Critical Pedagogies in Geography Education

Critical pedagogy emerged in the 1970s in both the USA and Britain in response to the perceived limits of the educational expansion of the post-war period. Its impact on geography education at school level was at first limited. However, from the 1980s, changes in the educational system and academic geography’s realignment with the mainstream of political and social theory spurred the emergence of critical approaches to geography education. The academic field of Critical Pedagogy has itself changed over time in response to developments in the media and wider social change. This chapter explores the intersection of critical pedagogy and geography education and offers examples of what a critical pedagogy in geography classrooms might look like. These examples are not offered as a blueprint for teachers in the classroom but as resources for reflection. The spaces for critical pedagogy in schools may be limited, but any geography education that attempts to describe and explain what David Harvey (2016) called “the ways of the world” will necessarily seek to analyze the role that politics and economics play in the formation of places, spaces, and environments.Geography educationcritical pedagogyCritical pedagogy