Geography textbooks, pedagogy and disciplinary traditions

Abstract

We consider Geography textbooks in the context of discussions of canonicity, disciplinary histories and genre. Our paper, an introduction to the set that follows, presents an argument about the importance of textbooks and the shifting relationship of Geography at different levels (school and university) to disciplinary history in the context of changes in the modes of publication. The papers that follow draw on material from a range of anglophone textbooks with reflections from Aotearoa/New Zealand, the UK, the USA and Singapore.canonicity, pedagogy, quantitative revolution, textbooks | INTRODUCTIONTextbooks, it has been argued, shape disciplines (Johnston, 2006). They certainly reflect disciplinary mores and fashions. Consider, for example, the influence of Geography and gender produced as a collectively authored textbook by the Women and Geography Study Group (1984) of the Institute of British Geographers. It soon became a conduit for feminist critique in Geography. A quarter of a century on, Susan Hanson observed how:As I re-read the book recently, I was struck by how the core message -pay attention to gender if you really want to understand geographic processes -still resonates. Yet in 1984, when Geography and gender first appeared, this message was revolutionary! The disciplinary norm was to ignore gender with abandon. Undoubtedly, this key text played a key role in creating some of the changes we have seen in geography over the past 20 years, e.g., the increased presence of women in academic geography, the recognition that gender thoroughly infuses geographic processes, and the now-rather-large and rapidly growing body of literature in feminist geography. (2008, p. 93) Cause and effect in disciplinary change is likely more complex than Hanson allows, yet her views on Geography and gender remind us that despite textbooks' importance to the discipline, discussions about their production and consumption are too often either relegated to footnotes in disciplinary histories or considered only when course descriptions are prepared for students. An invitation to debate textbooks that followed an exchange of views of editors and publishers in the Journal of Geography in Higher Education more than two decades ago (Davey et al., 1995) elicited few immediate responses and has accumulated only limited citations since. Likewise Mitchell and Smith's (1991) claim that introductory textbooks reified states, failing to account for their historical contingency, and thus offered succour to a renewal of western imperial warmaking has not led to much discussion, despite such war-making becoming banal.Continuing technological and political/socio-economic shifts as well as discussions on disciplinary pasts and futures mean that the publication and utilisation of textbooks in Geography merits fresh reflection. This set of papers brings together a range of textbook authors and editors, mindful of shifting mores and modes in publishing and higher education. We open with reflections on the place of textbooks in disciplinary histo...

Decolonial education and geography: Beyond the 2017 Royal Geographical Society with the Institute of British Geographers annual conference

“…The obstacles they faced, especially in the form of “anger, frustration, hostility, antagonism, denial, sorrow and pride” expressed by the students taking the course, show the profound decolonial potential of their approach. While not explicitly decolonial, a special issue on geography textbooks might offer somewhat similar inspirations regarding more critical teaching praxis (Murray & Overton, ; Sidaway & Hall, ; Sparke, ). Speaking to our positionality beyond lecture theatres, Legg (, p. 347) argues for decolonialism, rather than decoloniality.…”

Changing landscapes as text: Geography and national education in Singapore

“…As Sidaway and Hall () note in the introduction to this set of papers, the discipline of Geography and its textbooks have deep historical links to empire and nation‐building, particularly in the Euro‐American contexts. Indeed, scholars such as Cormack () have demonstrated how geographical education and textbooks became significant in shaping national identity and imaginaries of a “place” in the world (Mitchell, ).…”

“…Senior colleagues instead encouraged us to approach a university press with a stake in local and regional knowledge production. Moreover, placing a research‐driven textbook likes ours with a university press which mainly publishes research monographs would help blur the distinction between the two types of publishing genres by virtue less of the contents (the focus of Sidaway & Hall, in discussing genre) than the status and wider list of the press.…”

The “smugness” of geographers: Dismantling the caricatures of philosophies in Human and Physical Geography

“…Yet rather than the process of negotiation, I increasingly felt that the nature of the textbook itself eroded the ideals of leading students through and challenging the canons, or rather the traditions, of the subject. Sidaway and Hall () point out the potential impact of the norms and economies of publishing, which undoubtedly had an impact on mine and every other textbook produced. It is unavoidable that a paper textbook is a material, static product that freezes the evolving thoughts of the author.…”