Unsettling Settlement:Thirdspace in the Geography Curriculum

Richard Bustin. Geography teacher, Bancroft’s school.

MA Geography Education Dissertation 2009

Background to the research:

- Curriculum planning now around ‘key concepts’- Place, Space, Scale, Interdependence, Physical and Human processes, Cultural understanding and diversity.

- September 2008: Teachers regain control as ‘curriculum makers’. “There is now for the first time in a generation, opportunity and encouragement for teachers of geography to think about what they are doing in conceptual terms” (Lambert 2008 p209).

-Geography as a subject was branded ‘boring and irrelevant’ by Ofsted (2008).

-Numbers of pupils choosing geography at GCSE has been in decline.

-“The Great Divide” between school and university geography (Goudie 1993), “without engagement with academic geography, school geography ‘is in danger of becoming epistemologically and socially irrelevant’” (Fein 1999, quoted in Firth and Biddulph 2008).

Research aims:

1. To develop and refine a teaching unit on ‘Thirdspace’.

2. To engage with the nature and potential of ‘Thirdspace’ in the geography curriculum.

3. To enter in to a holistic discussion about the nature of what constitutes a modern geography curriculum.

University geography: Ed Soja’s ‘Thirdspace’

‘Out of Place’: Homeless Men in Las Vegas

Postmodern urban geography

“Thirdspace”

FIRSTSPACE: The physical built

environment.

SECONDSPACE: The „representational‟

space.

THIRDSPACE: The “lived space”- the experience in Firstspace mediated through

Secondspace expectations.

Research methodology:Four ‘Action research’ cycles over 3 years.

(Diagram based on Kemmis and McTaggart 1982)

Limitations:- One school setting (only)-academically selective boys school.- Mixture of year groups- Focus groups were self selecting- Had to ‘splice in’ to existing schemes of work.

Re plan lessons

Research topic

Teach lessons

Plan lessons

Pupil work: success?

Focus group

Re teachWork scrutiny

Focus group

The research outcomes: Pupil work (years 9 and 13)

Year 9 pupils exploring the Secondspace of Las Vegas, and identifying where their geographical imaginations about the place come from.

Worksheet explores how the varying spaces affect the

homeless

So what?

Lambert and Machon (2001) argue “geography’s success will depend on how successfully it speaks to young people and can entice them into a struggle with ideas, with argument, with uncertainty” (p207).

- “Thinking geographically” (Jackson 2006): Geography’s “vocabulary, (an apparently endless list of place names) and its grammar (the concepts and theories that help us make sense of those places)” (p199). Thirdspace alters the ‘grammar’ through which urban space can be studied.

- Challenge is for teachers to stay current with university geography and new concepts, ideas and approaches.

- Should teachers be delving into university geography at all?

Cresswell (2008) asserts “I see no reason why students should not arrive at university with a basic understanding of philosophy of place... I would like to see students arrive at (university entrance) interview with an interest in ‘place’ and not simply ‘places’” (p137).

- What sorts of geography should we be teaching?

Further reading:Borchard, K., 2005, The Word on the Street Homeless men in Las Vegas. Nevada: University Press.Soja, E., 1996, Thirdspace. Oxford: Blackwell.Soja, E., 2000, Postmetropolis. Oxford: Blackwell.

ReferencesCresswell, T., 2008, ‘Place: encountering geography as philosophy’, Geography 93 (3) pp 132- 139.

Firth, R. and Biddulph, M., 2008, GTIP Think Piece- ‘Fantastic Geographies: Geography Teaching and the issue of Knowledge’. Available online: http://www.geography.org.uk/gtip/thinkpieces/fantasticgeographies. Accessed 11/08.

Jackson P. 2006 Thinking Geographically, Geography 91 (3), 199-204.

Kemmis, S. & McTaggart, R., 1982, The Action Research Planner. Victoria, Deakin: University Press.

Lambert, D. and Machon, P., 2001, ‘Conclusion: Citizens in a risky world’. In Lambert, D. and Machon P. (eds), Citizenship through secondary education. London: RoutledgeFalmer.

Lambert, D., 2008, Why are school subjects important? FORUM 50 (2).

Goudie, A., 1993, ‘Schools and universities- the great divide’. Geography 78 (4) pp 338-9.

Ofsted, 2008, ‘Geography in schools- changing practice’. Press release. Available at www.ofsted.gov.uk. Accessed 1.09