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Geography Education's Potential and the Capability Approach

GeoCapabilities and Schools

  • Book
  • © 2019

Overview

Authors:
  1. Richard Bustin

    1. Worcester Park, UK

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  • Provides a persuasive argument for a knowledge led curriculum built around the powerful knowledge of school subjects

  • Argues that the ‘powerful knowledge’ of geography as a subject in schools has a unique contribution to make to the education of young people, and should therefore be a central tenet in the school curriculum, promised to all young people

  • Encourages all geography teachers to re-think the role they play in the big picture of education, and thus show school leaders and policy makers the value of the subject, and a subject based curriculum in the face of competing curriculum pressures

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Table of contents (6 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xxviii
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  2. What Is the Purpose of Schools?

    • Richard Bustin
    Pages 1-32

  3. Mapping a Curriculum ‘Crisis’

    • Richard Bustin
    Pages 33-66

  4. Bringing the ‘Geography’ Back in

    • Richard Bustin
    Pages 67-97

  5. The ‘Capabilities Approach’ to Geography Education

    • Richard Bustin
    Pages 99-130

  6. Developing GeoCapabilities: The Role of Research

    • Richard Bustin
    Pages 131-157

  7. The Potential of a Future 3 ‘Capabilities’ Curriculum

    • Richard Bustin
    Pages 159-191

  8. Back Matter

    Pages 193-197
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Keywords

About this book

This book explores the pivotal role that geography as a school subject plays in helping every young person achieve their educational potential. Expressed as ‘GeoCapabilities’, this concept draws on the the capabilities approach developed by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum applied to curriculum thinking in schools. While traditional subjects have often been deemed irrelevant and outdated in an overcrowded secondary school curriculum, subjects like geography have often been lost or combined with others to fulfil a broad skills agenda. More recent talk of a ‘knowledge led’ curriculum can often lead to the recitation of facts at the expense of developing deeper understanding. This book argues the concept of powerful geographical knowledge, based on the work of Michael Young and David Lambert, invests the subject of geography with its educational potential: this forms the basis of GeoCapabilities.
 
GeoCapabilities focuses on both what is being taught and why, and as such provides a framework of curriculum thinking which will be of interest and value to geography teachers, school leaders with curriculum development responsibilities and all those interested in the capability approach and the moral imperative of education.


Reviews

“In this superb book, Bustin introduces the kind of framework that might be of use to geography teachers looking to theorise their own approaches to curriculum development. … Bustin’s book is conceptual, but in a manner that is directly of use to practising teachers.” (Daniel Whittall, Teaching Geography, 2020)

“It is an impressively theorised exploration that will be of interest to leading teachers, researchers and academics in the field of geography education and curriculum studies. (Jeana Kriewaldt, Geographical Education, Vol. 33, 2020)



Authors and Affiliations

  • Worcester Park, UK

    Richard Bustin

About the author

Richard Bustin is Head of Geography at Lancing College, UK. He is also on the editorial board of the journal Teaching Geography and works with trainee geography teachers across the UK.

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Geography Education's Potential and the Capability Approach

  • Book Subtitle: GeoCapabilities and Schools

  • Authors: Richard Bustin

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-25642-5

  • Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham

  • eBook Packages: Education, Education (R0)

  • Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2019

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-25641-8Published: 24 August 2019

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-25644-9Published: 25 August 2020

  • eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-25642-5Published: 10 August 2019

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XXVIII, 197

  • Number of Illustrations: 12 b/w illustrations

  • Topics: Schools and Schooling, International and Comparative Education, Geography, general, Curriculum Studies

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