People-environment Issues in the Geography Classroom: Towards an Understanding of Students' Experiences

Abstract

This paper is concerned with a much neglected area of environmental and geographical education research- the student experience of environmental teaching and learning. Based in the context of an ongoing research project into the teaching and learning of people-environment issues in English secondary school geography classrooms, this paper explores the ways in which two students are experiencing the curriculum within one particular lesson and how their views of this lesson relate to those of their teacher. The scope of the paper is both methodological and substantive. Using the data from the project's first case study, it discusses the development of the analytical procedures undertaken so far, as well as considering the preliminary findings that have emerged from these in relation to the overall research questions. The issues raised by the reported work, it is argued, have important implications for geographical/environmental education research- in particular, the need for more work to be grounded in the practice of classrooms, and underpinned by integrated conceptions of curriculum and pedagogy, and teaching and learning. Only then, the paper concludes, will it be possible to work towards an understanding of the curriculum as 'the events that students and teachers jointly construct in classroom settings' (Doyle, 1992: 509).