What is the place of radical/critical research in geography education?

Abstract

In this article the value of critical research to research in geography education is considered. It raises the question as to whether the geography education community requires a wider range of orientations to research, concerned as we are with its impact on classroom practice, policy-making and future directions for geography education.

Keywords:

• research
• research quality
• theory
• critical theory
• geography education

Notes

1. The original article was published as Best, S., & Kellner, D. (1999). Kevin Kelly's complexity theory, Organisation and Environment, 12, 141–162.

2. The RAE is a peer-review exercise to evaluate the quality of research in UK universities and higher-education institutions. The quality profiles for each subject submission of research activity made by the institutions are the most influential measurement of research quality. On the basis of these assessments, which are calculated against international standards of excellence, the higher-education funding bodies distribute public funds to research institutions. The RAE is being replaced by the research excellence framework and new arrangements for the assessment and funding of research.

3. Weis, Jenkins, & Stich (2009) argue that it is increasingly important to read across theoretical and methodological divisions that are now widely understood to characterise the education field. The authors fear, in fact, that the seemingly taken-for-granted assumption of staked-out theoretical and methodological “camps” (with which scholars and doctoral students are inevitably allied) implies a misunderstanding or misreading of how scholars came to be where they are today while simultaneously stunting scholarship related to the production of social inequalities both in and outside of schools.

4. This is not to suggest that such work is not/has not been useful. Within this scholarship there is a strong critical tradition. In the UK, the work of John Huckle readily comes to mind. Such work has been vital.

5. Anyon points out that one exception in the field of education is psychologically based research driven by theories like those of Piaget and Vygotsky.

6. Though this does not imply that the research is necessarily of poor quality. Neither does it indicate the influence that any researcher or group of researchers may have upon other researchers, curriculum policy-makers and classroom practitioners (Gerber & Williams, 2000, p. 209).

7. The GEReCO was established 3 years ago as a collective of research-active geography educators to develop research and give geography education a stronger voice and promote it amongst policy-makers.

8. Poststructuralism, postmodernism, post-colonialism, critical feminism and so on.