Towards a pedagogical policy turn in geography

Introduction

It is nearly 50 years since David Harvey (1974) famously asked “what kind of geography for what kind of public policy?” (p. 18). We seek to reopen this debate following developments since then which constrain the discipline’s current potential to engage with the practical doing of policy. We suggest that definitional, institutional and structural arrangements are preventing the policy turn from materialising, compounded by the “impact agenda” and university research assessment exercises, which obstruct practical policy work and overlook the potential for generating impact through curricula. Recognising a growing sense of imperative to act among undergraduate students, we prioritise students as our first public (Ward, 2006) to develop a more pedagogically inclined perspective on the policy debate, validating students’ aspirations as a pedagogical driver within a broader push towards reconfiguring geographical policy work.

Background

25 years after Harvey’s intervention, debate raged in the 2000s as human geographers contemplated the character and desirability of policy impact. Martin (2001) explained geographers’ limited influence on policy through a turn towards theoretical rather than empirical work, and called for a new “geography of public policy”. Dorling and Shaw (2002) sympathised but argued that a policy turn was unlikely because geographers do not value it, are not good at it, and are not validated by policy makers. Ward (2005, 2006, 2007) expanded the debate by highlighting impactful geographical contributions, including refuting normative notions of relevance, which focused too narrowly on policy audiences and short term, measurable impact. Public geography, by contrast, concerns itself with diverse publics and multiple modes of scholarship, including activism, participation, and pedagogy. Students, he argued, are our “first public, for they carry geography into all walks of life” (Ward, 2006, p. 500). Subsequently, and re-articulating the value of participatory scholarship (Pain, 2003, 2004, 2006), Pain et al. (2011) expressed concerns that the forthcoming UK Research Excellence Framework assessment (REF) would entrench elitist notions of impact and underplay community knowledge exchange.

Since this flurry of frustration, the policy debate amongst human geographers has subsided, and Martin’s vision of a “policy turn” has not materialised, although the relationship between geography and policy impact continues to attract comment, with (for example) physical geographers embodying critical reflexivity and concern for policy relevance through the emergence of critical physical geography (Lane, 2017; Lave et al., 2018); and transdisciplinary concerns surrounding anthropogenic environmental change reigniting disciplinary interest in the value of an explicitly geographical perspective (André, 2017; Schwanen, 2018).

Nonetheless, the residue of the earlier debate constrains geography’s potential to make meaningful policy impact. Ward’s (2006) criticism that geography is too focused on policy audiences encourages us to cast our eyes elsewhere, while both Martin’s (2001) call for a geography of public policy – while encouraging active engagement – and Dorling and Shaw’s (2002) lament seemingly objectify policy as something to be studied rather than practised by geographers. It is hardly surprising that Pain’s (2003, 2004, 2006) advocacy of participatory research in social geography has not translated into policy work, if policy is seen as external and to be critiqued rather than practised. This, though, conflicts with blossoming undergraduate interest in and demand for more practically oriented educational experiences to prepare them for engaging with pressing issues of environmental and social justice beyond the ivory tower. Geography graduates pursue myriad careers, and many aspire to policy roles, typically in sustainability, international development or spatial planning. Currently, geography is growing (in the UK), with GCSE, A-Level and undergraduate entries in England increasing since 2010 (Royal Geographical Society (with IBG), 2020). At the same time, the diverse skills developed by geographers are attractive to employers across varied sectors (Prospects Luminate, 2020), but how sustainable can this be if the type of policy work to which students increasingly aspire is conspicuously absent from the policy work to which they are exposed in their curricula?

Policy and pedagogy

This situation is exacerbated by the introduction of national university research assessment exercises around the world. Besides the UK’s REF, Australia administers its Excellence in Research process every three years, New Zealand awards funding based on its Performance-Based Research Fund. The approach has been adapted for the African context too (Kraemer-Mbula et al., 2019). The exclusive emphasis on research in such processes further constrains the nature of geography’s engagement with policy. It compounds the impact agenda’s outward focus, directing attention away from teaching as its own route to impact. However, diversifying geographical policy work and connecting this with teaching can meet shifting student demands and deliver long-term societal impact.

Geography has certainly not cowered from the impact agenda (Rogers et al., 2014), and by some measures could be considered more impactful than ever. Researchers at Oxford University’s School of Geography and Environment, for instance, have been lead authors of IPCC and IPBES reports, been instrumental in developing the science of climate attribution, and have advised the Climate Change Committee, the National Infrastructure Commission, and the UK Climate Assembly. However, of the 11 impact case studies attributed to the geography department on the university’s website, 10 were generated by its institutes (University of Oxford, n.d.), with few of the named researchers identifying themselves as geographers. While such examples have helped the department to top various league tables, they exhibit both a research-focused relationship between geography and policy and a disconnect between those doing impactful research and those delivering teaching, as such research roles tend to have limited interaction with undergraduates and scant influence on curriculum design.

While all institutions are not alike, this situation is mirrored elsewhere in UK universities, where impactful research once considered the staple of geographers is conducted outside geography departments. The Grantham Institute at the London School of Economics has helped develop the UK government’s policies on climate, water and air pollution (LSE, n.d.), but holds an arms-length relationship with geography; 66% of the 2014 REF submission for University College London’s geography department met the 4* standard (REF, 2014), but the Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment produces a greater range and quantity of policy-relevant research on geographical topics (UCL, n.d.); and the Tyndall Centre – spanning the Universities of Manchester, Cardiff, Newcastle and East Anglia and at the forefront of climate policy research since 2000 – has closer ties to their psychology and engineering departments than geography (Tyndall Centre, n.d.).

Evidence of policy impact resulting from geographical research both satisfies funders and university administrators and alleviates pressure on others to prove relevance and impact (Dorling & Shaw, 2002). However, our contention is that such institutional arrangements limit the exposure of students to policy-oriented scholarship and confines it to a narrow definition of the policy-geography relationship, doing a disservice both to students seeking more policy exposure and to the diverse policy practices that many geographers undertake. Certain structural issues within academia exacerbate this situation. Those with extra-academic experience of policy making tend to be excluded from curriculum design because the very extra-academic experience that equips them ideally to design policy-related teaching impedes their academic careers. More likely to hold temporary than permanent posts, they almost inevitably lack the institutional position to lead programmes, courses and modules. Where teaching opportunities do arise, these are consequently likely to be short term, potentially precluding a more strategic approach to pedagogy and/or reverting in the long term to delivery by faculty staff whose expertise is less likely to be based on extra-academic experience. This is reflected in the sporadic nature of geographical approaches to teaching climate recently identified by Cross and Congreve (2021). Definitional, institutional and structural factors rooted in the default disciplinary perspective means that policy is framed as external to geography. A shift in disciplinary attitude and the integration of policy and pedagogy is needed.

Realising the potential of polymorphic pedagogy

As an undergraduate education prepares students to make their own impact post-university, teaching is not an internal, introspective activity but a route to external impact, and with graduating students looking ahead to a lifetime’s career comes huge potential for long-term impacts via teaching. Despite the impact agenda’s focus on benefits beyond academia (Rogers et al., 2014), pedagogy surely is the discipline’s greatest claim to impact (Ward, 2006) and thus deserves a more student-focused, policy-oriented, skills-led strategic direction.

Students increasingly demand practice-grounded educational experiences that reach beyond scientific technicalities and intellectual critiques to working through real-world challenges, to prepare them with skills as much as knowledge for their aspirational policy roles. We know this from student feedback. Yet historical definitions of and perspectives on policy, allied with the determinisms of the impact agenda and identified institutional and structural barriers risk creating a blind spot that would prevent the benefits latent within the intersection of student aspirations, pedagogical strategy and policy work from being realised.

A geography degree already delivers a polymorphic education, producing graduates characterised by agility, critical thinking and creativity, able to converse across humanities and sciences, and to evaluate different forms of evidence. In other words: the perfect policy maker. A happy outcome, undoubtedly. However, accompanying this education is insufficient scaffolding to support students in tailoring these characteristics to the applied policy roles to which so many students aspire, resulting from the disciplinary devaluation of practical policy making and the disconnect between policy work and teaching. Those leaving academia upon graduation are potentially left under-skilled and under-confident, while those progressing to postgraduate study are likely to go down one of three paths: adhering to policy work as evidentiary contribution or discursive critique; becoming channelled into theoretical or empirical niches and away from policy-oriented work; or directed towards interdisciplinary policy work and away from a disciplinary identity.

So how might this situation be redressed? Firstly, by policy-active geographers contributing more to curriculum design and delivery. Institutional recognition of extra-academic expertise could both reconfigure geography’s understanding of policy and provide the more practically oriented policy-related education that students increasingly demand. Such developments could learn from Cross and Congreve’s () review of climate teaching, which recommended framing climate change as a quintessentially geographical problem; encouraging learners to grapple with various solutions and their complexities; and emphasising skills-led learning with a focus on the contributions made by different professions and institutions. Such approaches would validate and create opportunities for those geographers with extra-academic experience, and those who cross disciplinary and methodological divides, and would apply to other topics of growing interest to students – food, water and energy systems – that are closely associated with policy discourse (Leck et al., 2015).

Second, by establishing stronger links between disciplinary and careers provision, as has been done at King’s College London (KCL) through a compulsory third-year module linking academic skills and career pathways, delivered in collaboration with careers advisors (KCL, n.d.). Such integration could emphasise that policy work extends beyond central government and the civil service to local government, supranational organisations and the non-profit sector, and that the divisions between policy, industry and research are increasingly permeable as training in each can lead to opportunities in others. Similarly, in recent years, the Royal Geographical Society has been attempting to connect “professional” geographers with academic colleagues through its Chartered Geographer network. Involving those with extra-academic experience would support students in forging links between academic skills and professional competencies, easing their transition from education to employment, and would facilitate the strategic design of undergraduate programmes to enhance further the attractiveness of geography to students, the appropriateness of geographical skills to cross-sectoral employers, and the long-term societal impact of geography.

Whether we follow Cross and Congreve () or KCL, the path-dependency of the current situation warrants attention, given the constraints that it places on the discipline’s potential to meet the changing needs of its students and to optimise its long-term potential impact, necessitating more effective integration of policy and pedagogy.

Conclusion

In re-opening the policy debate, we do not wish to rehash old quarrels, and we acknowledge both compelling postcolonial arguments against striving for policy impact, and radical geographical reasons to resist the pressure for demonstrable short-term impact. However, disciplines make their greatest impact through their students. Our professional experience indicates increasing desire for applied learning opportunities to complement the theoretical and critical emphasis of human geography and the scientific niches of physical geography. Yet, definitional, institutional and structural issues perpetuate the devaluation of extra-academic policy experience and the division between policy work and curriculum direction. There is a growing imperative to act among young people but with students increasingly coming to university to develop the knowledge and skills necessary to enter the policy world yet graduating without meaningful exposure to extra-academic policy work, we are failing to provide them with the policy-specific scaffolding that they both desire and require to capitalise on their academic skills, make informed career choices and fully realise their – and our – potential.

Janet Banfield and Sam Hampton are Joint first authors