970s, however, few geographers have chosen to work in the high school(gymnasium) system as the discipline has a relatively minor position. This makesdirect recruitment of new students problematic.On 7. This hypothesis can to some extent be tested. Examples could be drawnfrom a number of countries like Germany, The Netherlands and UK, but I willrefrain from that here. When we compare Norway, Sweden and Denmark we findthat growth or decline of the discipline in recent years to a large extent seems tohave been dependent on opportunities lost or taken in the development of appliedresearch and planning. The main market for Norwegian MA candidates in geographyis in public administration, primarily in local, environmental and regional planningwhere their skills have been well received. This is now strengthened by the geographycourses in GIS. In Bergen we have added planning theory and field courses in localand regional planning, environmental studies as well as coastal zone managementto ordinary geography courses. This is creating a problem as we have to cover manydifferent courses with a too small staff. On the other hand it is quite clear that it isthe candidates with qualifications from some of these more applied courses that havethe best possibilities in the job market.Hypotheses 8,9 and 10 I leave uncommented for further reflection. It should only beconcluded that the recruitment of students with high abilities and ambitions is a matterof grave concern in Norwegian geography departments. New students think theyknow what geography is about, based on a rather mediocre presentation of selectedthemes at the high school level and more often they choose other disciplines theybelieve are more interesting. It is also quite clear that students will often unreflectingfollow new ‘fashions’ or themes that are in media focus, without considerations of jobopportunities in the future. In 1958 50% of the very large number of new entrants tonatural sciences in Norway wanted to be specialists in nuclear physics! At present alarge number of new students in social science and humanities want to be ‘MiddleEast specialists’ studying Arabic, social anthropology etc.! The majority of themwill of course be stuck with a specialisation of meagre use when they finish. Witha BA in geography they would have a much broader canvas of choices when theyhave studied for some time. And we see the positive effect that the small number of144