Looking at powerful knowledge in geography

Ryan BateBridgewater High School, WarringtonMA, Institute of Education (London)

Tuesday 15th April 2014Geographical Association Annual Conference

University of Surrey, Guildford

This session…• Research formed MA dissertation – didn’t

necessarily answer all the questions, or look in all the right places!

• Quick summary my research project.• Focus on four questions/thoughts which I

have had both completing my research and reflecting upon it since.

• Very much from the point of view of a practising geography teacher who also completed some academic research.

Research outline

1. How is knowledge defined in geography?2. How do we make selections for the geography

curriculum?3. How do we articulate the underlying purpose of

geography education?4. What are the possible implications of powerful

knowledge for geography teachers?

Four key questions for this session…

1. What is ‘powerful knowledge’?2. What is geographical knowledge?3. How is geography a powerful knowledge?4. What might the implications for teachers be?

1. What is ‘powerful knowledge’?

Powerful knowledge (social realism)•Michael Young (formerly a social constructivist).•Knowledge can be ascribed a value by society due to the processes of knowledge-making and knowledge claims.•Knowledge offers explanatory power or can allow new ways of thinking about the world.•Knowledge is dynamic and open to challenge.•Access to knowledge – social justice.

Absolutist (‘traditional’) view of knowledge

Fixed; to be transmitted.

Social constructivist view of knowledge

Dynamic; reflects power relations of society.

1. An argument for a subject-based curriculum

2. Principles for designing a geography curriculum

Knowledge and experience?

• Our experience is not a substitute for geographical knowledge; the latter has been produced through a set of processes which has earned a value.

• We can use our own experience to challenge and change geographical knowledge.

• Gaining greater geographical knowledge makes us more able to challenge and change it.

More of a

problem for

geographers?

1. What is ‘powerful knowledge’?

‘Reference points’• The need for geography…– ‘If geography didn’t exist on the school curriculum,

why would somebody want to put it on there?’• Cannot have ‘anything goes’, or allow a focus to

shift too far towards values and opinions.• Must have a conceptual grounding (‘grammar’)

and the words to express it (‘vocabulary’)• This allows us to improve our geographical

understanding of the world, articulate that understanding and shape the world around us..

• Locational framework

1. What is ‘powerful knowledge’?

2. What is geographical knowledge?

Geography is NOT all around us…• Maybe do ourselves a disservice to think or say so.• It is a body of knowledge produced through social

processes…– However not all of these social processes are necessarily

‘academic’.• Geography as a representation of the world; just as

history is a representation of events.– Role of maps in geography (maps as images).– Geographical Imaginations (Gregory, 1994)

• Whilst a representation, there is still an object – the earth – which that representation is based on; thus geographical knowledge cannot purely be a social construct (Major, 2012).

3. How is geography a powerful knowledge?

“Geography matters”Place and space - location, distance, territory, boundaries – continue to matter, on a range of scales, as they always have:

•A History of the World in Twelve Maps (Jerry Brotton, 2012)•Border Country (Rory Stewart, BBC, 2014)•32 Stops (Danny Dorling, 2013)

This is our motivation as geography educators:Young people need geographical knowledge,

understanding and skills in order to play a full role in society.

Thinking geographically?• Geography as a ‘way of seeing’ (Lambert & Morgan,

2009: 155).

• Provides a framework through which the world and its phenomena can be understood.

• Developing geographical thinking can only be done through building geographical knowledge.– Expanding our intellectual powers.– Providing a language to discuss and explain the world

through.– Examples to develop and test our understanding, which

we can then apply to new scenarios.

Questions of selection• Conceptual underpinnings (e.g. space, place).• Role for relevance?– Returning to the issue of access and social justice, the

apparent lack of relevance of geographical (or any other subject) knowledge is perhaps one of the most important justifications for geography education.

• Geography has perhaps been ‘hijacked’ by socio-political (e.g. trade justice, global warming) or educational (e.g. literacy, citizenship) issues, leaving deep geographical knowledge and understanding marginalised.

• Does a ‘powerful knowledge’-based curriculum need to be a highly prescriptive one?

4. What might the implications for teachers be?

Challenging geographical knowledgeThere is a never-ending need to be critical: how was the knowledge produced and by whom?

Implications for geography teachers?•As teachers how often do we challenge ourselves by asking ‘why am I teaching this?’•Do we fail to give young people a sense that there are multiple points of view?•Consider when we teach ‘political’ issues such as trade justice, climate change or development aid.•Do we empower young people to think that knowledge is a ‘work in progress’ that can be changed, just as we (hopefully) empower them through futures thinking about how the world can be changed.

4. What might the implications for teachers be?

An example of sorts:

‘Fair Trade’ (trade justice)Reasons for teaching Fair

Trade:•Contemporary issue.•Encourages young people to become responsible consumers.•Futures thinking – about how we could make the world a fairer place.

Reasons for NOT teaching Fair Trade:•Political issue.•Too easy for teachers to over-simplify (especially if they lack understanding of the issue themselves).•Taught in absence of wider learning about the global economy.

Possible approach from a social realist:•Teach trade justice, accepting some amount of simplification.•Help students distinguish between what is geographical knowledge and what is a perspective.•Have students challenge the material.

Powerful knowledge and geography:some closing remarks

• Geography should be about understanding the world – the world exists as an object, of which geography is a representation, however this does not mean ‘anything goes’.

• Geographical knowledge is assigned a value based on the processes by which it is ‘made’; this knowledge should be regarded as dynamic and open to challenge.– Our experience contributes to how we understand,

challenge and perhaps change geographical knowledge; that does not make experience a substitute for geographical knowledge.

BibliographyA full bibliography can be found in my dissertation, which I am more than happy to share on request (e-mail me at ryanrynbate@aol.com).

An additional paper, which I sadly only came across after my dissertation, but find very useful is:

•Major, B. (2012) Geography – A Powerful Knowledge. Available online at Academia.edu.