The barriers and enablers of curriculum thinking and teacher agency in geography education: a multinational study

Abstract

There is an increasing urgency, driven by global geopolitical, ecological and climate crises, for geography teachers to use their subject expertise as agents of change to empower children and young people with the knowledge and skills needed to think geographically and better understand our complex and rapidly changing world. This paper brings our international insights about national curriculum contexts and approaches to secondary geography education into dialogue with the concepts of recontextualisation and Future 3 curriculum to consider how we can foster teachers as curriculum makers with agency to decide what to teach and how. We examine the seven national education systems in which the authors work (Czechia, China, United Kingdom (England), Japan, the Netherlands, South Africa and South Korea) to identify the key barriers and enablers geography teachers face when wanting to enact a Future 3 curriculum of engagement that centres powerful knowledge to enhance student capabilities. Guided by Bernstein’s theory of the pedagogic device, we present a novel framework for analysing different curriculum contexts which we suggest could be insightful for educators wanting to foster teacher agency and provide students with epistemic access to powerful disciplinary knowledge in school geography.