How Geography Curricula Tackle Global Issues

Abstract

The late Doreen Massey, recently urged teachers to ‘take on the world’ (Massey in Geography 99(1):36–39, 2014). Though we may see the everyday world as a mosaic of different places, nations or regions defined by their boundaries, a global understanding brings different perspectives: of flows and networks and interdependencies. If we take this seriously—if we do take on the world—then young people need ideas in order to provide new ways of seeing and thinking. Geography in this sense, is a disciplinary resource that provides access to a particular form of powerful knowledge–– in short, the means to be able to ‘think geographically’. This chapter opens up and presents this argument. In the first part, we provide a platform in the form of analysis of geography curricula from three countries, identifying both the potentials and the challenges that teachers face. Where is ‘the global’? we ask, and in what ways do formal curriculum documents inspire or constrain us from ‘taking on the world’? The second part seeks to develop a disciplinary view of the school subject, appealing to the sometimes beguiling notion of powerful knowledge. We end by introducing a capabilities approach to thinking about the school subject, which demonstrates the responsibility that inevitably falls to well-prepared teachers to enact the curriculum.