Changing Horizons in Geography Education - HERODOT Network ...

active engagement in curriculum development, e.g. ‘over the last 4/5 years we havebuilt up resources and staff knowledge of Nigeria. We had some useful videos and anOxfam resources pack’. 40% justified their choices in terms of geographical contentwith a minority referring specifically to the GNC place requirements e.g. ‘Italy is goodfor looking at regional disparities’. Most justified the choices in terms of opportunitiesto use the countries as case studies for themes. A minority justified choices in termsof the broader curriculum, mentioning links with modern languages, citizenship, andhistory e.g. ‘India is studied alongside the study of Mogul Empire’.Teachers’ and pupils’ experiences and preferences were important for some: ‘Wehave a teacher who lived in Kenya’; ‘Some students of Italian descent’; ‘Brazil: toenthuse and motivate boys (football link)’, and India: ‘pupils bring some knowledgeand images to discuss’. A minority had chosen the UK as the country for studybecause they thought pupils should study their own country. Two responses justifiedtheir choices in terms of intrinsic importance of the country: ‘USA is a large importantcountry and frequently in the news’ and ‘India is important in itself’.Interview findingsThe general interviews in Schools A, B and C revealed that the flexibility of the GNCallowed schools to construct completely different curriculum worlds consisting oftheir chosen countries and case studies.School A chose to study Japan and Tanzania, the latter because of an exchange linkof pupils and staff with a subsistence village in Zanzibar. A discussion of places usedfor case studies revealed significant areas of neglect. No case studies were selectedfrom North America, Europe or the Middle East or from South America apart fromthe tropical rainforest or from Asia apart from flooding in Bangladesh.School B studied USA, in spite of limited published resources, because of itsimportance in the world, and also Australia and Brazil. These three countries werestudied in some detail with cross referencing to other comparable places, thus deliberatelyenlarging the curriculum world. Case studies from many parts of the worldwere chosen to illustrate the GNC themes, but Asia was not studied at all apart fromflooding in Bangladesh.School C studied Italy, Japan and India, spending a whole term on each, a longerperiod than in other schools. Pupils were told why these countries were chosen andwere encouraged to do extended reading on them through a collection of newspapercuttings. Although there was no use of case studies from USA, Africa, Russia orthe Middle East, there was some study of all parts of the world through a series oflessons on each continent focusing on key information and issues.Interviews in Schools D, E and F were focused on Europe, excluding the UK. Inall three schools, work on the whole of Europe was limited to a lesson on generalmap work and one or two lessons on the European Union, its purposes and membercountries. All three schools had chosen Italy as its MEDC. This was explained interms of availability of resources, because of teachers’ and pupils’ visits to Italy andbecause pupils had some knowledge through Italian cultural influences in England.The approach to studying Italy varied. School D adopted a systematic approach60