Towards a geography of education

Abstract

The contribution of the discipline of geography to the field of education is complex since they have both been dependent upon the contributions of other social science disciplines, particularly those in the mainstream of social sciences (economics, sociology and political science). Indeed, the number of researchers who would consider themselves as working within the sub‐discipline of the geography of education is small, but apparently growing. While the paper suggests that to date there has been relatively little debate at the intersection of these two fields of enquiry it goes on to propose that the potential contribution this would have for both fields remains significant. The pivotal contribution of geography to all the social sciences, that of space (and place), has been central to UK education research since the early origins of a national education system and the roles education and curricular developments have played in nation building. The role of space has also featured heavily in analyses of territorial justice and governance at the level of local authorities and further down in scale to spatial analyses of the classroom. But in order to fully appreciate its contribution the paper utilises the related concept of scale to systematically explore the relationship between space and education, in terms of its analytical, theoretical and methodological uses. The paper also considers the recent ‘spatial turn’ in education (and the social sciences more generally) and the equivalent focus on education matters within the field of human geography. In developing this approach it becomes apparent where interdisciplinary research across and between the disciplines of geography and education remains limited and what further contributions from geography would be beneficial to the field of education.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the editors for including the discipline of geography in this special issue, and the referees for their very supportive and helpful comments. Particular thanks also go to Gareth Rees for discussing the issues and helping me clarify my approach to the article.

Notes

1. Livingstone calls these conversations rather than characteristics.

2. The same could be said for all interdisciplinary research.