Geography, Social Science and Inter-Disciplinary Enquiry

Abstract

The writer was asked to prepare this paper by the Education Committee of the Royal Geog aphical Society in orde to clarify the position of geography within current experiments with the curriculum, in the schools in England and Wales. The Society had originally published a pamphlet in 1950 entitled Geography and 'Social Studies* in schools, the aim of which was to defend the position of geography against a possible 'take-over* by a new subject then labelled 'Social Studies*. This pamphlet was revised in 1954. In 1955 tne Education Committee of the R.G.S. provided a further report on the situation of geography in schools under the heading 'Geography in Education' in Vol. 121 (pp. 190-6) of the Geographical Journal. This report was essentially a reaffirmation of the value of geography as a 'discipline* in the education of pupils and students. The nature of this 'discipline* was stated to be that of the accurate observation and recording of information and its subsequent analysis and interpretations. The present paper was submitted to the Education Committee of the Society at its meeting on 26 January 1968. The writer assumes that, though the Society is interested in the position of geography in schools, it accepts that schools must be free to experi? ment with their curricula, with the consequence that, in the case of geography, not only may the factual content of courses change, but the concepts or principles taught will evolve and the curricular contexts in which such subject matter is taught may alter with time. This paper will therefore concentrate on: (a) stating the various ways in which curriculum planning may involve geography either as a separate subject or as part of a broader teaching scheme; (b) assessing the advantages and disadvantages of teaching geography as part of a 'combined subject field*. Throughout this paper the word 'subject* is used in preference to 'discipline*, since the latter word often has connotations implying status in relation to other subjects, which are irrelevant to the purpose of the paper. Historical perspective.?When the original R.G.S. pamphlet on 'Geography and Social Studies** in Schools' was written, education in the U.K. was recovering from war time austerity and was in the process of being transformed by the 1944 Education Act. In the 'Brave New World* atmosphere which then prevailed and in the excitement which attended the formation of the new secondary modern schools, there was a feeling that the curriculum of these schools should be different and challenging. It was recognized that in the humanities, if the teacher was to make education child-centred rather than subject-centred, then a start could be made by finding out what interested pupils and to develop these particular interests no matter in what subject fields these lay. However, such procedures, whilst they might be easy to implement in the primary school where teachers stayed with one class for long periods, might well run into diffi? culties in secondary schools where subject specialists operated and where a greater depth of understanding was required. Consequently, there was a tendency to compromise and to argue that such new ways of treating the curriculum might be achieved on a more limited basis by joining history, geography and civics together into 'Social Studies* and thereby enabling the teacher to develop such themes as appeared appro? priate to him in the light of his knowledge of the class he was teaching. Though there is little quantitative evidence available, this type of combined subject never achieved a wide measure of popularity in our secondary schools, no matter how taught, except in certain areas where groups of 'progressive* teachers experimented