1. Looking at powerful knowledge in geography
Tuesday 15th April 2014
Geographical Association Annual Conference
University of Surrey, Guildford
Looking at powerful knowledge in geography
Ryan Bate
Bridgewater High School, Warrington
MA, Institute of Education (London)

2. This session…
Research formed MA dissertation – didn’t necessarily answer all the questions, or look in all the right places!
Quick summary my research project.
Focus on four questions/thoughts which I have had both completing my research and reflecting upon it since.
Very much from the point of view of a practising geography teacher who also completed some academic research.

3. Research outline How is knowledge defined in geography?
How do we make selections for the geography curriculum?
How do we articulate the underlying purpose of geography education?
What are the possible implications of powerful knowledge for geography teachers?

4. Four key questions for this session…
What is ‘powerful knowledge’?
What is geographical knowledge?
How is geography a powerful knowledge?
What might the implications for teachers be?
On question two, this can be broken down further:
What do we mean by ‘geographical knowledge’?
How is knowledge made in geography?
What is the distinction between knowledge and experience? An important tangent, would be how important is the distinction and how do we approach such a distinction in geography?
For question four, though obviously drawing on the other questions, there are a few important questions regarding possible implications:
What would a powerful knowledge-based curriculum look like?
How might teachers adapt the way they teach geography to treat knowledge differently?
And a very pertinent question in light of the latest National Curriculum document – does a powerful knowledge-based curriculum necessarily mean a highly prescriptive curriculum.

5. 1. What is ‘powerful knowledge’?
Social constructivist view of knowledge
Dynamic; reflects power relations of society.
Absolutist (‘traditional’) view of knowledge
Fixed; to be transmitted.
Powerful knowledge (social realism)
Michael Young (formerly a social constructivist).
Knowledge can be ascribed a value by society due to the processes of knowledge-making and knowledge claims.
Knowledge offers explanatory power or can allow new ways of thinking about the world.
Knowledge is dynamic and open to challenge.
Access to knowledge – social justice.
Young’s main argument, or certainly the debate around Young’s work (see, for instance, John White’s response to Young) has focused on whether the school curriculum should be subject-based. Geography’s place in a subject-based curriculum can be articulated in terms of powerful knowledge, but powerful knowledge can also provide principles – or challenges – that we need to think about when designing and justifying a geography curriculum. I don’t think this potential contribution has been widely explored and perhaps my research begins to plug that gap.
1. An argument for a subject-based curriculum
2. Principles for designing a geography curriculum

6. Knowledge and experience?
1. What is ‘powerful knowledge’?
More of a problem for geographers?
Our experience is not a substitute for geographical knowledge; the latter has been produced through a set of processes which has earned a value.
We can use our own experience to challenge and change geographical knowledge.
Gaining greater geographical knowledge makes us more able to challenge and change it.
This is maybe more of a problem for geographers, I would argue it doesn’t have to be. Margaret Roberts has strongly argued that geographical knowledge is powerful in a way different to Young’s approach to knowledge. Again I am not sure how substantial the gap is between Margaret’s and Michael Young’s standpoints on knowledge.
Additional point: I am currently drafting an article regarding the power of geographical knowledge, drawing on some thoughts and conversations from the conference. Watch this space!

7. 1. What is ‘powerful knowledge’?
‘Reference points’
The need for geography…
‘If geography didn’t exist on the school curriculum, why would somebody want to put it on there?’
Cannot have ‘anything goes’, or allow a focus to shift too far towards values and opinions.
Must have a conceptual grounding (‘grammar’) and the words to express it (‘vocabulary’)
This allows us to improve our geographical understanding of the world, articulate that understanding and shape the world around us..
Locational framework
Geographical knowledge provides a framework – a conceptual framework – which gives us a greater ability to understand the world. This is very much a ‘powerful knowledge’ approach. Those concepts don’t come ‘naturally’, or at least the ability to fully harness and critically reflect upon and apply those concepts does not come without a geographical education. This is where the distinction between ‘everyday’ knowledge and powerful knowledge can be made – it is not in my opinion as problematic as some have said. Clearly geography is about the ‘everyday’, but out understanding of the everyday is enhanced with the ‘intervention’ of a geographical education and the concepts which that education provides.

8. 2. What is geographical knowledge? Geography is NOT all around us…
Maybe do ourselves a disservice to think or say so.
It is a body of knowledge produced through social processes…
However not all of these social processes are necessarily ‘academic’.
Geography as a representation of the world; just as history is a representation of events.
Role of maps in geography (maps as images).
Geographical Imaginations (Gregory, 1994)
Whilst a representation, there is still an object – the earth – which that representation is based on; thus geographical knowledge cannot purely be a social construct (Major, 2012).
Really interesting comment made by Alan Kinder in an interview. We need to think carefully and, I would argue, teach more carefully about the nature of knowledge. Do we sometimes fall into the trap of ‘absolutism’ – teaching ‘facts’ which pupils don’t appreciate are open to challenge, or at the other extreme do we too easily allow a sense of ‘anything goes’ and get too woolly about each person making their own meanings. Clearly we do have our own perspectives, but they must be informed by some geographical knowledge that is socially valued. Otherwise what do we actually mean by the geographical ‘subject’ or ‘discipline’?

9. 3. How is geography a powerful knowledge? “Geography matters”
Place and space - location, distance, territory, boundaries – continue to matter, on a range of scales, as they always have:
A History of the World in Twelve Maps (Jerry Brotton, 2012)
Border Country (Rory Stewart, BBC, 2014)
32 Stops (Danny Dorling, 2013)
This is our motivation as geography educators:
Young people need geographical knowledge, understanding and skills in order to play a full role in society.
In a time when Crimea and climate change are in the news, it seems absurd to think that geography’s relevance can be questioned. Earlier this year we had the UK floods, the ongoing chaos of the Syrian civil war and a Chilean volcano barely made the news. Questions over the European Union and Scottish independence are surely also geographical, as is the less well-covered referendum concerning independence of Venice & the Veneto from the Italian Republic. Perhaps there is an element of what I call ‘insider awareness’, whereby as geographers we notice the improved understanding that we have of issues, whereas those ‘outside’ the geography bubble do not appreciate the insights that they are missing out on.
Of course the concepts of territory and boundaries are not the sole property of geographers, as illustrated by two of the works listed on this slide – Brotton writes on maps but as a historian, whilst Rory Stewart is of course a politician by trade and a historian by training. At least in their work they are quick to mention the role and importance of geography, unlike in many other popular cases where the subject of geography is airbrushed so that you are left with a book or TV programme that is geographical in all but name, take Coast for example.
When we talk about the benefits of a geographical knowledge, we are of course talking about the explanatory power which Young describes in his concept of powerful knowledge. Without a geographical understanding of borders, for example, a person’s understanding of a whole range of issues including tourism, trade, tax and development aid is in some way limited. An inherent part of that understanding though is an appreciation not only for the forces which make borders, but also the forces that influence what borders mean to us – do we see them as a given and fixed, or do we see them as constructs of power that shift over time. Do we recognise the power of people both to draw lines on a map or indeed to break down barriers?
In other words, we don’t just want to know the phenomena, as powerful as that is in itself, but we also want to understand how we have come to that knowledge. Through doing both of these, we also develop an understanding of our own human agency.

10. Thinking geographically?
Geography as a ‘way of seeing’ (Lambert & Morgan, 2009: 155).
Provides a framework through which the world and its phenomena can be understood.
Developing geographical thinking can only be done through building geographical knowledge.
Expanding our intellectual powers.
Providing a language to discuss and explain the world through.
Examples to develop and test our understanding, which we can then apply to new scenarios.
Thinking geographically is enhanced by geographical knowledge. Everybody has some sense of place and space, but this is not the same as the conceptual understanding offered by a geographical education.
We must at the same time be careful when we talk about ‘thinking geographically’ – it is a term frequently used, but rarely explained or reflected upon. John Morgan wrote an excellent paper on this in Debating Issues in Geography Education (2013).

11. Questions of selection
4. What might the implications for teachers be?
Questions of selection
Conceptual underpinnings (e.g. space, place).
Role for relevance?
Returning to the issue of access and social justice, the apparent lack of relevance of geographical (or any other subject) knowledge is perhaps one of the most important justifications for geography education.
Geography has perhaps been ‘hijacked’ by socio-political (e.g. trade justice, global warming) or educational (e.g. literacy, citizenship) issues, leaving deep geographical knowledge and understanding marginalised.
Does a ‘powerful knowledge’-based curriculum need to be a highly prescriptive one?
Surely the power of geography is derived from the explanatory power it provides, as such any selection for a geography curriculum should be conceptually underpinned. Furthermore, explanatory power and intellectual development as a geographer must surely involve deep knowledge and understanding; this has perhaps been lost to a focus on socio-political or educational issues.
I would argue that a powerful knowledge-based curriculum does not have to be a prescriptive one. The 2008 curriculum for me was absolutely about powerful knowledge, as it focused on concepts. However it would only appear to be powerful, or taught in a meaningful and powerful way, when in the hands of professional geography teachers who understand how to thread those concepts throughout teaching and learning, ensuring proper depth. ‘Outsiders’, particularly in the political or policy-spheres, they would not necessarily understand how such a short list is powerful and therefore not consider it an adequate basis for guidance and accountability.
If I could make an additional comment, based on a very important question from Simon Catling on the quality of geography teaching at the end of the session… I think there is a disconnect between the government’s academic standards agenda – embodied in the National Curriculum – and the time and resources which teachers have. It is a challenge for professional geography teachers to deliver a rigorous curriculum based on deep knowledge and understanding if they don’t have the opportunity to develop quality lessons and resources. At the coalface of the classroom, it can become a necessarily evil to resort to commercially-available options where the process of interpreting a curriculum – and therefore thinking about how geography is a powerful knowledge – is then a mediated act.

12. Challenging geographical knowledge
4. What might the implications for teachers be?
Challenging geographical knowledge
There is a never-ending need to be critical: how was the knowledge produced and by whom?
Implications for geography teachers?
As teachers how often do we challenge ourselves by asking ‘why am I teaching this?’
Do we fail to give young people a sense that there are multiple points of view?
Consider when we teach ‘political’ issues such as trade justice, climate change or development aid.
Do we empower young people to think that knowledge is a ‘work in progress’ that can be changed, just as we (hopefully) empower them through futures thinking about how the world can be changed.

13. An example of sorts: ‘Fair Trade’ (trade justice)
Reasons for teaching Fair Trade:
Contemporary issue.
Encourages young people to become responsible consumers.
Futures thinking – about how we could make the world a fairer place.
Reasons for NOT teaching Fair Trade:
Political issue.
Too easy for teachers to over-simplify (especially if they lack understanding of the issue themselves).
Taught in absence of wider learning about the global economy.
Possible approach from a social realist:
Teach trade justice, accepting some amount of simplification.
Help students distinguish between what is geographical knowledge and what is a perspective.
Have students challenge the material.

14. Powerful knowledge and geography: some closing remarks
Geography should be about understanding the world – the world exists as an object, of which geography is a representation, however this does not mean ‘anything goes’.
Geographical knowledge is assigned a value based on the processes by which it is ‘made’; this knowledge should be regarded as dynamic and open to challenge.
Our experience contributes to how we understand, challenge and perhaps change geographical knowledge; that does not make experience a substitute for geographical knowledge.

15. Bibliography
A full bibliography can be found in my dissertation, which I am more than happy to share on request ( me at
An additional paper, which I sadly only came across after my dissertation, but find very useful is:
Major, B. (2012) Geography – A Powerful Knowledge. Available online at Academia.edu.