Looking at and looking along: a conceptual framework for teaching different perspectives in geography

Abstract

This paper builds on arguments made by Chalmers, Keown, and Kent [Exploring different ‘perspectives’ in secondary geography: Professional development options. International Research in Geographical and Environmental Education, 11(4), 313–324 (2002)], about teaching different theoretical perspectives in geography. A conceptual framework developed by C.S. Lewis is discussed and offered as one way of facilitating the teaching of different perspectives. The framework involves an analytic distinction between looking at and looking along. Looking at is associated with abstract, external, impersonal, uninvolved knowledge. Looking along is presented in terms of participant, inhabited, personal, committed knowledge. The analytic distinction between these approaches is applied to geography education using the perspectives suggested by Chalmers et al. of post-Fordism and deep ecology. Suggestions are made to illustrate what it might mean to look at and look along both of these theoretical perspectives. An argument is made that the analogy of looking at and looking along may inform on-going discussions in geography education research, such as critiques of school geography for not engaging with different perspectives, and debates surrounding the place of advocacy in the curriculum.

Keywords:

• geographical knowledge
• perspectives
• pedagogy
• C.S. Lewis
• school subject
• academic discipline

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank the three anonymous reviewers for their generous comments. Steven Puttick is reading for a DPhil at Worcester College, Oxford, having received funds through ESRC 1+3 Studentship.