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AbstractInitial Teacher Education in England is in a period of rapid policy change. This is happening at a time when discourse about humans’ relationships with nature is changing, and there is increased recognition of the impacts that people have had on the Earth. Through a questionnaire and focus groups, we engaged with geography teacher educators’ experiences of, and perspectives on, Education for Sustainability (EfS). Using Priestley, Biesta, and Robinson, using the key dimensions of teacher agency model to analyse focus group data, we found that EfS was not consistently engaged with in geography teacher education, and where it was, it varied in the amount of time given to it, and the nature of the ideas, debates and knowledges engaged with through it. Whilst national education policy in England is constraining in some areas, its failure to truly engage with EfS has led geography teacher educators—in their own words—to “navigate” and “subvert” state-imposed policy. The article concludes by arguing for dialogue between geography teacher educators and policy makers to inform teacher education about EfS that supports the agency of young people, teachers and teacher educators in making informed decisions about education practices, as well as their lives and futures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The official discourse during the communist regime in Romania (1948–1989) has not been paid much attention by researchers and the official visual discourse, addressing adults and children, even less so. My study aims to address this research gap and identify the identity markers of the Romanian territory during socialism by exploring spatial representations and the territorial identity that were produced through official visual imagery. Using qualitative discourse analysis and critical visual methodology, I analyse the visual construction, through discourse, of themes and places created starting with the 1950s and were featured repeatedly during the 1970s and 1980s Romania (the period of national communism), and which constructed and highlighted traits of the country’s territorial identity. To achieve the research aim, I explore three types of research materials and ways of realising spatial education and socialisation through (propaganda) images or a visual pedagogy of space: (1) photographs in three textbooks about the Geography of Romania – a tool in educating people’s representations of their homeland, (2) official (state-produced and distributed) picture postcards reflecting progress during socialist Romania, and (3) comics about work and class identities in Cutezătorii [The Daring Ones] youth magazine – a tool in the edutainment of Romanian communist pioneers. These three official visual discourses were part of a coherent cultural visual discourse about the socialist nation, pervading representations about Romania, about its urban area, and about who the Romanians were meant to have been. This plural discourse was constructed through the visual intertextuality of these three widely distributed media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The importance of between‐desk instruction during inquiry‐based learning to deepen learning is well recognised in some curriculum areas but remains under‐researched in geography. Inquiry‐based learning incorporates the use of generative questions and inquiry methods to support student‐driven investigations. This paper reports on a study of teacher–student interactions during geography inquiry‐based learning. A cross‐case fine‐grained analysis of two teachers' video‐recorded lessons in a classroom laboratory using a kikan‐shido coding framework showed that "guiding" was the dominant between‐desk function used. The teachers differed in whether guiding was mainly used for task completion or to deepen student understanding. Semi‐structured interviews revealed that the characteristics and sequence of these guiding actions were influenced by teachers' beliefs. Those beliefs mediated how teachers guided students during the inquiry, debunking a dichotomous view of inquiry‐based learning as either teacher or student directed. We conclude that inquiry‐based learning is a necessary and complex interplay of teacher‐directed and student‐directed activities and that more research on the elements contributing to the kikan‐shido functions performed by teachers could help better identify and strengthen teacher practice for inquiry‐based learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Science-faith dialogue would be strengthened by a greater sensitivity to the Bible's form as a two-testament collection of writings. Science-faith scholarship has often treated concepts from the Bible monolithically, without sensitivity to the particularity of each Testament and each particular book within a Testament with respect to (1) genre, (2) the state of science when a given text was authored, (3) the state of science education in an author's context, (4) a given author's own level of education, and (5) the rhetorical aims of a given text. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As PhD candidates of geography and planning, we engage in a collaborative autoethnography to reflect on our experiences during a writing retreat. We explore the significance of material and immaterial spaces of the retreat and how these spaces impacted our academic writing. We emphasise the value of a collaborative and supportive learning environment that challenges the productivity-driven, neoliberal narrative imbued in academic writing. Drawing on our personal reflections of the retreat, we illustrate how writing retreats foster a "space" of support, facilitate academic writing competence, and expose participants to new avenues of learning. Using a grounded theory approach, we draw on Donna Haraway's situated knowledges as well as and Dooren Massey's theorisation on space, to examine our individual reflections and collectively discuss the intricate relationship between solitude and productivity in academic writing. Our findings delve into diverse experiences of material space (physical) and immaterial space (psychological and imaginative), as well as the negotiation of solitude-togetherness and speed-slowness interface within the retreat context. We argue for rethinking the notion of a retreat, envisioning it as a space that challenges the norms of academic productivity and fosters a more caring and interconnected approach to scholarly writing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the introduction of in-class group-based virtual reality (VR), multiple students can interact in a single shared "metaverse". One geography-focused group VR option is the Wooorld app, available on various Meta Quest unit models. To evaluate the feasibility of group VR in a higher education geography lecture classroom, a pilot study was run for two days with a small, upper-level Urban Geography class at Arkansas Tech University in spring 2023. Using multiple wireless Meta Quest 2 headsets, the class collectively used the Wooorld app to visit 3D-rendered global downtowns. Inside the app, students saw each other's avatars and manipulated the viewing area for the rest of the class. Students completed pre/post-experience surveys, and the data suggest strong student enthusiasm for shared VR, and for Wooorld. However, some technical and physical space issues arose. While this pilot study aimed to evaluate the potential of classroom group VR via the Wooorld app, this study also considers the possibility of using group VR in future geography lecture classrooms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intersecting pressures within higher education ask geographers to be ever-more applied, global, community-engaged, field-based, and sustainable. Particularly within the liberal arts education systems, we navigate these pressures for both students seeking geography degrees and those completing their general education. While aspirational if often economically driven, these goals are in some ways contradictory. How can a course be both field and community based? How can a program deliver global and sustainable experiences? Where is the balance between applied practice and critical theory? Focusing beyond these high-level questions, while nevertheless engaging with them, we question the very possibility of drawing upon the legacy of community-based field research to offer a study away experience to students that not only teaches sustainable tourism, but practices it. Using autoethnographic fieldnotes and student surveys, we ask how field-based programs may show significant curricular application both within and beyond geography. We do so via a case study of our Amtrak Tourism: Trains, Cities, and Sustainability domestic faculty-led study away program which seeks to simultaneously practice and teach multiple forms of place-based sustainable-tourism. Our findings point towards the significance of slow tourism and dwelling as key components necessary in navigating both the pedagogical and touristic paradoxes programs such as our face. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Empirical evidence is insufficient on the specific roles GIS learning plays in developing students' understanding various spatial concepts. The present study aims to draw attention to common struggles of learning some spatial concepts in geography and offer directions for future research on GIS learning and the development of student spatial concept lexicon. Three types of technical terms – neutral, helpful associations, and hindering associations – by Glessmer and Brose (2014) provided an excellent framework to explain why some concepts are more or less difficult for students to grasp. Our findings suggest that learning map scale and map projection are relatively easy because they are neutral and introduced as a new vocabulary. Overlay and density are terms provoking helpful associations because they carry a similar meaning in everyday language, so most students had no problems understanding the meaning of these concepts. Spatial association seemed to elicit unhelpful association because everyday use of the term, association, is not precise enough to define spatial association, resulting in students confused with other terms. Future research must be done in the context of GIS requiring students to be able to not only know spatial concepts but clearly articulate these concepts regarding various GIS applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Master of Science (M.S.) programs, including geography through geographic information science and technology (M.S. GIST), play a key part in training the science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) workforce. A master's thesis has been a traditional part of geography programs, and across all kinds of disciplines the value of a thesis is well-recognized. However, delivering master's thesis supervision for large cohorts may result in lengthy completion times and poor completion rates. A growing literature focuses on master's thesis supervision across a wide array of disciplines, but no study focuses on the master's thesis for M.S. GIST programs. We offer a mixed-methods case study of a large, online M.S. GIST program showing how problems developed and were resolved over a 13-year period with program-wide structural reforms. Reform elements included increased attention to writing skills in admissions review, addition of writing instruction, earlier student engagement, staff engagement, faculty engagement, and development of thesis courses. Reforms shortened completion times and increased thesis completion rates while sustaining diversity and quality of thesis projects. Although this case study echoes many strategies found in the literature, it emphasizes that replication likely requires linking solutions together through structural reforms across a master's degree program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recruiting undergraduate students is a significant challenge for undergraduate geography programs. Few students have robust exposure to geography in secondary school and the major has low name recognition for entering first year students. In fact, geography is often a "found" major on many campuses with students coming to the major after a general education course. But, does it need to be this way? Can geography programs take a more proactive role in building a pipeline of prospective students that is not solely tied to supporting AP Human geography teachers? In this paper, we describe an alternative path for university departments to build strong recruiting pathways, sharing the successes and challenges of building the connections and the learning advantages that students gain through early exposure to geospatial technologies. We focus on the Geospatial Semester, a dual enrollment program between James Madison University and participating school districts in Virginia (and beyond) that began in 2005. We share how departments can build a successful partnership with high schools and the process of sustaining such a program within a university setting. We will also describe the research we have done on the learning gains the Geospatial Semester provides to participating students and how extended use of geospatial technology bolters students' spatial thinking skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The past two decades saw a growing attention to the role of design for the geography of education and simultaneously shifted architectural attention towards the understanding of different forms of pedagogy. Yet, careful empirical engagements with the material architecture of contemporary school buildings and the experiences they mediate are still scarce or missing. Focussing on how mechanisms of control are imagined and practiced in the design and use of school buildings, this article fleshes out a picture of the performative spatial machinery of schools. It will do so drawing on designers' accounts, plans and visions for a Building Schools for the Future (BSF) building in Liverpool, UK and on accounts of the experiences of different school dwellers. Overcoming the dualist understanding of education as an activity that happens in objective frames of learning (the static architecture of the schools) or the subjective interpretations of users (the perception of teachers and students), we trace specific practices of 'dwelling' in the school building and identify architectural and designerly techniques for modulating control. Instead of dissipating or reducing control, or merely re-producing the classic forms of power, this versatile and porous type of architecture, we argue, multiplies and diversifies the forms of 'polycentric' control exercised through various intersecting lines of sight and sound. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Geography education plays an important role in the promotion of disaster resilience; however, the relationship between geography education and disaster resilience has failed to attract systematic attention in China and the United States (US). This study compares the contents regarding disaster risk reduction in secondary school geography textbooks in China and the US to explore the contributions of geography education to promoting disaster resilience. These textbooks are analyzed using content analysis based on the Sendai Framework with four actions. This study finds that geography textbooks in China and the US include disaster risk reduction content; however, the contents are unevenly distributed, with "understanding disaster risk" and "enhancing disaster preparedness" accounting for a higher proportion, whereas "strengthening disaster risk governance" and "investing in disaster risk management to enhance resilience" account for a lower proportion. The results indicate that geography education plays an important role in enhancing disaster resilience and can strengthen students' understanding and preparedness for disaster risks. Meanwhile, this study points out the shortcomings in current disaster risk reduction education and provides a reference for improving educational practice and policy formulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the critical geographies of the circular economy, highlighting the negative impacts of resource consumption and the need for sustainable practices. It explores the exponential rise in circular economy research and the challenges of transitioning to a circular economic model. The text emphasizes the importance of a more critical lens in examining circular economy debates, focusing on context, proximity, flows, scale, and spatial planning. It also delves into the social, political, and ethical implications of transitioning to a circular economy, calling for a more inclusive and diverse perspective in shaping circular economy futures. [Extracted from the article]

This commentary spotlights the continued impact of the Russian invasion on geography education in higher education in Ukraine. From discussions with Ukrainian geographers in institutions in contrasting regions of the country, we describe their resilience in adapting the delivery of the physical geography curriculum, especially in the essential area of fieldwork and the use of digital tools. This ‘lived experience’ perspective builds on the theoretical contributions to the discussion initiated by Klinke (2023) in this journal about the challenges posed for geographers. In the third year of the conflict, the challenges set out are considerable, long term, and we call for individuals, universities and funders to further facilitate teaching and learning collaborations despite the limited funds available for the exchange of teaching and learning support and innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

National curriculum statements found within the Official Recontextualising Field (ORF) provide an insight into how geography as a school subject is conceptualized in a country’s education system. National curricula can shape teachers’ agency in curriculum making and what, how and where children and young people study and learn geography. This paper engages with the lower secondary national geography curriculum for England, Finland and Sweden. We examine the structure and nature of the national geography curricula in each country, before drawing on the threefold arrangement of geographical knowledge as a tool for the analysis of the curricula. Our analysis found that deep and descriptive world knowledge forms the largest proportion of all three national curricula documents, and we argue that this can lead to a potentially limited conceptualization of geographical knowledge and representation of geography. We also suggest that the threefold arrangement could more actively engage with political dimensions when considering futures, and that there should be greater attention paid to the histories and geographies of the discipline (geography) in school geography. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractThe purpose of this study is to present the possibilities of implementing mobile virtual reality (VR) in school geography and to examine its benefits and risks. A total of 163 students from various elementary schools in Slovakia participated in this study. We used qualitative and quantitative data analysis from students’ feedback and observations of the VR activities. The Intrinsic Motivation Inventory questionnaire and researcher observation sheet were used as research tools. The study showed that the implementation of mobile VR is possible in the environment of Slovak schools and has positive effects on several areas of students’ internal motivation. The best results were achieved in the areas of interest/pleasure, understanding of the activity, and perception of the value and usefulness of the activity. We also found that the gender or age of the students in our research sample did not have a significant impact on students’ internal motivation when working with VR. Our work not only provides evidence to support the wider adoption of mobile VR in education but also clarifies several possibilities for its implementation in school geography. In conclusion, we identify the most significant benefits and risks of using mobile virtual reality in geography education. The results of testing mobile VR show the great usefulness of this technology, which serves as a motivational tool for 3D visualization of various locations and phenomena on Earth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Developing young people’s understanding of geography concepts requires teachers who have detailed, structured, interconnected, and accurate conceptual knowledge and understanding. Accordingly, this study focuses on pre-service geography teachers’ understanding of the exemplar concept of contours on maps and discusses its implications for teacher training programmes. Data collected using a two-tier conceptual test and a questionnaire in a sample of 127 pre-service geography teachers indicated that pre-service teachers should not be perceived as a homogenous group with identical conceptual understandings and educational needs. The results highlighted the necessity to differentiate between pre-service teachers not only based on their conceptual understanding but also on the non-cognitive dimensions of concepts. Four types of pre-service teachers were identified based on success and certainty rates: successful-certain (SC), successful-uncertain (SU), failing-uncertain (FU) and failing-certain (FC). Both SU and FU types were characterised by low confidence in their related skills and a negative relationship to the concept of contours. The non-cognitive dimension manifested in opposite ways in SC and FC types. The specific educational approach required by each type is discussed, and implications for further research are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we engage with undergraduate geography students’ reflections on their geography education. We begin by examining the position of geography within education across the British Isles. Following this, we critically consider how geography education is shaped by “the gap” between school and university geography and geographies of education, before reporting on the findings from a survey of 333 undergraduate students studying geography across the British Isles conducted in late 2020. We examine the complex question of who is studying geography at undergraduate level, students’ journeys through their geography degree, and their experiences of personal and disciplinary frontiers in education. We conclude by arguing the importance of educators engaging with students’ “everyday” geographies, and for further research into progress across education phases in geography to co-construct a rich and rounded geographic education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Anthropocene is a contested notion yet has taken hold as a term to describe the current state of global human-induced environmental changes, including biodiversity loss and climate change. Despite this fact, in the New South Wales Kindergarten to Year 10 Geography syllabus, ‘the Anthropocene’ is not explicitly mentioned. When a syllabus avoids engaging with such a key environmental concept, and this is combined with a high proportion of geography being taught by non-specialist teachers, missed opportunities emerge. This Thinking Space paper showcases how an academic geographer, post-graduate students, and a geography education academic in New South Wales collaborated to mitigate an absence of ‘the Anthropocene’ in syllabus content. We bring visibility to invisible content around ‘the Anthropocene’ by examining syllabus content and working through possible solutions. In doing so, we argue that the Anthropocene is explicitly absent yet implicitly present. We hope that this paper provides some pathways for teachers who may choose to include an important, yet seemingly absent, area of geographical content. It is also a call to foster collaborative opportunities between Geographers and Geography educators to support content development amongst school-based teachers of Geography. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Literature has emphasized the value of multidisciplinary learning strategies and the necessity of educating students to solve complex problems. It also pointed out the importance of teacher's beliefs in their practices. The purpose of this study is to understand how future teachers recognize the board game Caravelas as a didactic tool to help elementary school students develop math skills in History and Geography Portugal (HGP) classes, in a multidisciplinary way. A board game intervention was employed in the study, and both quantitative and qualitative data were gathered from sixteen future teachers enrolled in the Didactic of HGP course during their third year of the Basic Education programme. Two questionnaires were used along with a focus group discussion. The findings indicate that this group of future teachers thinks Caravelas can help students achieve their learning goals in mathematics and HGP, as well as develop their reasoning, problemsolving, and social skills. Future teachers believe Caravelas can be used as a didactic tool to integrate mathematics into HGP subjects and support multidisciplinary learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars have become increasingly interested in identifying a more effective set of core teaching practices for developing teacher education and professional development programs. Although they have conducted many investigations within this realm over the past two decades, these efforts have focused mainly upon science, language arts, math, and music. The existing body of academic literature contains only a few studies that examine the social studies context, and this deficiency ignores the field of geography. The current study addressed this gap in the literature by exploring the core practices of geographic inquiry. A Delphi method was used to identify the core practices for teaching geographic inquiry. The findings were derived from a three-round Delphi panel survey involving 27 experts in the geography education field, helping to build consensus around a set of core secondary school geography teaching practices. The results revealed that experts considered eight practices to be core for facilitating geographic inquiry: (1) use geographic questions; (2) explain geographic concepts, principles, and processes; (3) select and adapt geographic sources; (4) use geographic/spatial representation and geospatial technology tools; (5) develop geographic reasoning; (6) evaluate sources and employ geographic evidence; (7) construct geographic explanations and predictions; and (8) develop informed-geographic action. These eight core practices for facilitating geographic inquiry do not function separately; rather, they operate simultaneously and in an interconnected manner in which more than one practice works to facilitate inquiry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is an interview with John Allen, a former supervisor at the Open University (OU), who reflects on his time there in the 1980s and 1990s. Allen discusses the interdisciplinary nature of the OU and how its teaching model influenced his intellectual development. He also mentions the challenges faced by the OU, including accusations of Marxist bias. Allen emphasizes the collaborative nature of the OU's course teams and the importance of translating complex ideas for students. The text also discusses the role of supervision in guiding postgraduate students and the impact of different theoretical perspectives. Overall, the article highlights the importance of open dialogue and intellectual exchange in academic settings. [Extracted from the article]

This paper investigates geography textbooks of the 1930s in Türkiye, contending that geographical knowledge played a pivotal role in shaping nationhood within a modernising state. This study's critical discourse analysis (CDA) of the early republican geography textbooks showcases how (1) Türkiye's spatial formation was reimagined in 1930s; (2) defining markers of Turkishness and the Turkish nation were forged through erasures and breakups of minority groups, and (3) the new national identity was “bridged” to the geography of the newly founded Republic. This paper posits that a nation's portrayal of its geography and global positioning is not merely a factual recording, but also a reflection of ideological and political choices. Such portrayals are complete social constructs, inherently influenced by power dynamics and disputes. Beneath the ostensibly impartial depictions of space and spatial relations, invisible power dynamics and assertions underlie the assignments of specific meanings to geographic areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To improve student outcomes in four-credit asynchronous online physical geography classes that included a lab component, we employed three different experimental techniques in spring 2022. Fifteen faculty who collectively taught 24 sections of Introduction to Landforms or Weather and Climate modified one element of their course to foster improved student performance. Interventions in these science general education classes targeted student engagement and procrastination and included staggering deadlines, increasing the number of emails sent, and meeting with students one-on-one. Comparison of control versus experimental sections yielded mixed results demonstrating that faculty efforts to improve classes may not always have the intended effect. This suggests faculty should assess changes made to their class to determine if student outcomes improve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses Deep Mapping in Geography teaching and learning by drawing on a case study of a summer school organised during the COVID-19 pandemic. Deep Mapping was used to foster deep learning among the students and teach them about a distant place and people. The exercise tasked the students to work on the creation of layered maps representing the fieldwork site, the city of Vancouver, Canada. Critical student reflections about the Deep Mapping process are used to address some of the benefits and challenges. The Deep Mapping exercise stimulated the students to critically engage with the diverse summer school materials, move beyond a superficial view of the city, maps and mapping, and reflect on their positionality. The method is promising in light of making deep engagement with other places more accessible to those who might not have or be inclined to access such international educational experience and also offers another opportunity for blended learning. In conclusion, we argue that Deep Mapping offers a timely and highly engaging approach to learn about a place and people from another part of the world – be it on location or at a distance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Black education has interrogated race, context, and power questions, yet these practices spanning geographies and learning contexts have not always been valued as spatial knowledge. Further, Black scholars have carved out spaces that honor the communal and spatial sensibilities of Black students, educators, and communities. Black geographies thought can help us reshape how we understand and interrogate issues within education and learning with attention to anti-blackness, futurities, imagining, placemaking, and efforts to create a sense of belonging despite perpetual unbelongingness in dominant educational and learning spaces. Thus, our piece engages with Black Geographies to emphasize the Black radical traditions of space and freedom-making to reorganize our approaches to pedagogy and storytelling. We engage what we call Black Spatial Storylines through our shared and individual stories. We present multiple vignettes and examples to model the ways Black Sound, particularly hip-hop, invites us to engage Black Spatial Storylines as both methodological and pedagogical techniques that start at Blackness. Not only do we highlight and use our own stories as examples, we detail how this process shifts our understanding of Black urban life, and allows us to reorient our educational praxis through Blackness. We conclude with suggested pathways for future applications of a Black geographies framework to education and learning, including the abundance that is the interweaving of Blackness. Thus, we hope to honor and uplift Black communities' spatial knowledge by formulating our foundational understandings of Black spatial knowledge and the role it plays in education and learning studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the significance of fieldwork in Geography education as a means to develop spatial thinking and real-world engagement among students. Topics include the integration of geospatial technologies in the curriculum, the necessity of primary data collection through fieldwork to enhance students' analytical skills, and strategies for fostering a deeper appreciation of Geography within the school community.

The application of virtual reality (VR) in geography education is regarded as a progressive and proactive method that has still not gained sufficient attention in the educational policy in Hungary. The aim of our review is to find the ways and means to make it happen. We selected 47 works that are closely linked to geography teaching and analyzed their bibliometric (authorship and journal characteristics, types of works and applied methods, keywords, referencing, and co-citation networks) and contextual characteristics (research objectives, demographic, gender and social background, hardware and software specifications, advantages and disadvantages, conclusions, and predictions) which we expected to help us to understand the slow implementation and undeserved marginalization of VR in the curricular geography education. We used a mixed-method research analysis combining elements of quantitative and qualitative analysis using inductive reasoning. Our preliminary assumption that the application of VR technology is an effective and useful way of teaching geography was proved by our findings. The methods used by the authors of the reviewed empirical works, together with the recommended future research topics and strategies, can be applied to future empirical research on the use of VR in geography education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adoption of a multilingual educational system in South Africa necessitates translation services, as the diverse official languages that are spoken in South Africa and their attendant cultures rarely have conceptual equivalents. The paucity of conceptual equivalents in natural sciences like geography calls for strategies on how to equate concepts ideologically and semantically between languages such as English and Tshivenḓa. Hence, this article analyses the translation strategies applied when translating Grade 4 geography concepts from English into Tshivenḓa. A qualitative phenomenology inquiry is used. The data were examined using inductive thematic analysis. Skopos and the Scan and Balance theories served as the theoretical framework. It was found that the translators used paraphrasing, more general words, related words, transliteration and omission as strategies to attain equivalence. This article provides translators with relevant and applicable translation strategies to address the non-equivalence between English and Tshivenḓa Grade 4 geography terminologies. It prompts the Department of Education to implement the Language-in-Education Policy and translate subjects such as Grade 4 geography from English into Tshivenḓa by demonstrating the feasibility of the suggested translation strategies. The findings may also contribute to the development of Tshivenḓa, one of South Africa's minority languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cuerpo-territorio is a method stemming from Latin American geography, which recognizes the centrality of situated and embodied experiences as a form of knowing. We engaged with this method in the classroom to understand how students through their embodied and situated experiences had absorbed a post-development geographic course content and how these notions had remained with them. Given that emotions, particularly when elicited by images play a major role in consolidating knowledge, we asked students to explore their embodied feelings related to the course content by reflecting and representing them in a visual form on a poster. Through this paper, we aim to contribute to the debate on the importance of applying decolonial strategies in the classroom by widening the methodological toolbox of our geography colleagues. We find that, given the diversity of the students' population, working with a boundary object such as the posters helped students to relate to each other via the course content. Finally, reflecting and assimilating the course content through cuerpo -territorio, we argue, was conducive to consolidating learning outcomes, while students experienced knowledge co-creation with their peers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reflects on what we learnt about teaching geography during the COVID-19 pandemic. We interrogate how we, as geography educators working in different contexts, navigated the novel teaching spaces created during the pandemic using two key registers; courageous and compassionate pedagogies. Our premise is that understanding in more nuanced form the approaches we took to creating courageous and compassionate education during the pandemic may help geography educators to thrive when delivering future-facing education. Our approach was to write and share vignettes of our pandemic teaching upon which we (asynchronously) collectively reflected; creating emergent themes described in this paper. This approach to structured peer learning derives from our commitment to education as a collective endeavour. We argue that the disruption caused by the early pandemic required geography educators to focus attention explicitly on areas previously taken as given. Geography educators slowed down by: (1) recognising educator and student embodiment in a novel context; (2) prioritising listening, acknowledging and sharing with students; and (3) paying attention to and respecting difference amongst learners and colleagues. We propose that consciously adopting these approaches will support geography educators and their students in rapidly changing circumstances across educational, employment and climate contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amid the shift to virtual teaching and learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, educators across disciplines were faced with developing new teaching strategies for active learning and significant learning experiences. This paper discusses findings from a case study of integrating ArcGIS Online and StoryMaps for assignments and semester projects in systematic geography courses – health, population, and urban geography. The study assesses the process of incorporating the use of this technology into these upper-division undergraduate courses, with a mix of both geography and non-geography majors, and student perspectives on their learning of and engagement with this technology. With broader applications to different course, discipline, and education contexts, findings suggest increased student engagement, enhanced understanding of course topics and their practical applications, and an appreciation for the opportunity to learn within and work with geospatial technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper makes two contributions to knowledge. First, it broadens geographies of education's focal reach by concentrating attention on the consumption of supplementary education. Supplementary education markets are booming as parents seek to ensure their children have the qualifications required to succeed in knowledge economies. The paper elucidates how consumption of such commercially provided tuition—which is delivered outside of school boundaries but designed to improve performance in school—is shaped by place‐specific, classed and racialised parenting cultures. This shines an important light on shadow education market mechanics that have hitherto been hidden from geographical view, and foregrounds the significant role parenting cultures play in shaping children's educational experiences. Future research in geographies of education must attend to these parenting cultures, as interactions between the home and diverse formal, informal, alternative and supplementary education settings play an increasingly crucial role in confronting and reproducing educational inequality. Second, the paper advances the conceptual contribution of geographies of education to interdisciplinary debates about parents and education. It demonstrates that multi‐scalar geographical research makes a unique contribution to interdisciplinary theorisations of home–school links, including those utilising Bourdieu's notion of cultural reproduction, and Lareau's model of concerted cultivation. Specifically, multi‐scalar analysis demonstrates that: (i) place‐sensitive research is vital as it contextualises parenting cultures, reattaching analyses of parental habitus and capital to the field, highlighting how intersecting global, national and local processes shape parents' educational practices; (ii) previously overlooked racial differences in concerted cultivation must be analysed without being naturalised, by exploring how racialised dispositions towards education are shaped in/across place, and reproduced through global/local racialised social capital; and (iii) inter‐class differences that have dominated parenting debates remain important, but attention to inter‐class similarity and intra‐class variation, as it emerges through intersections with race and in place, is equally vital. This paper focuses geographical attention on the booming supplementary education market: it elucidates how consumption of commercially provided tuition—which is delivered outside of school boundaries but designed to improve performance in school—is shaped by place‐specific, classed and racialised parenting cultures. The paper argues that geographical research can make a unique contribution to interdisciplinary debates about parents' impact on education, as it: (i) elucidates how intersecting global, national and local processes shape parents' educational practices; (ii) illuminates how parents' racialised dispositions are shaped in place and reproduced though global/local racialised social capital; and (iii) foregrounds inter‐ and intra‐class specificities in parenting cultures while attending to class's intersection with race and emergence in place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The integrated status of Social Studies in the Norwegian Curriculum for Knowledge Promotion in Primary and Secondary Education and Training 2020 reflects an international educational trend pertaining to a movement from knowledge and traditional disciplinary thinking to generic skills, competence and boundary crossing. This article addresses the changed organisation of geography as a subject within Social Studies in the national curriculum framework. Through a thematic analysis of how geographical knowledge is classified and represented in the curriculum, this article discusses opportunities and limitations in the curriculum when it comes to developing students' powerful geographical knowledge. The analysis shows that geographical knowledge is organised in an attempt to reduce content boundaries. Found across the curriculum, geographical knowledge includes geographical scale, geographic conditions and human–nature interconnections. However, geographical knowledge is represented through an understanding of space as absolute and fixed rather than relational and dynamic, as well as through a technical and mainly individual understanding of scale. We conclude that boundary crossing related to sustainability and citizenship as interdisciplinary topics opens opportunities for powerful geographical knowledge, although this potential is limited by the weak classification of geography in the curriculum for Social Studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper has its origins in the EU Comenius funded GeoCapabilities project. From its outset, the project developed and researched the notion of powerful disciplinary knowledge (PDK) as an underlying principle of curriculum making in the context of secondary school geography teaching. The work, led from the UCL Institute of Education and involving school teachers, teacher educators and other stakeholders across eight mainly European jurisdictions, was framed by Young and Muller's 'three educational scenarios' (Young & Muller, European Journal of Education, 45, 2010 and 11). The three futures heuristic is discussed as a means to distinguish qualities of curriculum thought. Future 3 scenarios, which posit teachers as curriculum makers with responsibility to engage in essential 'knowledge work', provide a principled platform on which to develop ambitious educational classroom encounters. Knowledge working with PDK and (as we go on to argue) other powerful ways of knowing the world, is seen as a bridge between social realist epistemological principles and practical classroom content selections. This opens the possibility of responding to Deng's (Journal of Curriculum Studies, 54, 2022) call for developing practical theories of content with teachers. Although the authors are geographers in education drawing on different international perspectives and traditions, the paper addresses matters of interest applicable to a variety of specialist subject domains across the secondary school curriculum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Indonesia's high vulnerability to flood disasters has significant social and educational impacts, especially on secondary school students. This research addresses the need for an effective flood disaster literacy tool by developing a credible and validated test instrument designed for high school geography education. Using the ADDIE model, this research involved the stages of review, creation, implementation, testing, and assessment. The study involved a sample of 30 students from SMA Negeri 1 Beber, Cirebon Regency, who were assessed for their understanding through a specially designed flood disaster literacy test. The results showed a mix of correct and incorrect answers, with notable variations in students' understanding. The test instrument showed high validity and reliability, with a KR-21 coefficient of 0.963, confirming its robustness. Despite a few invalid items, the instrument effectively evaluated key aspects of flood disaster literacy, including knowledge, attitudes and practical skills. The findings highlight strengths and areas for improvement in students' understanding, emphasising the need for targeted educational strategies. This research contributes to improving geography education by integrating disaster literacy and offers a foundation for future curriculum development.

This study investigates 152 Irish primary pupils' attitudes towards geography and their most preferred and least preferred methods of learning and experiencing geography at primary level. The findings indicate that Irish pupils have a neutral attitude towards geography with no significant difference between male and female pupils nor between class levels. Findings clearly show a direct link between teaching approaches and pupil attitudes with Irish pupils preferring hands-on, child-centred, experiential methods of teaching and learning and least preferring rote-learning and didactic and textbook-dominated approaches. Learning about physical features and distant places dominates with few references to the local area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the integration of indigenous knowledge into South African geography education as an intersection of social justice and decolonial imperatives. Historically, colonial education systems have marginalized indigenous epistemologies by privileging Western knowledge as universally superior. Integrating indigenous perspectives into curricula can counter this legacy by promoting cognitive justice and unsettling Eurocentric dominance. However, meaningful integration requires moving beyond superficial additions of indigenous elements within unchanged Western-centric curricula as this risks appropriating indigenous knowledge in disempowering ways. The paper argued that ethical integration necessitates recentring indigenous knowledge systems in their own right alongside Western frameworks to enact pluralistic, horizontal cognitive frameworks. A qualitative literature analysis identified key themes around recognizing indigenous epistemologies, dismantling enduring hierarchies, and developing responsible community-centred integration processes. While systemic constraints pose barriers, integrating indigenous perspectives into geography education holds the transformative potential to advance both social justice inclusion aims and decolonial decentralization agendas. This convergence provides opportunities to develop anti-oppressive curricula that empower marginalized knowledge and ontologies. However, realization requires extensive efforts to sustain reflexivity and enable indigenous self-determination over knowledge. Ultimately, the paper underscored that indigenous knowledge integration must move beyond tokenism towards fundamentally transforming education systems through ethical, empowering processes grounded in partnerships with indigenous communities. This is vital for nurturing students able to navigate the world through plural epistemologies and enacting both social justice and decolonial futures.

This paper discusses the application of Karl Maton's notion of ‘semantic waves’ to the teaching of geography at the post‐16 phase (A‐level) in England. Drawing on evidence generated through a 2‐year close‐to‐practice case study, it illustrates its potential as a scaffold in two ways. Firstly, one that can help teachers face both ways: Towards their subject discipline, to see it in more naïve forms, and towards their novice students, to make that form explicit and thus accessible to them. Such a deliberative or hermeneutic orientation stands in sharp contrast to the atomistic mode of the technicist orientation to knowledge dominant in English education. Secondly, as a scaffold that can provide a visual language for students which makes explicit the implicit relationship between different components of an essay, and in this sense, helps scaffold for a more relational mode of thinking about the geography itself. Interviews with students suggested semantic waves was: (i) a practical but not a prescriptive tool, (ii) a framework that could extend their thinking and (iii) a scaffold that connects knowledge with essay writing. It appeared to be a useful tool to bring the geographical knowledge and its complexity to the fore by aiding metacognitive thought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A key responsibility of academic scholarship is to further develop the field under investigation and to critically evaluate how it is responding to challenges from both inside and outside of the field of enquiry. This article offers an overview of whether the scholarship published in geography education (GE) from the perspective of the Commission for Geography Education (CGE) Springer book series is sufficiently engaging with contemporary global challenges and education discourses. Guided by the 2022 IGU-CGE Rennes Conference's three axes: curriculum renewal, pedagogy and teacher training, the article discusses the findings of a meta-analysis of the six books published in the CGE Springer series in the past five years (2017 to 2021).The thematic analysis shows that GE is engaging with global realities of environment and sustainability, climate change, globalisation and the importance of powerful knowledge for understanding and engaging with complex, often controversial issues. But there are also gaps and absences in terms of who is producing knowledge and from where knowledge is being generated. We contend that the book series is well placed to support the community in addressing global concerns and the related transformative pedagogies needed to enact them. However, we also suggest that the publications at this point in time have yet to fully grasp the specifics needed for the challenges that lie ahead. Some preliminary considerations for advancing the field through future publications are offered. These may be useful to GE researchers and scholars in different regions of the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) is used to describe the knowledge teachers use to teach a specific subject to a specific audience. Although PCK is linked to student success and motivation, relatively little is known about the PCK of geography teachers. Through a mixed methods approach, we surveyed a group of 73 Dutch pre-service teachers in their final year of geography teacher education. We used the PCK-consensus model to address both PCK-on action (teacher knowledge) and PCK-in action (teacher practice). We investigated the former through a CoRe-assignment and the latter through a quantitative survey. Teacher's PCK-in action focussed on teacher-centred lessons with ample attention for visualisations, current events, and efforts to engage students. The results for PCK-on action confirmed the content dependency of PCK. Pre-service teachers chose different geographical topics and used different goals and strategies when teaching these topics. In this context, we also found that they experienced difficulties when teaching controversial issues. In a final step, we combined the results of both methods for 9 teachers in individual PCK portraits. These portraits show that coherence between PCK-elements and, therefore, PCK-quality is still weak for most pre-service teachers. Consequently, their fragile subject matter knowledge seems to influence their developing PCK. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whilst social and political issues have an important role in the geography curriculum, the long-term erosion of the value and insularity of disciplinary knowledge in society and the curriculum has blurred the distinction between educational aims and political advocacy in classrooms. Increasingly, teachers, policymakers, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) instrumentalize the curriculum with respect to their political objectives, including climate change and social injustice. In taking an advocacy approach to pedagogy, they potentially undermine liberal educational objectives, including the development of autonomy and subjectification. Drawing on recent work in philosophy of education (e.g. Biesta; Van Poeck, and Östman) as well as social realist approaches to knowledge, I make a case for teaching about social and political issues on liberal educational grounds. Geography plays a key role in the school curriculum by providing a space for exploring the human condition through the study of people in contrasting environments and cultural systems. Here, we examine how geography teachers can handle issues in a morally careful way and navigate a line between advocacy and educational aims. One key difference examined is the need to treat students as subjects in their own right and to help develop skills of moral enquiry. In practice this means encouraging an open-ended approach, exploring topics (and the values underpinning them) from a range of perspectives, developing sensitivity to difference, and showing tolerance for ideas of which one disapproves. For students to develop agency and moral independence, they must learn how to think about social and political issues rather than be told what to think. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study sheds light on the importance of diagnostic and feedback skills regarding argumentative pupils' texts for (prospective) teachers and the current state of research in this area. The importance of argumentation in geography education is undisputed, as geographical problems often require multi-layered solutions that can be analyzed, assessed and reflected upon by teachers and pupils through argumentation skills. Nevertheless, research findings reveal that both teachers and pupils often have limited argumentation skills, which poses a challenge for both. The present study investigates the attitudes and practices of prospective geography teachers regarding the diagnosis of and feedback on pupils' argumentative texts. Using a qualitative research design, twenty German pre-service teachers of geography were interviewed about their diagnostic and feedback experiences and asked to analyze and provide feedback on an argumentative pupil text. The results were evaluated using qualitative content analysis. In addition, a theoretical model for diagnosis was developed, which was used to analyze the pre-service teachers' diagnostic behavior. The criteria used by the pre-service teachers to evaluate the argumentative pupils' text were examined. The results show that the diagnosis often lacks the exploration of causes and the deduction of consequences, and that only a few subject-specific criteria were taken into account in the text assessment. In addition, the feedback was generally more positive than the diagnosis itself. The results offer insights into the design of diagnostic and feedback processes in geography education and provide impulses for (higher) education teaching and future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate the perspective of good death and related factors among healthcare professionals (HCPs), as well as to compare the perspective of good death regarding to live region and occupation. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was performed one hundred ninety-five HCPs. The good death scale (GDS) was used to assess the perspective of HCPs on the concept of good death. Results: A total of 195 HCPs were included in this study. One hundred twenty-four (63.6%) participants were women. Ninety-eight (50.3%) and 95 (48.7%) of the participants were registered nurses and were living in the east, respectively. Seventy-five (38.5%) of the participants had 11 years or more of professional experience, and 132 (67.7%) of them grew up in the region where they worked. The mean score of all participants in GDS was 57.5±6.3, and the mean scores of the sub-dimensions were 30.9±3.8 for the "psychosocial and spiritual sub-dimension", 10±1.9 for the "personal control sub-dimension" and 16.6±2.4 for the "clinical sub-dimension". In multiple linear regression, living in the east, being a nurse, being a woman, and taking education on "good death" were positively related to the GDS score of the HCPs. Conclusion: Given the growing importance of "good death," it is increasingly important to clarify the definitions and constantly raise awareness by providing appropriate education. In this study, the small number of participants and the inhomogeneous distribution of the sample by age, gender, occupation, and region could lead to potential biases and concerns about generalizability. It is recommended to conduct research using a scale to assess nurses' and doctors' perceptions of death in a more homogeneous and larger group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractThe rapid advancement of technology and widespread access to digital resources have transformed teaching practices and enhanced educators’ competencies. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) offer new avenues for understanding global events and conducting multidimensional analyses. This study aimed to evaluate teachers’ potential use of geospatial technologies by analyzing the objectives of geography curricula for grades 7–11 in Kazakhstan. Additionally, this study investigated barriers to GIS adoption among geography teachers and strategies for cultivating geospatial thinking skills. The research employed curriculum analysis and a teacher survey involving 208 respondents from across Kazakhstan. The results indicated moderate adoption of geospatial technologies, with mobile GIS applications being most prevalent. However, obstacles such as equipment costs, lack of experience, and time constraints hinder their utilization. This study underscores the importance of integrating geospatial technologies in geography education to foster students’ spatial thinking, creativity, and information literacy. Moreover, this study highlights the role of a GIS in enhancing educators’ and students’ proficiency in modern geoinformation systems and digital technologies. The findings offer practical insights for educators and serve as a valuable resource for enhancing geography instruction and promoting geospatial technology integration in the classroom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

GIScience is essential to geography education. Different curriculums and textbooks have been developed to teach GIScience in classrooms through lectures and exercises corresponding to the educational situation of each country. We developed e-learning materials based on existing research outcomes for GIScience education in Japan, such as the Japanese GIS core curriculum for university education. Using the materials, we held a three-day intensive GIScience class at the University of Tokyo from 2018 to 2022 with questionnaire surveys to investigate the educational effects of the materials and factors influencing GIScience learning. The attending students browsed the materials and studied GIScience by themselves but asked questions of teachers if necessary. The questionnaire survey results indicate that most students felt geospatial data processing is somewhat complex, but they were satisfied with the opportunity of GIScience learning. Whether the students thought the exercise was simple and easy depended on their confidence in computer knowledge and operation and their preferred learning style at their own pace. The students' satisfaction level and ease in using the material correlate with their motivation level, the number of questions they asked the others, and their preferred style for learning at their own pace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The decline in geography programs in the United States since the 1980s and general questions about the utility of a geography degree is a long-running thread in the discipline's shared identity. With recent closures of geography undergraduate programs and a projected "demographic cliff" of traditional college-aged students in the coming years, understanding how and why certain geography programs are under threat is crucial. Drawing on an underappreciated source for the study of geography course enrollments, this article examines enrollments in undergraduate geography courses between 1948 and 2000 to understand the discipline's larger standing in the U.S. academic landscape. By examining historical undergraduate course enrollment, as opposed to the number of graduates, it is possible to better hypothesize and understand the ramifications for the decline of programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Arctic Triumph: Northern innovation and persistence" is a book that explores the complexities of disaster risk reduction in the Arctic. It emphasizes the need for multidimensional collaboration and engagement with Indigenous knowledge to effectively plan for, mitigate, respond to, and recover from disasters. The book examines the construction of an Arctic imaginary, the preservation of cultural heritage sites, the impacts of extractive industries, and the importance of shifting from a response-based approach to a mitigatory approach. It also highlights the role of geopolitics and international cooperation in Arctic disaster risk reduction and response. Overall, "Arctic Triumph" presents a story of resilience and invites critical dialogue on the discourse of disasters in the Arctic. [Extracted from the article]