Enquiring into primary teachers' geographical knowledge

Abstract

Subject knowledge is an important component of primary teachers' repertoire, though it has not been studied widely beyond their understandings of aspects of science and mathematics. Evaluations of the quality of teachers' geographical knowledge for teaching primary geography indicate a disparity between high quality teachers and less strong teachers. Good or weaker geography subject knowledge influences primary teachers' capacity to plan well for and intervene effectively in children's learning. This small-scale interview-based enquiry explores several teachers' senses of geography subject knowledge. They are enthusiasts for geography and are identified as expert teachers of the subject in their classes and schools. Five themes emerge as very tentative findings from their reflections: the subject's breadth, knowledge about the world, a living subject, an accessible subject for children and need for geography to be visible in the curriculum. There are indications that these primary teachers have a sense of geographical knowledge as informational knowledge, conceptual knowledge and geographical thinking. However, there were limits to these teachers' clear articulations of their understandings. Questions emerge about the nature and value of subject knowledge in relation to pedagogical content knowledge for primary teachers.

Keywords:

• geography
• primary teachers
• subject knowledge
• pedagogical content knowledge