After the relevance debate: The teaching of social geography

Abstract

An examination of the recent relevance debate in geography shows that this debate has led to an explicit realisation of the significance of values, the addition of a rigorous political, social and economic dimension to social geography and a recognition of the importance of problem and policy perspectives. Three trends in modern social geography are identified — problem orientations, humanistic perspectives, and structural perspectives — and their impacts on taught courses and individual projects are assessed. Curriculum developments and problems are also discussed. Full incorporation of such schemes into the subject depends not only on published research findings, but also on the values and interests of individual teachers.