ERIC Number: EJ777855
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2007-Sep
Pages: 27
Abstractor: Author
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0309-8265
EISSN: N/A
-Graphy: The Remains of a British Discipline
Chapman, Graham P.
Journal of Geography in Higher Education, v31 n3 p353-379 Sep 2007
Within Britain, geography as a discipline has been criticized recently for failing either to add to or teach knowledge about the world at large. Instead it has concentrated first at university and then in schools on spatial social science, with examples drawn overwhelmingly from the white Western world. The recent history of geography is reviewed to see why this should be the case. The end of regional integration, the end of the idiographic, and the divorce of physical and human geography are lamented. The ignorance of current students regarding world affairs is demonstrated. Wider influences on these trends such as the end of empire are discussed. The plight of other academic attempts to understand overseas cultures, such as area studies, is also examined. The paper concludes that for the sake of our social responsibility to education in its broadest sense, as much as for the sake of our disciplinary vested interests, we have to reinvest in integrating physical and human geography in regional settings, as our part of academe's response to the threat to area studies. The following are appended: (1) Geopolitics Class Quiz; and (2) Traffic words by high-level world regions. (Contains 3 tables and 1 note.)
Descriptors: Area Studies, Intellectual Disciplines, Human Geography, Social Sciences, World Affairs, Social Responsibility, Foreign Countries, Geography Instruction, Cultural Awareness, Tests, Vocabulary
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: United Kingdom
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A