This is a summary of the key findings of my MA Geography Education research dissertation

1. @garrysimmons
Head of Geography, Bethany School
MA student, Institute of Education

2.  “I’d say history is a minor factor.”
 “The DR Congo – that’s French!”
 “Africa has very high temperatures which
makes it difficult to grow crops”
 “Education systems are equally poor across
Africa with very few universities”
 “It’s the governments’ fault that African
economies are not branching out into
secondary, tertiary and quaternary industry”

3.  Lack of knowledge – an opportunity for
disjuncture
 Charles Rawding’s #gaconf12 session on “Keeping
up to date with subject knowledge”
 An interest in learning and wanting to understand
how students learn Geog – Constructivism
 Tony Binns and Etienne Nel’s #gaconf12 session.
“Africa: Diversity and development” I realised I
knew little about this diverse continent
 An interest in curriculum making

4. • Understanding the reasons for the development
gap. Why does poverty still exist in the 21st
Century?
• A focus on African LDCs.

5. Distance from
experience
Trevor Bennetts Attitudes and
Complexity
(2005): Progress values
in Geographical
Understanding,
IRGEE 14:2 Cognitive
abilities and
skills
Progression in
Geographical
Understanding
Abstraction
Breadth of
Precision
contexts
Making
connections

6. • Diagram from Potter et al (2012): Key Concepts in
Development Geography. London:Sage

7. • Economics + diversity + politics + history (Depth
PLUS breadth)
• Tremendous diversity of opinion as evidenced by
BBC World debate. Diverse political and academic
perspectives
• The range of poverty definitions e.g.
HDI, GDP, Social indicators, national or individual.

8. • Case Study of Sixth Form students at my School:
9xL6th and 3xU6th.
• Prior knowledge – Written task, Focus
group, questionnaire
• Sequence of three lessons – Colonial
Period, independence, 21st Century Challenges
• Post learning – questionnaire, written task, semi-
structured interviews.
• Analysis of qualitative and quantitative data.

12.  Successes:
 Understanding clearly improved (Questionnaire
40 to 80% correct responses)
 Students better understood the exploitative
nature of colonialism
 Students better understood why independence
was a false dawn.
 Students’ misconceptions about climate and
natural resources were challenged and overcome

13.  “Western countries are, in a way, what made
Africa poor”
 “You can’t have a stereotyped view of Africa”
 “I don’t think poverty is caused by one single
reason. I think it’s a mixture of multiple
ones...each one has a knock on effect.”
 “LEDCs use oil resources to develop
themselves”

14.  Challenges:
 Environmental determinism is entrenched in
many of my students
 Students didn’t fully understand the debate
about the efficacy of foreign aid.
 Student didn’t fully understand the nature of
capital flows.
 Students only partially grasped the hegemonic
influence of economic, political and technical
power.

15. • I didn’t expect the combination of
political, historical, economics and geographical
diversity to be so challenging for students (and for
me).
• Due to complexity I wasn’t able to spend enough
time on how to bridge the development gap –
although I did tentatively look at some of the
macro ideas.

16. • There is still a shocking ignorance about African
diversity. Does this ring any bells from other
Geography teachers?
• Little is known about African places, nations and
recent histories. The continent’s marginalisation from
globalisation extends to my geography classroom -
and perhaps to others as well?
• Little is known about the historical colonial period and
Britain’s role in the formation of Africa.
• Little is known about the real nature of the
exploitative economic and political power that exists
in the world – this power powerfully shapes human
geography.

17.  I (and we?) need to teach more about the
‘dark’ continent.
 There is an opportunity for some innovative
curriculum development at all key stages

18. • Bennetts, T. (2005) Progression in geographical
understanding. IRGEE 14 (2) pp112-132
• Binns et al (2012) Africa: Diversity and
Development. London: Routledge
• Potter et al (2011) Key concepts in Development
Geography. London:Sage
• Why Poverty.net website
• Twitter @GdnDevelopment (Guardian)
• Twitter @askwhypoverty

22.  “I feel I am better informed and better
educated as a result of these lessons.”
 “I found having Africa as a case study really
helpful”
 “I believe it’s important to understand why
poverty exists in Africa. We need to discuss
how to resolve it.”
 “It’s important because it links in to other
things we’ve been learning [synoptic]

23.  Any questions?
 How would you take this research forward?
 @garrysimmons – please do get in touch.

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