Geography & Education
Synergy between research, education and impact.
Geographical literacy (geo literacy) refers to the ability to build and apply geographical knowledge, understanding and skills. It bridges geographical skills to the global challenges of today and tomorrow. Geography contributes to our understanding of major challenges central to the planetary future such as climate change, globalisation, migration, pandemics and increasing inequality.
As a basic school subject, Geography has the potential to teach every citizen to be geo literate in thinking about society-nature relationships and environmental futures. Building on a solid research tradition, we design and carry out research aimed at fostering geo literacy, improving educational practices and increasing impact.
The 'why, what and how' of geography and planning education in the current epoch is central to our research: from primary and secondary schools to higher education, both as a discipline and in interdisciplinary contexts, but also in continuing education. We explicitly consider the professional fields of geographers and planners and their continuing need to learn and innovate as important research fields as well. We aspire to work in an international context that includes the global north and south.
Our research focuses on three main overlapping perspectives: a knowledge and curriculum perspective, a pedagogical perspective and a young people’s perspective.
The knowledge and curriculum perspective focuses at the development, role and influence of geographical knowledge and thinking in society: in professional fields and in school curricula.
Projects
The role of Utrecht University Geosciences in the Dutch colonial and postcolonial order
The pedagogical perspective focuses at approaches to teaching and learning that foster geo literacy, in formal and informal (urban) environments. At different levels teachers, students and professionals need to learn how to contribute to transformative urban change. This includes as well acquiring intercultural competences as ways to understand different cultures.
Projects
People and Society survey at the end of primary education
Encounters in the Field: a playful approach to the development of intercultural competences
Futuring pedagogies and development of eco-identity in secondary education
The third angle starts from a young people’s perspective, their personal geographies and their capabilities, in relation to the geography and life skills they learn at school and university. Related to this, the rapidly changing urban environment is seen and studied as outdoor learning sites for the youth.
Projects
Encounters in the Field: a playful approach to the development of intercultural competences
Futuring pedagogies and development of eco-identity in secondary education
Geography & Education embraces the idea of “life-long learning” We are closely involved in geography as a school subject where we have the ambition to improve its didactical approach and to make the subject more future-oriented. We do this for, but more importantly, together with geography teachers. We actively pursue these ambitions, alongside other initiatives in the Dutch language Master in Geography: education and Communication (Geografie, Educatie en Communicatie). Geography & Education contributes to teaching in the Human Geography and Planning BSc and MSc programmes as well as in the Geosciences Honours Programme. In addition, we are increasingly interested in post-initial learning, for example in a course on education for professionals or in a seminar together with a neighbourhood community. We are convinced that learning does not only happen in educational contexts- in the lecture hall or school class- but also in the neighbourhood or during fieldwork: experiential learning is key to those developments.
A full overview of the department's Bachelor and Master programmes.
In order to advance geographical literacy in society Geography & Education collaborates widely with partners within the university, within Dutch society and internationally.
Research within Utrecht University
- Academy of Hope
- Dynamics of Youth : Youth Education and Life Skills
- Urban Futures Studio,
- Focus Area Higher Education Research
- Pathways to Sustainability: Sustainability Education and Public Engagement
- Utrechts Stimuleringsfonds Onderwijs
- UU Centre for Academic Teaching and Learning: Special Interest Group (SIG) Intercultural Competences
- UU Centre for Academic Teaching and Learning: Special Interest Group (SIG) Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
- Centre for Entrepreneurship
- UU Honours College of Utrecht University
National Partners
- Comenius Netwerk
- Koninklijk Nederlands Aardrijkskundig Genootschap (KNAG)
- Alliance of TU/e, WUR, UU and UMC Utrecht (EWUU)
International networks
Academy of hope
The action research project Academy of Hope aims to explore new pedagogical avenues for navigating uncertain futures amidst the planetary crisis. With Utrecht University as our home base, its key interests lie in theorizing and experimenting with:
- Pedagogical approaches that work to resist fatalism and naïve optimism with respect to the planetary crisis, by helping communities of inquiry to be with the trouble and act for positive change.
- Pedagogical approaches and curricular innovations that open up space for a deep engagement with the question of the future good life.
- Pedagogical approaches and curricular innovations that succeed to establish reciprocal relationships between students and a variety of societal actors (e.g. policy makers, activists, artists).
This programme is led by Jesse Hoffman and Peter Pelzer and hosted by the Urban Futures Studio at the Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development.
Breaching the divide: applying Open Education principles in Development Studies
Even in a highly internationalized field as Development Studies, knowledge production is still dominated by the global North. This project – funded by the Fostering Open Science Practice Fund - aims to challenge this, by applying Open Science principles to the MA-program International Development Studies, in order to increase awareness of Open Science principles and equal knowledge production; and promote collaborative knowledge creation and sharing with partners in Indonesia and Ghana. The outcomes of the project will be improved access to open materials for teaching, learning and research (OER) across the partners; better reflection skills of students; enhanced visibility of student thesis research; and strengthened collaboration between partner institutions.
Gery Nijenhuis, Femke van Noorloos and the Shared Value Foundation are involved in this project.
Futuring pedagogies and development of eco-identity in secondary education
Many young people are caught in a vicious circle between dystopian visions of the future, climate stress and a lack of perspective for action. In this project we want to break this circle and further develop a “pedagogy of hope”. To this end, we want to embed in and fit the futuring techniques and tools to the educational context of secondary geography education. With this project we want to create an educational environment that motivates students to think differently towards the now uncertain and frightening future of our planet and envision positive outcomes and stimulate students’ efficacy to contribute to a more sustainable future. We want to involve students and teachers in the process of further developing the pedagogy of hope. We don’t see them as mere test objects, but as participants in designing this new and promising type of education.
Tim Favier is involved in this project
Geocapabilities
GeoCapabilities is a distinctive approach to teacher professional development which foregrounds the educational potential of geographical knowledge. The approach is based on a theoretical and normative perspective known as “the capability approach” derived from Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum. It proceeds from the idea that geography education can contribute to developing the capabilities of children and young people. The school subject of geography has the potential to enable students to think deeply about the earth and the world by focusing on perspectives of space, society and nature relationships and environmental futures. Engaging with such geographical knowledge give students’ powers and have a potential to develop their geographical capabilities. As a form of specialised knowledge, geographical knowledge and geographical thinking can take students beyond their everyday experience and understanding. Geographical ideas, concepts and perspectives help us to see the world in new ways, and can provide specific, powerful insights.
Tine Béneker is involved in this project
People and Society survey at the end of primary education
The learning area Human & Society is one of the nine learning areas of the new curriculum being developed from the proposals of Curriculum.nu. Space (geography) and time (history) form the core of this learning area. In the elaboration of the learning area, the relationship between space and time receives explicit attention. The Inspectorate of Education commissioned the Peil.Mens & Maatschappij (People & Society Survey) to gain insight into the current knowledge and skills in this learning area of pupils at the end of primary education. A comparison is made with the performance of students in the 2008 geography and history surveys. It also examines how elementary school shape the teaching process in geography and history. The study describes students' knowledge and skills and the characteristics of the teaching and learning process, and analyzes the relationship between yields and educational, student, teacher and school characteristics. An in-depth study investigates how schools implement coherent education and continuous learning lines and what challenges they experience in doing so.
Tine Béneker is involved in this project
Re/Presenting Europe: Populaire representaties van diversiteit en verbondenheid
Dutch images of Europe do not do justice to the long presence of super-diverse groups of non-white “others”. This lack of knowledge is reinforced by ethnic-racial stereotyping, which in turn has led to exclusion and social tensions. NWA-Re/Present analyzes this imagery in sports, urban street art and education in the Netherlands to explore how social divisions can be eliminated. The insight that many "others" have contributed to Europe's culture and history is integrated into educational practice. Together with social partners, this project creates nuanced knowledge of Dutch and European identities that promotes connectedness and social resilience for a super-diverse European future.
Gijs van Campenhout is involved in Work Package 3: Arenas of Belonging: Sport Heroes as Models of Aspiration, Inspiration, and Participation.
The role of Utrecht University Geosciences in the Dutch colonial and postcolonial order
Recent debates around the inheritance of slavery and coloniality have put the role of colonial academic practice center stage in debates of colonial accountability. The Utrecht geosciences owe much of their existence to the Dutch colonial order. The geographical institute was formed in 1908 with a clear reference to colonial geography and was staffed with professors from the colonial military and civil elite. Similarly the earth sciences are built on a long history of funding to search for minerals and fossile fuels by the former colonial enterprises (e.g. Billiton, Shell). After independence, many of these established research linkages were repurposed for the postcolonial order. This project examines the role of (post)coliniality in shaping the institute and uses that knowledge to engender debate.
Michiel van Meeteren en Tine Béneker are involved in this project
Encounters in the Field: a playful approach to the development of intercultural competences (2019-2022)
Students in multiple Master’s degree programs at the Graduate School of Geosciences leave their international classroom to do fieldwork in Africa, Asia or Latin America. Well-developed intercultural competences are vital to successfully carry out such fieldwork and, later on in their professional careers, to work in an international environment. The aim of this project is to enhance the intercultural competences of students through the use of a student-fed interactive app with cases that represent fieldwork situations, and the development of assignments that relate to these cases, to guide student reflection and discussion in the international classroom, before, during and after fieldwork. The novelty of this project is that it will be student-fed, viz. based on real-life cases provided by students who did fieldwork in previous years, representing situations that students will encounter in the field. Project outcomes will be enhanced intercultural competences and improved reflection skills of students, and insight into the value of a student-fed interactive learning app for the development of intercultural competences
Gery Nijenhuis en Veronique Schutjens are involved in this project
Contact
For individual members of this research section, please see the staff listing.
