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Accelerated by COVID and global social media complexes, our post COVID world is experiencing ever increasing and accelerating changes in higher education. Geographers and geography programs across the United States are certainly influenced by these dynamics, but also have an opportunity to adjust and impact such changes across the higher education landscape. Through strategic positioning and decision making, geographers and geography programs can strengthen their role at the broad spectrum of universities in our country (Nellis 2017), while remaining true to their institution in which the department is situated and its composition, regional setting and how the program fits within the overall discipline of geography. This review essay provides a brief overview of post COVID, accelerating global social media and artificial intelligence dynamics impacting higher education and how geographers and geography programs can position themselves strategically to contribute toward strengthening their institutions as well as their programs for the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This Focus section of The Professional Geographer contains four articles that were prepared for a program assessment of Advanced Placement (AP) Human Geography. Using twenty years of AP program data, the authors probe into the participation of students in the course and how they fared on the exam. AP exam data were analyzed at the national, state, and district-level scales as well as for students differentiated by grade level, race, ethnicity, and gender. The Focus section concludes with a commentary that mulls the private and public values of a geography course in the AP program. This introduction presents the rationale for the program assessment, a summary of the key findings, and a call for geographers to improve the effectiveness of AP Human Geography while supporting research–practice partnerships, dual enrollment programs, and other locally conceived and tailored alternatives to corporate authority, prescriptive curriculum, and standardization in public education. An ongoing assessment of AP Human Geography is recommended as part of a broader discipline-based effort to strengthen and secure the status of geography in U.S. education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Scotland, there is ongoing concern about the status of geography in education. Numbers of pupils studying geography have been falling at a time when the relevance and importance of geography should be high, given the significance of issues like climate and biodiversity change. Why people choose to study geography is crucial knowledge for a vibrant discipline seeking to grow the subject and perceptions of its value. This paper is a companion paper to Selmes et al. (2022) which reported on quantitative data about geographers in the Scottish secondary and tertiary education sectors. This paper confirms that the tide is turning for geography study in Scotland, with entries now rising at all levels. Furthermore, an online survey of 93 pupils found that they choose to study geography because they enjoy the lessons and are interested in the content, feeling able in the subject and that it will be useful in paid work. Conversely, pupils say they choose not to study geography when they do not perceive it will be useful in their career or because they have not found it interesting or an enjoyable experience. The question for all professional geographers is how we might together improve on the current situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emotion has become an important topic in fieldwork courses of higher geography education. This study attempts to provide embodied evidence of the important value of emotional experiences in fieldwork and clarify that the teaching effect produced by fieldwork in a real environment is difficult to achieve in a virtual environment. Using eye-tracking , this study captured the eye movement data of 16 fieldwork participants and 15 nonparticipants gazing upon photographs and analyzed how emotions affect their acquisition of geographic knowledge. The eye-tracking experiment showed that students who participated in fieldwork processed visual information more quickly and had stronger emotional responses than those who did not participate. This article proposes that fieldwork can provide students the opportunity to encounter the environment in a "mind-body-environment" system, thereby constructing the following two different forms of geographic knowledge: characterizable and explicit knowledge and nonrepresentational, implicit, and embodied knowledge. The latter can be realized only via emotional experiences in the field. Therefore, this article claims that although the information age enables students to acquire remote knowledge of geographical environments through multiple channels, training qualified geographers remains inseparable from fieldwork, especially for cultivating cognition, emotions and responsibility for the "living" world.. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses how geography's disciplinary ways of thinking can equip teachers "to organize deep geographical learning" about sustainable development in their students. These ways of thinking are based on the subject's core concepts, and the ones selected for discussion in this paper are environment, interconnection and place. The paper argues, first, that knowledge of the ways that geographers think of the interrelationships between the biophysical environment and humans will give students a deep understanding of environmental sustainability. Second, knowledge of the ways that geographers think about interconnections will enable them to understand the links between environmental, economic and social sustainability, the effects of interconnections between countries on their environmental sustainability, and how to investigate causes. Third, knowledge of the ways that geographers think about place will enable them to understand how ideas about sustainable development vary across space, and how actions for sustainable development are place-based. Applying geography's conceptual ways of thinking will contribute to both student understanding of sustainable development and geography as a discipline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Geographers at two-year colleges play a pivotal role in educating future geographers; however, little research has explored the demographics and work of two-year college professors nationally or the role of geography courses at these institutions. A questionnaire sent to two-year college geographers captured working conditions of faculty at U.S. community colleges. Results show high job satisfaction, alongside concerns over the "hidden" nature of the discipline. Results also show that most two-year program faculty embrace innovative pedagogy and are strong advocates of geography but lack diversity and are often the sole geographers at their institutions. To better serve all geography students, faculty at four-year colleges should do more to promote employment at two-year colleges as a rewarding career to graduate students and work with two-year college faculty to promote the discipline while supporting transfer. Such efforts might be especially important at minority-serving institutions to help increase diversity among two-year college faculty. Additionally, national organizations such as the American Association of Geographers and others should better support two-year faculty, especially adjuncts, in their academic mission by both advocating for their material needs (better pay) and convening workshops aimed at instructors offering innovative pedagogy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Handbook of urban geography: edited by Tim Schwanen and the late Ronald van Kempen, Cheltenham, UK & Northampton, MA, USA, Edward Elgar Publishing, Research Handbooks in Geography series, 2019, 512 pp., £155.00 (hardback), ISBN: 978 1 78536 459 4; £48.00 (eBook), eISBN: 978 1 78536 460 0. Part II on I Urban Networks i opens with two chapters on more established topics in this field such as urban networks and connectivity (Chapter 6) and policy mobilities (Chapter 7). The eBook version is priced from £20/$26 from eBook vendors while in print the book can be ordered from the Edward Elgar Publishing website. [Extracted from the article]

In Scotland there is on-going concern about the status of geography in education. The numbers of pupils studying geography has been falling, as has the number of universities offering the subject. All when the relevance and importance of geography should be high, given the significance of issues such as climate and biodiversity change. Who studies geography is crucial knowledge for a vibrant discipline seeking to engage with relevant actors to grow the subject and perceptions of its value. This paper combines quantitative data for academic years ending 2016–2021 from the Scottish Pupil Census with Scottish Qualification Authority geography entry and attainment statistics for secondary school pupils, plus Higher Education Statistics Agency figures for undergraduate and postgraduate geographers in Scottish universities. It shows that the tide may now be turning for geography study in Scotland, entries are rising at all stages as its attainment. There remain huge differences between local authorities. Female students tend to predominate, as do learners in the lowest deprivation quintiles. The empirical knowledge of characteristics of who is studying geography at each national stage of education in Scotland is enlightening. The question for all professional geographers is how we might together improve on the current situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We explore the topic of welcome through a geographical lens, setting out the relationships between geographical perspectives and current approaches to welcome and hospitality. We argue that geographers are well positioned to develop engagements with the 'prosaics' of welcome that have recently been advocated by scholars in hospitality studies. To make this case, we identify a series of fruitful directions, offering a critical exploration of 'ordinary' welcomes via recent geographical insights into feminist geographies of intimacy, family and home, other-than-human relations and postcolonialism. The five articles that constitute this Special Issue build on this editorial to develop critical engagements that explore the geographies of welcome, with particular attention to migration and refugees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The project facing the Royal Geographical Society with Institute of British Geographers (RGS‐IBG) Geography and Education Research Group (GeogEd), launched at the RGS‐IBG annual conference in August 2019, is for the research group to explore points of connection between geographies of education and the scholarship of geography education, with its focus on geography in education and its practice of attending to questions of curriculum, pedagogy, teaching, learning, and progression. The purposes and scope of GeogEd are described in detail elsewhere in this issue. Suffice to say here that this is a broad and ambitious endeavour and we join others in wishing the research group well. This paper aims to make a contribution by identifying, from the perspectives of the Geographical Association (GA) and the RGS‐IBG, some of the intersections between the work of GeogEd and geography in schools and by shedding some light on the opportunities and challenges ahead. It concludes with proposals for new initiatives for the group to pursue. A key challenge facing the Royal Geographical Society with Institute of British Geographers (RGS‐IBG) Geography and Education Research Group (GeogEd) is for the research group to widen the field of view of its scholarship of geography education, to include geography education within the school setting. This paper aims to make a contribution by identifying, from the organisational perspectives of the Geographical Association (GA) and the RGS‐IBG, some of the intersections between the work of GeogEd, Geography Education Research (GER), and geography in schools, and by shedding some light on the opportunities and challenges ahead. It concludes with proposals for new initiatives for the group to pursue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This Themed‐Intervention commentary provides a brief overview of the history of Geography as a modern academic discipline in China, its development in the reform era (1979–), and the distinctive conventions and norms that distinguish it from paradigms and practices of geography in the Anglophone academia. We identify two tensions: between sciences and social sciences orientations, and between applied knowledge and critical/reflexive knowlegde. These tensions are both internal to Geography in China, and exist between Chinese and Anglophone Geography, the latter as embodied in major international journals. Mindful of these tensions, this commentary develops reflections over geography education in China and the challenges faced by academic dialogues between Chinese and Anglophone geographers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several challenges faced by humanity, such as the world food problem, migration flows or climate change, are all taught about in geography courses worldwide. Behind these challenges are complex systems consisting of several interrelated causes and consequences. In order to better understand these highly complex geographical systems, a systems thinking approach is helpful. However, the spatial embeddedness of relations in a system is often not included in this approach. Although this spatial embeddedness is important to understand geographical systems, it also contributes to the complexity of systems. The aim of this study is to examine whether the enrichment of causal diagrams with spatial scales helps students to better understand these systems. A quasi experimental design with an intervention of four lessons and task-based think-aloud interviews is used. These results show that students who have used these enriched diagrams in class are more aware of the spatial embeddedness of relations and therefore achieve a higher level of geographical thinking. This study shows the potential of enriched causal diagrams to make them actively use this spatial component while processing information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While Geographical information systems (GIS) are increasingly being seen in school geography classrooms, there remains significant reluctance among teachers to engage with the technology (e.g. Hong, 2017), as well as limited consideration of students' perspectives on GIS. In response to this, we have undertaken research to explore how a programme of GIS training, integrated within a two-year A-Level examination course, develops students' perceptions of the value and nature of GIS, their subsequent engagement with it, and its impact on their geographical knowledge. This paper reports on one strand of the longitudinal research which focuses on how tapping into the expertise of real-world, industry experts can affect students' perceptions of the relevance of GIS to geography and support their acquisition of geographical knowledge. The project, an interpretive case study, used questionnaires, interviews and analysis of students' work to elicit students' developing perceptions of and engagement with GIS, as well as changes in their geographical knowledge. Results suggest that engagement with industry experts aids students' understanding of what GIS is, allowing them to develop a more nuanced appreciation of its real-world applications; this then appears to play both a direct and indirect role in the subsequent development of students' geographical knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Geography: Shaping Australia's Future (2018) provides a 'strategic plan' for geography aligned with the national research priorities, as well other key areas where Australian geographers are addressing environmental and societal challenges. To provide context, we first describe the state of geography in Australian universities. We then articulate ways forward for strengthening Australian geography—both within the discipline and how we interact externally. We describe how geography may better contribute to policy agendas, capitalising on our unique perspectives of space, place and the environment, but also highlight how we might improve these contributions through a more unified approach across human and physical geography. Third, we discuss opportunities for geographers to build the reputation of the discipline and ways to advocate for its importance in the wider academy, school curricula and community. We conclude with some preliminary suggestions on how Australian geographers may better engage and contribute to the United Nations Agenda 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a biography of researcher and geographer Karl Husa. He was born on January 6, 1950 in Vienna, Austria and was educated in Geography and English at the University of Vienna from the year 1969–1974. He developed a research interest in socioeconomic transformations and spatial mobility in Southeast Asia in the year 1980.

Geographers have long played an important role in water resources scholarship; however, academic literature has not focused on the teaching contributions of geographers in this area. To address this gap, we cataloged courses taught and faculty interests for geography departments in the United States with a stated focus on water resources. We identified 129 departments with both courses and faculty having water resources expertise. The majority of water‐related courses focused on climatology or climate change, suggesting that students are regularly provided opportunities to learn about water topics primarily through the lens of climatology and water resources. We also summarize a panel organized at the 2017 American Association of Geographers Annual Conference that focused on water resources curriculum in geography programs. The panel discussed curriculum and pedagogical approaches, concluding that a water resources course syllabi repository would be beneficial for creating new and refining existing water resources courses. The panel also recommended that faculty consider incorporating water resources topics into their general education classes to concurrently enhance student learning opportunities and positively impact recruitment and interest in geography programs. Additionally, online education represents a substantial change in higher education that presents new challenges and opportunities for geographers. We hope these data and the summary of the panel session stimulate greater discussions of curricular needs across all disciplines that offer water resource focused courses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses initiation of Bhoogol Vachaspati and Bhoogol Ratna Awards and provides citation of people who have won the award. The article provides a brief biography of the winners including Ram Nath Dubey, Harbans Lal Chhibber and Vadhiparthi Lova Surya Prakasa Rao in recognition for seminal contribution and distinguished services in promoting the cause of geography in India.

The author offers insights on the acknowledgment of the proposed Anthropocene geological epoch in the study of geography. Topics discussed include the impact of human activity on the environment particularly plant and animal diversity, arguments concerning environmental conservation in the Anthropocene, and the possible involvement of geographers and social scientists in the formalization of the Anthropocene.

This paper analyzes the international publication performance of Turkish geographers in the last 70 years (1945-2015), especially by focusing on over the past decade (2005-2015) experience from a critical perspective. Using the Web of Science platform, the paper analyzes the research outputs and impacts of Turkish geographers in 46 physical and 76 human geography journals as well as other journals indexed in SCI-SSCI. The findings show that Turkish geographers published 318 articles in the indexed journals during 70 years period, but 274 (86%) of them were in the last 10 years. The number of articles during the last decade has shown a great leap (9 times), but their quality has decreased by 3 times compared to the past. Only 20% of Turkish geographers have published in indexed journals and, among them, only few actors have published most of the papers. While physical geographers have achieved a significant increase in the number of articles, the success of human geography has been largely thanks to geography education. 77% of the articles have not appeared in geographical journals, instead published in non-disciplinary, easy-fast low impact factor journals. Most of the published articles originated from the young departments in Anatolia, not from the old departments in metropolis. The fact that only 8-16% of all articles from Turkey published by Turkish geographers mean that Turkish physical geography is still more represented by geologists and Turkish human geography by city-regional planners than geographers at least in the international arena. As a result, although the level of internationalization of the Turkish geography is still low, a very positive process has started in the last 10 years. However, this positive process is not a "complete internationalization", but in some respects, it is a "distorted internationalization". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we draw attention to the attributes and values which equip geographers to engage in the scholarship of teaching and learning. We begin by summarising key characteristics of geographers in higher education, synthesized from academic literature. We support our summary with comments from past editors of the Journal of Geography in Higher Education offered in answer to the question: “What is it about the geographer’s identity or modes and styles of research that helps you to undertake productive enquiry into teaching and learning?” We purposely select three papers from the journal in order to highlight the distinctive (though not exhaustive) nature and range of higher education scholarship that has been undertaken by geographers. These case studies enquire into fieldwork pedagogies, teaching-research links and inclusive student-faculty partnership. We summarise the key elements of these papers and inter-weave the voices of the authors as accompanying narratives explaining the intent and approach to their research, and examining how it is shaped by their identities as geographers. We consider the issues in higher education that geographers are likely to embrace in the future and conclude by reflecting on what this means for the individual and for the discipline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to explain the geography student skills domain. The focus of this research is the domain of geography skills possessed by students. The research method with the a qualitative approach. Subjects were students of Jember University geography education consisting of 2 men and 2 women with indicators of academic ability value of the national geography exam results. Data collection techniques by observation and interview. Data were analyzed using the processing unit, categorization and interpretation of data. The findings show that the skills of geography for prospective teachers of geography and geographers to be possessed composed as follows: 1st level thinking skills geography (space, phenomena, location and place, region, environment, coordinate, and humans), level 2 skills of analysis geography (scale, distribution, patterns of interaction, interrelation, connectivity, corologi, descriptions, and agglomeration), and level 3 skills of geographic applications (mapping/cartography, remote sensing, geographic information systems, surveying and mapping of the area, and Global Position systems (GPS)). This level difference is used to distinguish the use of knowledge and application of the science of geography. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In each edition, we hope to profile the work of a leading geographer, especially those from South Australia. In this commentary paper, we present the work of Associate Professor Alaric Maude (AM), who spoke to Dr Cecile Cutter about his career. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As Kenzer (2001) has noted, “unlike practitioners in other academic fields, when it comes to the intellectual history of our discipline, geographers love to dabble.” However, examining this dabbling has normally been restricted to examining the contributions of faculty in Ph.D.-granting departments. Indeed, our discipline’s history is rich, but written accounts are incomplete, for the voices of geographers serving in undergraduate programs at colleges and universities of little prestige have for the most part been silent. These programs are housed in institutions that are home to the vast majority of academic geographers, many of whom toil relentlessly in the trenches of academe, teaching large classes of often underprepared undergraduates, mentoring promising students, performing considerable institutional committee work, and engaging in research. They are the backbone of American geography. Leon Yacher is one of them, and this is his story. Hopefully, this piece will spark others to write about mentors and colleagues, creating a more complete history of the geographic discipline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Geography's existence as a school or college subject has never been a given. While geographers make cases for geography's importance, acceptance of those cases rests not on impassioned rhetoric but on the social and intellectual contexts into which disciplines fit. Contexts are contested and they change. From a seemingly secure position at the beginning of the twentieth century, geography's role in American schools has been eroded and diminished by corrosive forces. Geographers need convincing answers to the existential question lest the subject disappear entirely. Geography's enviable position was in large measure the work of William Torrey Harris. Harris made a compelling existential case for geography and his vision, its implementation, its rejection, and its fate offer a model from which geographers can learn. Understanding how to respond to a social and intellectual context is crucial to geography's future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The physical-human dichotomy in geography is long standing, revolving around the topics studied and outlooks adopted by the two groups of geographers. Three reasons are identified for its continuation-the present structure of academic geography, constrained interactions between physical and human geographers, and their publication strategies. Critics suggest that physical and human geography have become divergent strains because the physical environment has been accorded little relevance in human geographic studies, also putting forward the failure of physical geographers to integrate the human influence on physical processes and neglecting space in their studies. Citing examples, this paper argues that physical and human geography influence each other. It also demonstrates that physical geographers have sufficiently considered both space and time, and even space-time, through the concepts of scale and ergodicity. Some measures have been proposed to resuscitate the links between these two branches. These are reconnecting university and school geography, merging departments, teaching courses on geographical philosophies and theory building, engaging in integrative discourses, innovative classroom strategies, joint fieldwork, using geoinformatics, and conducting collaborative research. The paper concludes that physical and human geographers must communicate with each other more and engage in cross-disciplinary studies. Otherwise, they might undermine their responsibilities as geographers and spatial thinkers/analysts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the direction of geographic education by discussing the views of geographical authors who used the term "whither" in the titles of their articles. It offers information on E. G. R. Taylor, the first geographer who asked the direction of geography. It also describes the state of geographic education in the 1970s, which saw a great expansion in geography, as well as the gradual decline of geographic education in the 21st century.

The author presents the idea of British school's reform in relations to categories of wisdom and foolishness by Sternberg or ordinariness. She refers to the discussion about geographical education in Great Britain. The aim of this paper is analyzing the idea of powerful knowledge and the visions of future British geographical education for arousing some reflections about Polish school geography. The conception of modern British geographers is like the conceptions of previous Polish geographers. But it seems that geographical education in Polish school, running for "modernity", goes away from these ideas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Field experiences continue to be a hallmark of a geographer's education and, for that matter, reeducation, as we all strive to remain current in the real world. Academic geographers beginning their ascent towards tenure and promotion might consider augmenting their portfolios with materials emerging from field teaching and learning activities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In the mid-1920s, under the guidance of his teacher, Zhu Kezhen, Zhang Qiyun established himself as a scholar by compiling middle school geography textbooks. He reached the peak of his early academic career when he joined the National Defense Planning Commission (Guofang sheji weiyuanhui) in 1932. His subsequent setbacks offered him a different kind of experience. During his tenure at Zhejiang University (1936–1949), he strived to combine research and administrative work. His friendship with Chen Bulei, Chen Xunci, and others, provided him with the connections to move from academia into politics. More important, beginning in the 1940s, Zhang contributed his scholarship in historical geography and geopolitics to the ruling regime and attracted Chiang Kai-shek’s attention. In 1948, some of the students at Zhejiang University started a movement to oust Zhang, which truly alienated him. During the power transition in 1949, Zhang made a political choice entirely different from the one made by his longtime mentor Zhu Kezhen, epitomizing the political divergence among scholars in the last years of the 1940s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines Advanced Placement Human Geography (AP HG) in the context of its place in efforts to reform geography education. It presents a critical analysis of the AP program and its curriculum, asserting that it represents “powerful knowledge” as conceptualized by Young. It concludes with a call for research in AP HG aligned with recommendations to focus geography education research. Geographers in higher education are encouraged to embrace AP HG as a mechanism to recruit students and majors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Beyond Germany, Leo Waibel (1888-1951) built a distinguished reputation for his work in Africa and the Americas. Today he is remembered especially in Brazil, where he boosted the development of geography as a research discipline in the years 1946-1950. During his tenure of the chair in geography at Bonn (1929-1937), Waibel's main research preoccupation became the role of the tropics in the world economy. In early 1937, he sought research leave to make an extended field trip to Brazil. Stripped on political grounds in the same year of his chair, Waibel came to the United States, where he became the only geographer to receive help from the Emergency Committee in Aid of Displaced Foreign Scholars. He would eventually serve as one of the very limited core staff on President Franklin Roosevelt's "M" Project on migration and settlement. This paper reconstructs the context of his work in the United States, clarifying especially the nature of his collaborations with Isaiah Bowman, widely regarded at the time as the leading geographer within the United States. Waibel's correspondence from the United States, and later from Brazil, reveals an international career marked by contradictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The history of K–12 geography education has been characterized by recurrent high hopes and dashed expectations. There have, however, been moments when the trajectory of geography education might have changed to offer students the opportunity to develop a thorough working knowledge of geography. Lucy Sprague Mitchell’s geography program developed in the 1920s and 1930s was brilliant in its conception and execution but it did not lead to large-scale systemic change. Analyzing the origins, development, and outcome of her program suggests the conditions that facilitate and inhibit systemic change, and therefore perhaps we can learn to capitalize on comparable moments in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Although there are surprisingly few academic books about geography with the termfutureorfuturesin their titles, this paper indicates that for much of the twentieth century geographers contributed to important discussions about the shape of worlds to come. The paper offers a review of these debates within Anglo-American geography and links them to continuing debates about educational futures in schools. Developing the work of Andrew Ross, the paper argues that the “futures of education” field is divided between two forms of “futurology” – bourgeois and environmental. The paper argues that geography educators are more likely to draw upon perspectives from “environmental futurology” and discusses three substantive areas within geography where questions of the future are highly visible. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Geographical imaginations are vital to make sense of challenges to sustainability which are produced and distributed across scale. Yet, a number of studies find that geography has been reluctant to integrate sustainability issues in its curricula. Geography is particularly interesting and can contribute to education for sustainability debates in various disciplines due to its strong tradition within the human-environment theme. This article presents an empirical analysis of contested ideas of sustainability approaches in Danish University geography degree programs, and the significance given to them by geographers. Hereby the paper critically examines political ecologies when introducing sustainability themes into the curricula. In so doing, it is discussed how different sustainability typologies in education bear relation to different ways of dealing with spatio-temporal tides and waves of the human-environment interface. It is concluded that though geographers find sustainability themes important to geography, sustainability is more often implicit than it is explicit. This produces a number of dilemmas and contradictions since geographers both seek to distance themselves from produced politics while at the same time elucidating them. This finding reveals contradictions within and between traditional ESD approaches, counterproductive to the aims of different typologies themselves. Since frictions between different ESD approaches are fundamentally interdisciplinary, the relevance of this finding is significant across disciplines. Thus, scholars and students should learn to go beyond the geopolitics of education in order to transcend the paradoxical-culture-natures identified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an introduction to the theme issue by placing recent discussions about the geographical canon within scholarly debates about canonicity. Geographers have been generally silent about canon but, to the contrary, possess a sophisticated grasp of related concepts such as tradition and paradigm. It is argued that there is no clear canonical conception that geographers should adopt, but that further attention towards the canonical is nevertheless merited. Engagement with the geographical canon is not prescriptive. Rather, its construction will be a personal choice that involves engagement with a broader community of scholarship. In doing so, though, productive avenues are created for consideration of the texts, habits and practices that identify geography. It is concluded that debates about canonicity provide much for considerations of historiography and pedagogy by geographers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wherever there is an established ‘canon’ within an established scholarly arena, this is near universally dominated by texts written by men. Whilst historical contextual reasons may account for the gendering of such knowledge production in relation to publications dating from the nineteenth and preceding centuries, one has to ask why this has persisted in an era of equal access to education and academia in the twentieth century. Why is women's work, highly influential in its day, overlooked in subsequent histories of the discipline and therefore marginalised in discussions of key works? These questions are particularly pertinent to any notion of a geographical canon, given the subject's relatively late arrival as a degree award in the UK from 1917 onwards. This paper draws on an analysis of the significance of lineage, reviewing, reputation and genre in the contextualised production and reception of selected work to explore the merits and demerits of a geographical canon – and the implications for gendered geographical knowledge. It goes on to suggest i) a more inclusive and dialogic relational approach to understanding past and present geographical work based on Kilcup's notion of the ‘soft canon’; ii) a broadening of the cast and range of outputs considered ‘influential’; and iii) encourages greater critical reflection on contemporary practices of canonization within sub-disciplines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reflects on the experience of a large interdisciplinary research team that included geographers in a study of older people's participation in community life in areas of rural Britain. The mechanisms used for facilitating interdisciplinary collaboration around the development of a collective conceptual framework and associated methodologies for investigating aspects of rural community inclusion in later life are outlined. Lessons relevant to geography education learned about the benefits and “messy reality” of interdisciplinary working are highlighted. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

An interview with Kimi Eisele, a Tucson, Arizona-based writer, dancer/choreographer, performer, director, visual artist, and educator, is presented. She notes the completion of a master's degree in geography in 1999 from the University of Arizona. She outlines the relation of having a degree in geography on being a dancer/choreographer, writer, and visual artist. She also shares the most influential geographers or works by geographers that affected the way she thinks about place.

This study introduces the Listening to Others’ Voices (LOV) project, an empowering strategy in geography education. This research aims to create a dataset detailing the perspectives of negatively stereotyped countries with respect to how their countries are portrayed in geography textbooks and to investigate the pedagogical effects of the LOV project. Preservice teachers in South Korea selected so-called marginalized countries from world regional geography textbooks at the secondary education level and interviewed an ambassador or similar person. It was found that the interviewees hoped to emphasize positive images, such as economic development and a unique culture. In addition, some issues relevant to the classification of current world regions were explored. The participants indicated that they felt empowered in leading the completion of the project and that they understood that geographic knowledge is a social construct. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A short and direct introduction sets out the context for this special section. After a brief sketch of each of the commentary pieces and how they fit together, the key question will then be posed: how are geographers now inserting themselves into these ongoing dynamics, and which particular aspects of the present moment are geography academics well-placed to address? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

William Pattison’s seminal 1964 article outlining geography’s four core traditions provided an informative overview of distinct strands of research and teaching in geography. His article enhanced appreciation of the discipline’s intellectual diversity, but it did not address why the identified traditions should be grouped together under a single disciplinary umbrella. The concern of a broad range of geographers with spatial relationships, place characterization, and geographical context provides a crosscutting rationale for such a grouping. Emphasizing these crosscutting themes along with Pattison’s four traditions (in updated form) can enhance efforts to communicate geography’s essence to students and to the wider public. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The focus in this article is on school atlases produced in Britain in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries and on what is revealed, both in their pages and in the processes behind their compilation, about the people who were producing and using such map books. The Bartholomew Archive, in Edinburgh, has proved to be an exceptionally rich source of hitherto unexamined data on the business and personal activities of one of the leading producers of school atlases, the local firm of John Bartholomew and Son, which was active in map making and publishing between 1880 and 1987. The sociology and pattern of communication of publishing, explored by book historians and historians of science, geography and cartography in other contexts, are here considered in relation to the atlases that were produced in Britain for schools in the United Kingdom and in other parts of the Empire in the period 1880–1930. Particular attention is paid to the efforts of mapmakers, publishers, geographers and other professionals to ensure the relevance of the maps selected in school atlases for specific audiences, to guarantee the credibility of the information communicated through these atlases, and to negotiate questions of authorship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses a paper presented at a conference organized by the Academia de Geografía e Historia de Guatemala (Academy of Geography and History of Guatemala), on July 9, 2014, on the history of the French School of Geography. The influence of Élisée Reclus and Paul Vidal de La Blache, 19th century French geographers, is also explored.

The article discusses the training and education of geographer, statesman, and British state functionary Halford John Mackinder. Topics covered include Mackinder's publications in geographic and geopolitical periodicals and anthologies including the work "Democratic Ideals and Reality," publications concerning the works of Mackinder by authors including Brian W. Blouet, Gerry Kearns, and Paul A. Dossena, and Mackinder's childhood and education in Great Britain.

Geography is a product of colonial processes, and in Canada, the exclusion from educational curricula of Indigenous worldviews and their lived realities has produced "geographies of ignorance". Transformative learning is an approach geographers can use to initiate changes in non-Indigenous student attitudes about Indigenous epistemologies and ontologies. This study explores non-Indigenous student perspectives concerning a field school and digital storytelling as transformative experiences within the context of an "Indigenous Perspectives on Environmental Management" course; they were asked to reflect on their course experience. Findings indicate that students found both to be effective and important steps in the transformation of their own worldviews. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Geography graduates face an uncertain future. To help students think and practice as a geographer, we must teach disciplinary knowledge – particularly threshold concepts – as well as skills and attributes. We must role model and articulate our geographical reasoning using signature pedagogies and promote high-impact and signature learning experiences. Through such experiences, students will be empowered to cope withbeingin an uncertain world. Geography has a history of innovation in pedagogy and a concern for a holistic education, so our discipline is well placed to rise to the challenge of securing a future for our graduates. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article discusses New Zealand geography's recent engagement in institutional regeneration that is aimed at redeveloping the knowledge claims its geography community can make. This engagement has led to new levels of understanding among many New Zealand geographers of colearning and coproduction of knowledge as geographic processes involving knowledge, power, and authority relations. The article briefly outlines two linked trajectories: those relating to the gradual recognition of institutional collapse, and the commitment to remaking a new and generative institutional framework, and the uptake of ideas from international geography that helped with prioritizing revisioning and institutional regeneration. Lessons from New Zealand geography's sobering institutional experiences and new efforts at collective learning and activity to extend the spheres of geography's action are salutary for international geography. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article reports the results of an extensive online survey conducted in 2010–2011 on the perceptions and concerns of “stand-alone” geographers in North American colleges and universities. These geographers, who work outside of the traditional structure of a disciplinary department, could become more common in a restructuring academy. Our analysis reveals that most stand-alone geographers are employed in nonconventional institutional arrangements, such as interdisciplinary programs, that require high levels of collaboration and interaction with nongeographers. For the most part, stand-alones see themselves as “ambassadors” for the discipline of geography, but professional and intellectual isolation tempers their impact. Building on our improved knowledge of this cohort, we recommend concrete steps to improve the status, relevance, and cohesion of stand-alone geographers and argue that they would benefit from developing a coherent identity based on the complex but relevant idea of interdisciplinarity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]