Returning “region” to world regional geography

Abstract

World regional geography textbooks rarely focus on the process of region formation, despite frequent calls to reincorporate a regional approach to teaching global geography. An instructional strategy using problem-based learning in a small honors section of a large world regional geography course is described. Using a hypothetical scenario reorganizing the US State Department's metaregional structure, students conducted group research and presentations on the geopolitical consequences of allocating states to a metaregion. Results indicated that honors students acquired as much content knowledge as those in the regular lecture section and significantly greater awareness about the implications of metaregional membership.

Keywords:

• metaregions
• world regional geography
• PBL

Acknowledgments

The authors thank David Legates for assistance with statistical analysis, Tracy DeLiberty and Colleen Leithren for help with drafting the map, and Mark C. Jones, Catherine Cooper, and anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on earlier drafts of the paper.

Notes

1. A content search for the word “regional” among the annotated descriptions of specializations that accompany the global list of geography departments on the University of Colorado's Virtual Geography Department web page (http://www.colorado.edu/geography/virtdept/resources/depts/depts.htm) found that of 665 departments listed in 53 countries, only 29% identified “regional” as among their program emphases, and many of these were references to regional planning rather than regional geography. The annotations were based on introductory program information and faculty profile pages found on each department's web pages. Although the list is dated (2007) and far from inclusive of all geography departments world-wide, even this cursory analysis indicates the relative paucity of concern for regional geography.

2. Because of frequent mention, references to textbooks examined in this paper use only the first author; complete citations are given in Table 1 and in reference.

3. The definition of geopolitics presented to students follows that of Flint (2006, pp. 16 and 28): “Contemporary geopolitics identifies the sources, practices and representations that allow for the control of territory and the extraction of resources…[and involves]…the struggle over control of spaces and places.”

4. The trial PBL activity was conducted prior to the declaration of independence by South Sudan.

5. The text used for this activity (de Blij, Muller & WinklerPrins, 2011) does not recognize Central Asia as a separate metaregion. If Rowntree et al. (2012) were used, Central Asia could be a third metaregional option for Afghanistan.