Abstract
This chapter considers the prospects for the successful continuance of geography education research and for sustaining the aspirations, and careers, of its researchers. Building on the findings from the previous chapters it questions how, in their research community, geography educators might both strive to strengthen their field of research and make the most of the circumstances they now find themselves in. It concludes that in the context of numerous forces over which geography education researchers currently have little control—not least in terms of government, university and research council policy and, importantly, funding—the most pragmatic way forward is to pursue and promote what is truly distinctive about their research.
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Notes
- 1.
One third of doctoral students receive some funding for their studies. The percentage of education students gaining Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) studentships fell from 8% in 2009 to 4% in 2013, party as a result of open competitions held by Doctoral Training Centres.
- 2.
However, the resource to staff ratio is higher in the North East and Northern Ireland.
- 3.
See also Bagoly-Simó’s (2014) longitudinal analysis of research publications in geography education between 1900 and 2014.
- 4.
See also, Gerber’s (1998) account of the possible impact of Strategic Alliances in geography education research.
- 5.
The RCN for geography education acknowledges this issue, which it seeks to counter through establishing good communication networks and using learning clusters. These clusters are monitored to determine levels of activity, interaction and communication online, along with monitoring ideas emerging, hopefully to sustain a dynamic working community.
- 6.
See also, Catling and Butt (2016) for a discussion of the wider issues of uptake and completion of doctorates in geography education.
- 7.
Lambert does, however, note that some research in geography education at this time was significantly different—being innovative, and theory-driven. He highlights Frances Slater’s work on Language and Geography Education (Slater 1989) as one example of such research.
- 8.
The recent engagement of UK-based geography education academics, predominantly from UCL IoE, in the NOFA conferences is arguably a tangible recognition that subject specialist didactics are important. NOFA has offered a forum, for almost a quarter of a century, for education researchers, predominantly from Scandinavian countries, to explore issues of subject didactics. The rise in interest in general didactics (competences and skills), as opposed to subject didactics, in education departments has meant that initiatives such as GeoCapabilities has opened channels for researchers in a number of national contexts to develop their own projects based on similar ideas. For Lambert (2017), this signifies an imperative for geography education research in England to have an international focus. Significantly NOFA conferences are now held in English and attract a wide international audience—including academics from England, the Netherlands, Austria and Germany.
- 9.
Christine Counsell—a renowned history educator whose career in the School of Education, University of Cambridge, spanned two decades—became the first Director of Education at the Inspiration Trust, in Norwich, in 2016. Her views, as a historian, have a particular resonance for geography educators, given the co-positioning of the subjects in much curriculum thinking (under a ‘Humanities’ banner), and the more widespread engagement with education theory among history educators. The significance of her move from academia, back to school-based work, was noted at the time of her appointment to the Trust. Counsell subsequently moved again, to serve on the Office for Standards in Education’s (OfSTED’s) curriculum advisory group, in 2018.
- 10.
Counsell (2017) describes how, in spite of her involvement with the Department for Education (DfE) reshaping the future of ITE, there was no preferential treatment shown with respect to the numbers of PGCE Historians her course was allocated. Policy drivers hit history PGCE numbers hard in universities—reducing the Cambridge allocation from 20 to 11 students in just two years (and with the prospect of a complete removal of the history cohort in the following year). For Counsell, this revealed a lack of ‘joined up’ thinking in government—having assisted on the Carter review of ITE (Carter 2015), and with the Secretary of State for Education, Michael Gove, having praised the excellence of the History PGCE at Cambridge in parliament, Counsell faced the immediate prospect of her course being closed. The catastrophic effect on a community of mentors built up over the previous 20 years was particularly galling: ‘they were hard won, they knew all the literature, and about half of them had published themselves—almost all of them had MEds and I was working towards 100%’ (Counsell 2017).
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Butt, G. (2020). The Prospects for Geography Education Research—What Are the Ways Forward?. In: Geography Education Research in the UK: Retrospect and Prospect. International Perspectives on Geographical Education. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-25954-9_9
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