Dear All
If the substantive evidence for OFSTED's press briefing (24 11 04)
supports its claims on the diminution of the quality of geography in
schools (and I suspect that it does), it raises some uncomfortable
questions for research based university geography and geographers and
their role (or lack of it) in the dissemination of geographical knowledge.
Of course, research is by no means the only way in which geographical
knowledge is produced and such geographical knowledge is in no way
privileged. But those in research based university departments of
geography are certainly paid to produce at least certain kinds of
knowledge through research and scholarship. This knowledge is not of
much use, however, unless disseminated appropriately.
Such dissemination is rightly considered to be an essential feature of
good (ie critical) research and this points to the wider role of
researchers and research. Such a wider role is both inescapable and
inherently political.
Perhaps the most effective critical and political actions that research
based scholars may be able to take are (in an order of priority that I
would claim is vital if research based universities are to mean anything)
1 to produce and publish world class research and scholarship;
2 to continue to advance critical knowledge (both 'pure' and 'applied')
- not least via the dissemination and critiques of this knowledge; and
3 to use substantive research to teach well - and, therefore, critically
- and so to disseminate knowledge very widely. (Of course, this is far
from being an unmixed blessing: what havoc has been wrought on the world
by the dissemination across countless generations of students of certain
geographic or economic 'truths', for example?)
So, although most of what we do - or should do - is concerned with the
development of school curricula, a couple of awkward questions arise for
research based geographers:
1 What have we (not) been doing to transmit our production of
(particular forms of) knowledge whilst involved in teaching the teachers
and the potential teachers of geography?
2 What have we (not) been doing in continuing to engage with teachers
and others in support of some really exciting initiatives that they
(both individually and collectively in various fora) are taking in
curriculum design, often against strong institutional resistance?
Roger Lee
roger lee
professor of geography
queen mary, university of london
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