Catching the bus: A call for critical geographies of education

Abstract

Informed by recent struggles over schooling, this article proceeds from the premise that education is a deeply geographic and urgently political problem increasingly engaged by a wide range of scholars and activists. We argue that the current political moment demands increasing geographic attention to the confluence of social processes that shape schooling arrangements. We contend that this attention also must address how people involved in collective action understand and enact alternatives and how these mobilizations may articulate with other social movements. Although existing geographers of education have studied schooling in relation to other processes such as gentrification and citizenship, we argue that centering schooling as an object of study can enliven important disciplinary conversations. In light of these arguments, we call on geographers to advance geographic scholarship on education by creating a cohesive critical geographies of education subfield. Drawing from intensified interest in the geographies of education, this subfield can contribute to broader geographic debates by centering schooling in theory generation, rather than only studying education as a site of test cases for existing geographic theories. Given this call, this review highlights how the existing literature on schooling signals the potential of geographic work on education and marks considerations for the development of future research.

Learning Progressions, Paradigms, and Geographic Thinking in the Anthropocene

“…Geographic education scholars criticize how contemporary educational contexts deprive students of capabilities that will be of value in careers and civic life (Solem, Lambert, and Tani, 2013;Lambert, Solem, and Tani, 2015). The literature on critical geographies of education has stressed the impacts of socio-cultural barriers to students' learning abilities (Lim and Barton, 2010;Nguyen, Cohen, and Huff, 2017;Pini et al, 2017).…”

“…Geographers continue to ask complex questions of contemporary pedagogy and consider educational systems as a useful base for building theories in human geography (Thiem, 2009). Learners and their distinctive lifeworlds become the subjects of geographic inquiry, rather than banal objects being herded through the educational system (Holloway et al, 2010;Nguyen, Cohen, and Huff, 2017).…”

A proposal for unpacking the politics of knowledge production in disaster reduction education

“…The aftermath of disasters influences education in multiple ways (Buras, ; Cadag et al, ). Disasters often provide opportunities for privatization of education (Katz, ; McCreary et al, ; Nguyen, Cohen, & Huff, ) as well as other ways to implement neoliberal ideologies (Grove, ). Neoliberal approaches to education transform the spaces in which schools are built and students learn, often further marginalizing already marginalized communities (McCreary et al, ).…”

“…No one is immune from the risks of natural hazards; however, these hazards affect populations and individuals unevenly (Katz, 2008;Petal, 2009). Neoliberalism has influenced the discourse and practices of resilience (e.g., Chandler, 2014;Grove, 2013Grove, , 2014bNelson, 2014) and in education research (e.g., McCreary, Buras, & Godlewska, 2013;Nguyen, Cohen, & Huff 2016). Therefore, DRE-product of education and resilience practices-is not immune to the multiple influences of neoliberalism (see Larner, 2000, for a detailed discussion of neoliberalism).…”

Disability, special educational needs, class, capitals, and segregation in schools: A population geography perspective

“…These processes are socio‐spatially constituted and intersect with other “axes of power,” including class and capitals, in school spaces. As a key institution of social reproduction, population patterns and processes of schools have resonance for population geographers; nonetheless, increasing critical interest in geographies of and in schools (Collins & Coleman, ; Holloway, Hubbard, Jöns, & Pimlott‐Wilson, ; Nguyen, Cohen, & Huff, ) has not fully filtered into population geographies, although studies of mobility and migration for education have (Prazeres, ; Smith, Rérat, & Sage, ; Waters, ).…”