Contemporary Issues in Geography and Education

I'ven been doing a bit of a look at the content of textbooks at the moment for some consultancy work. 

There are some interesting options for changing what we have traditionally taught which aren't always taken by publishers, and as a result the same sorts of things get put in textbooks time and time again, and if enough people to choose to use them, they become the accepted 'geographies' that young people should learn.

I discovered that Jo Norcup has digitised the issues of a journal published in the 1980s called 'Contemporary Issues in Geography and Education'

As Jo says on her website here:

The ACDG - from 1985 the ACD - Association for Curriculum Development - was an organisation that focused on geography but then began working across all school subject disciplines with the GLC/ILEA to produce training and education materials for anti-racist education and lobbied for reconstructivist education curricula. Dawn Gill (CIGE and ACD(G)'s founder), was also one of the key members of the ILEA anti-racist inspectorate.  CIGE was the longest running publication of all the initiatives that the ACD(G) developed.

In digitising every issue of CIGE and maintaining web space for the digital archive, Geography Workshop provides a free online archive resource for those interested in the recent history of British-based, internationally connected anti-racist, anti-sexist intersectional geography education. 

The journal explores the interface between academic and school geography. This work is really helpful and also provides a connection with my current writing as I come to the end of my Fawcett Fellowship where I am writing about contemporary issues in the curriculum. 

There is an excellent teaching resource based around a nuclear attack on the UK, which uses work from the 1980s, including by one of my lecturers at undergraduate level.

I was also impressed by this exploration of the content of textbooks which was completed by David R Wright, and was completed 40 years ago - we are still discussing such matters today. This is well worth reading.