I've come across quite a few discs linking back to the Young People's Geographies project.
Here is the agenda from the start up meeting.
Participants were given lots of reading in that first meeting. The item below is one of those...
Academics were chosen for the field of their research. People involved included:
- Roger Firth
- Mary Biddulph
- Tracey Skelton
- Ian Cook (before he was et al)
- the late Duncan Fuller
Project team included:
- David Balderstone
- Di Swift
Angus Willson was also at the event.
Also Helen Griffiths, whose PhD was in the same field
The project was evaluated by Eleanor Rawling.
This is one of the main influences on my practice since, and also on my conference theme...Everyday Geographies - Young People’s Geographies:
Young people participate in their own lived geographies. On a day to day basis they are part of different social groups, they interact simultaneously with others at both a local level (friends, family) and at a global level (via the internet), they navigate very complex networks of participation from informal social groups (friends, school groups, shared social activities) to more organised social activities ( such as clubs, sport and music) and formalised group activities especially in school. In addition their access to spaces and places are enabled and/ or hindered by a range of factors and influences such as parents, financial considerations, age group, feelings of safety, identification with different groups, personal interests etc..
The aim of this project is to begin to consider how to utilise pupils’ lived geographies to give them access to a relevant and more ‘owned’ experience in school geography. We want to consider:
What do we mean by pupils’ geographies within the context of secondary schools?
How can such geographies form part of the school geography curriculum?
What might be the pedagogies that support pupils’ understanding of their own geographies?
In what ways might such an understanding shape and influence pupils understanding of other geography discourses?
How can teachers access such discourses to inform their geography teaching in secondary schools?
Through exploring such issues we hope to work towards the development of an appropriate pedagogy that will enable us to close this perceived gap between pupils’ lived geographies, school geography and academic geography.
The Strategy:
Part of the current debate about the state of secondary school geography is the notion that there is an ever-increasing divide between school geography, as embodied in the GNC and the many geographies that occupy academic researchers. Youth geographies, young peoples’ geographies and children’s geographies are not new to academic research yet mainly feature within the school context as part of a constructivist pedagogy where building on pupils existing frameworks of knowledge and understanding is used to support pupils’ access to the school curriculum, however that may be interpreted.
Bridging the divide between school geography, academic geography and pupils lived geographies is likely to require conversation between each of the ‘interest group’ in order to better understand each others’ perspectives. In this respect, pupils’ voices, those of their teachers and those of researchers in the field of young peoples geographies have a unique contribution to make to the development of this project
In order to achieve the aim of the project and address the questions identified above it is expected that, in some way, the voices of each will be available and will be used to shape and inform any developments that take place along the way.
More to come...
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