Changing Horizons in Geography Education - HERODOT Network ...

Constructing the world through the curriculumMargaret RobertsUniversity of Sheffield, School of Education, 388 Glossop Road,Sheffield. S10 2JA.e-mail: Margaret.roberts20@btinternet.comAbstractConcerns have been expressed about misleading impressions of the world conveyed byvarious map projections. In this paper I argue that the world studied in the geography classroomby 11−14 year olds in England is equally distorted by the curriculum itself. Althoughthe UK Geography National Curriculum provides a framework for teaching, choices aboutwhich places are studied are made by teachers. An investigation into which places werestudied and why was carried out through a questionnaire survey and through interviews incase study schools. The findings revealed significant patterns of attention and neglect bothat a world scale and at a European scale. A range of factors affected curriculum choices.The study raised questions about how the curriculum is constructed, about the way placeswere represented and studied and about the use of case studies.Key words: curriculum, mapsIntroductionConcerns have been expressed about the distorting influence of the use of particularmap projections in schools (Wright, 2003). The world is represented to pupils,however, not only through maps but also through what is studied in school. Thefocus of this paper is on the shape of the world constructed through the geographycurriculum at Key Stage 3 (11−14 year olds) in England, the last stage in whichgeography is compulsory. It reports on and discusses a small research study whichinvestigated which places were studied and why.ContextsGeography has always been concerned with place but as the academic subject haschanged, so has the world represented through its discourses. Regional geographyconstructed a comprehensive world, classified into regions and described in detail.Explanations tended to be deterministic. The quantitative revolution, created adifferent, more uniform world in which the search for general laws to explain processeswas more important than the particularities of places. Humanistic geographyre-emphasised the importance of people and place but its focus on meanings ofparticular places created a fragmented world of experience. Radical geography, withits concern for issues and the political and social processes underpinning them,produced a new world in which global issues, patterns and inter-relationships becamemore significant. The cultural turn of the 1990s produced not simply a different map58