Euikyung E. Shin, Sarah Witham Bednarz - Spatial Citizenship Education - Citizenship Through Geography-Routledge (2018)

SPATIAL CITIZENSHIP EDUCATION
Spatial Citizenship Education is an innovative exploration of ways to engage and

promote citizenship through a deeper understanding of spatial and geographic
perspectives. The authors propose that recognizing the relationship between
space and citizenry enables productive and positive engagement with important
societal issues such as equity, justice, and environmental stewardship. By providing
a historical overview of geography’s contribution to citizenship education, including
progress made and challenges faced by educational reform movements, this
collection shows how geography can contribute to a new type of citizen—one
with an enhanced understanding of the world as seen through the key concepts
of geography: space, place, scale, power, and human-environment relationships.
Through a theoretical explanation of key citizenship ideas, and by providing
practical, classroom-based teaching tools, this volume will be essential for geography
education researchers and social studies educators alike.
Euikyung E. Shin is a professor in the Department of Curriculum and

Instruction at Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois where she teaches
curriculum studies and social studies education. Her research interests include
incorporation of spatial perspectives for global citizenship education and
integration of geospatial technology to social studies curriculum.
Sarah Witham Bednarz is Professor Emerita of Geography at Texas A&M

University. Bednarz co-authored the national geography standards, Geography
for Life (1994 and 2012), served on the Committee on Spatial Thinking (2004–
2006), and co-chaired the Geography Education Research Committee (GERC)
of the 21st Century Road Map for 21st Century Geography Education Project.
SPATIAL CITIZENSHIP
EDUCATION
Citizenship through Geography
Edited by Euikyung E. Shin and

Sarah Witham Bednarz
First published 2019
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
and by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2019 Taylor & Francis
The right of Euikyung E. Shin and Sarah Witham Bednarz to be
identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for
their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections
77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval
system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice : Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this title has been requested
ISBN: 978-1-138-05644-2 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-138-05645-9 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-16535-6 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
CONTENTS
Preface vii
Joseph P. Stoltman
1 Conceptualizing Spatial Citizenship 1

Euikyung E. Shin and Sarah Witham Bednarz
2 Geography as a Social Study: Its Significance for

Civic Competence 10
Stephen J. Thornton
3 Geography, Capabilities, and the Educated Person 22

David Lambert
4 The Spatial Production and Navigation of Vulnerable Citizens 41

Sandra J. Schmidt
5 Citizenship Education in a Spatially Enhanced World 59

Sarah Witham Bednarz and Robert S. Bednarz
6 Rediscovering the Local: Collaborative, Community Maps

for Civic Awareness 72
Todd W. Kenreich
vi Contents
7 Cultivating Student Citizens: Using Critical Pedagogy of Place

Curriculum to Enhance Spatial Thinking, Civic Engagement,
and Inquiry Through Student-Generated Topics 88
M. Beth Schlemper and Victoria C. Stewart
8 Geotechnologies and the Spatial Citizen 117

Tom Baker, Mary Curtis, and Lisa Millsaps
9 Informed Citizenry Starts in the Preschool and Elementary

Grades—and With Geography 132
Elizabeth R. Hinde
10 Spatial Citizenship in Secondary Geography Curriculum 145

Injeong Jo
11 Spatial Citizenship in Geography/Social Studies

Teacher Education 159
Euikyung E. Shin
List of Contributors 170

Index 173
PREFACE
Citizenship and geography education share a common goal: the preparation of

students to be well-informed citizens capable of making informed civic deci-
sions. An informed citizen has the capacity to participate in decision-making
processes to address the common good for the community in which they live, for
the country to which they belong, and for Earth, which they inhabit. Citizenship
education is preparation for civic engagement. Geography’s role relative to citi-
zenship education is to equip learners with the knowledge and skills they need to
become responsible decision makers. The following widely accepted goal of citi-
zenship education is an open invitation for geography education to participate.
Civic education should help young people acquire and learn to use skills,
knowledge and attitudes that will prepare them to be competent and
responsible citizens throughout their lives.
( Carnegie Corporation of New York, 2003, p. 2)
It seems that if geography were substituted for citizenship (Civic), then there
would be relative close agreement that geography education shares much with
citizenship education as a common educational goal.
As a newly minted teacher of middle school students some years ago, I was
often reminded by more experienced colleagues that every teacher is a teacher
of reading. We assigned reading from the geography textbook and expected stu-
dents to grasp the conceptual components and to link them together as they built
their knowledge and comprehension of the world. While I recollect the attention
to reading, I do not recall that we spent much time attending to the role of civic
behavior that was in the best interests of the larger community where the school
was located. It was taken for granted that our students would use the knowledge
viii Preface
they were acquiring to become responsible citizens. The editors of this book
intend to increase the attention given to the benefits of a geography education as
students practice civic responsibility and engage others in doing the same. The
chapters in the book are evidence of a commitment to use geography as a means
to leverage civic responsibility and citizenship. It is an invitation for educators
at all grade levels to think deeply about the relationship between geography
and being a responsible citizen. In the 21st century, every teacher is a teacher of
citizenship.
The book’s chapters are future looking and recognize the growing use of
technology within communities, with a special emphasis on geospatial technol-
ogy and mapping. Seldom does an event of local importance occur that it is not
captured by a person nearby who is using the video device on a smartphone.
Geography and geospatial technology are a significant component in capturing
and analyzing those events. Events have a spatial dimension with regard to their
scale, their occurrence at a particular place, and their association with specific
environmental conditions, both human and natural. The geographic challenge
is to identify and analyze the relationships among concepts central to geographic
inquiry, such as space, place, and environment. The citizenship challenge is to
apply the geographic information and concepts within a geographical context in
order to make informed decisions for the common good.
When the term citizenship is used in either formal or casual conversation, as
well as in the media, it is most often interpreted as the legal association between
an individual and the state, or the country. Citizenship defines who has the right
to a domicile within a country and the protections and responsibilities under
the laws of that country. Citizenship education has been treated very broadly
within schools in different countries, ranging from indoctrination regarding the
political position of a country’s leaders, to the quest for responsible individual
behavior and desirable moral values within the community. While citizenship
is diverse in its applications and practices, it does depend heavily on the societal
context in which it is practiced. In some societies, it is based on the birthright
within a country or the result of the formalities of immigration and naturaliza-
tion to a country and its laws. In other countries, citizenship is based on the
lineage of one’s parents. Still other countries may treat citizenship as the act of
being a resident in a place with a formal or legal attachment following a period
of residency that qualifies a person to be a citizen. The requirements necessary
to become a citizen are almost always included in the content of the citizenship,
civics, or government curricula that is presented in schools. Knowing about the
procedural components of citizenship are most often what educational specialists
and curriculum developers identify as the most basic steps in defining one’s role
as a citizen.
Social and political contexts generally determine where the development of
civic skills is included within the curriculum. In most countries, citizenship edu-
cation is largely within the disciplines of history and political science. History
Preface ix
tells the story of how a country became established, incorporated its laws and
rules, took international relationship steps to gain recognition through peace-
ful negotiations, war or territorial acquisitions, and assembled a population that
viewed themselves as citizens of the national unit or country. Citizenship rep-
resents the bonding between individual and country; this bond can range from
extremely nationalistic to a relative casual relationship, or in most cases, a balance
between those ends of a citizenship spectrum. Those are the historical compo-
nents of citizenship education.
Political science as a discipline represents citizenship education within the
curriculum in a more specific, legalistic fashion. Political science entails the
study of procedural content that describes the development of government as
legislative legalities. Within the curriculum, a frequent pattern for citizenship
education is to promote the type of government in power rather than to under-
take a comparative study of different types of government. The rationale is often
used that citizens need to be educated, beginning in primary school, regarding
the operations, expectations, and successes of a government or system that gov-
erns the country. Of course, the critical analysis of government by its citizens
may result in upheaval against those governments that ignore procedural laws, or
it may result in a passive acceptance of the role a government pursues rather than
what should be the purpose of government.
Other elements of citizenship education, beyond historical accounts and gov-
ernmental procedures, are components of the curricula in many countries. Citi-
zenship education may also include the morals, ethics, and values that students
experience in their studies as they interact within society. Moral and ethical
actions result from a lifetime of learning and practice, both in and out of school.
However, it is the early years of education that provide the basis for citizens to
make sound moral judgments, ethical decisions, and ref lect values that promote
the common good. Usually, morals, ethics, and values are merged either specifi-
cally or by stealth into the content that students study in school subjects ranging
from mathematics to health/physical education. They include the underlying
qualities of honesty, fairness, courage, and integrity, just to name a few, that
educators aspire to promote in their students regardless of age or subject in
school. Morals, ethics, and values are perhaps the very basis from which educa-
tion as a social practice emerged. They continue to be part of the formal and/
or informal curriculum by virtue of their importance as building blocks of a
civil society.
Teachers are regularly concerned with student behavior and the civility of the
classroom environment as a place to engage with and learn from each other as
well as to complete formal studies. The classroom is a part of the larger prepa-
ration for living in a civil society. This is the setting where the content being
taught and the skills and values which teachers are charged to help students
develop intersect with citizenship education. This book is written to help edu-
cators determine how geography can be positioned within the curriculum in
x Preface
order to assist in the attainment of priorities and objectives regarding citizenship

education.
Positioning geography in the curriculum so that it complements citizenship
education is an obvious way to forge a link between them. For example, we
know that history instruction addresses the relationship between the discipline
and citizenship preparation. It examines, through time, the relationship between
the people and their country. It recognizes past trends that affect current condi-
tions of the civil society. We also know that political science includes much of
the procedural aspects of citizenship, including participation in local, regional,
and national communities. The question thus becomes: what remains for geog-
raphy? There remains plenty that geography has to offer within the realm of the
civil society, civic participation, informed position taking on issues and public
policies that are reflective of place, space, and the environment. The challenge is
to identify learning opportunities that engage geographic content and skills and
that enhance one’s role as a citizen now and into the future. Those opportunities,
perspectives, and suggestions form the basis for this book.
What is the past record of geography education forging a link with citizenship
education? Geography education has defined its relationship with citizenship in
the school curriculum several times since the early 20th century. Perhaps the ear-
liest formal discussion of geography and citizenship in modern times was pub-
lished in Britain under the title Geography in Education and Citizenship (Barker,
1927). In the 1920s Britain was still a world colonial power and its citizens were
residents (referred to as expatriates) throughout the empire. British policymakers
were concerned with promoting attachments, both political and emotional, to
the home islands. One way to achieve that attachment was through the teach-
ing of geography. Much of the book by Barker was devoted to living elsewhere,
but being a citizen of the United Kingdom (UK) and Northern Ireland. The
1920s were also a time when citizenship education was gaining prominence in
the United States through the newly implemented social studies curriculum.
Citizenship gained a prominent position in the curricula of the individual states
in the United States, based on loyalty and attachment to the place. Many states
had a single specific requirement for graduation from high school and it was the
successful completion of a course in government, civics, or citizenship.
Traditionally, geography’s role in citizenship education has been minimal,
as I concluded in 1990 ( Stoltman, 1990) after working within the social studies
curriculum and with social studies educators. It wasn’t that social studies educa-
tors disliked geography, but rather because they viewed little in geography that
was related to the roles of a citizen. Following that 1990 review of geography
education and citizenship, there was not much additional attention in profes-
sional writing specifically addressing geography’s role in citizenship education
in the United States. The situation was not much different in other countries,
including the UK. Michael Williams, a noted geography educator in the UK,
concluded from his research of published bibliographic sources in geography
Preface xi
education from 1970 to 1990 that the inclusion of citizenship applications by

geography educators was sparse. He concluded that “researchers in geography
education have paid remarkably little attention to citizenship education” (Wil-
liams, 2001, p. 33). However, at the beginning of the 21st century in the UK,
there was a major enlightenment regarding geography and citizenship, and it was
in response to political developments on the European continent.
Beginning in 1989, Europe underwent a major political transition precipi-
tated by the reunification of Germany. Over the next three years, independent
and (arguably) democratic governments became operational in nearly all of the
countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. That momentous change gave rise
to considerable influence and attention by national governments to the topic
of citizenship in school curricula. In Africa and Asia during this same period,
countries were recovering from colonialism and its residual impact in education,
political isolation, conflict, and social unrest. As well as preparing young people
as citizens, countries were also faced with preparing citizens for the coming
global society. As Michael Williams had observed, geography was not well posi-
tioned for the new attention to citizenship that was sweeping through various
regions of the globe.
Citizenship education increasingly became the subject of legislative processes
as countries sought to assure citizens’ attachments to the particular country’s
curriculum about governing and civic activity. Curriculum reviews, visits by
western educators, and restructuring of schooling were underway in many
countries. One example was the book edited by Lambert and Machon (2001),
which included the chapter by Williams cited here. Legislation, debate among
educators, and the publication of the book brought geography education and cit-
izenship to the forefront in the UK. The book was in response to a governmental
movement to increase the attention to citizenship in the national curriculum.
The school timetable revolves around a specific number of hours and classes
available to students. If citizenship were added, then what would be decreased
to keep the timetable in balance? Geography teachers did not want to sacrifice
any portion of their subject’s time, so the response was to identify the role that
geography could play in citizenship education. In many ways the book, Citizen-
ship through Secondary Geography, was a masterful move that further substanti-
ated geography as essential content for all students, but that also recognized the
importance of citizenship education at the beginning of the 21st century. The
book provided a public statement regarding the importance of geography as a
component of citizenship education and the significance of the discipline in fur-
thering the goals of a civil society.
In many countries, history and political science generally share a broad brief
regarding their dominant role in citizenship education. The dominance of the
role is clearly established by both the nature of each discipline and the way they
are viewed by the public. Both disciplines are able to incorporate the story of
a country’s political evolution in an interesting and informative fashion. The
xii Preface
current book has focused the spotlight on geography as a component of citizen-

ship. What does geography education bring to the civic mission of education
regarding issues at local, national, and international scales? Geography’s main
content in the curriculum is concerned with three widely recognized elements:
space, place, and the natural environment. The authors of the chapters delve into
discussions of geography, education, and citizenship in order to provide a clear
pathway for the discipline’s contribution to the preparation of students for civic
life.
Chapter 1 is written by the co-editors of the book, Euikyung E. Shin and
Sarah Witham Bednarz. They speak to the importance of citizenship in educa-
tion and explain its role as a pivotal core within geography. Like reading instruc-
tion, citizenship education is a right of all students and a responsibility of all
teachers. Learning about the political processes and power relations of a country’s
government has been practiced in the education fabric of schooling for many
centuries. The editors have guided the preparation of the chapters in the book to
envelop geography as a discipline and demonstrate its contributions to citizen-
ship education.
David Lambert ( Chapter 3) reflects on the potential impact of a multi-year
educational project in the European Union that applies powerful knowledge as a
critical component for being an informed, responsible citizen. He presents geo-
graphic knowledge and skills as being the basis for a citizens’ toolkit necessary
to address issues related to the local community, country, and world. The ability
to act in an informed manner is made possible by a foundation in geographic
content that makes connections to the world in which students live. A powerful
content background in geography enables people to use the content in an array
of citizen roles throughout their lives.
Sarah Witham Bednarz and Robert S. Bednarz (Chapter 5) put geography
squarely in citizenship education by citing the importance of spatial and geospa-
tial thinking. They argue that the spatial viewpoint extends through the appli-
cations of geographical tools and provides a means to analyze civic activities
and citizenship behaviors. Spatial technology is a powerful pedagogical tool for
teachers to use in the study and practice of citizenship, with numerous oppor-
tunities for students to engage software when examining issues or solving prob-
lems. Geospatial information processing and mapping permit the visual analysis
and discussion of civic spatial patterns that range from voting to planning com-
munity projects.
Sandra J. Schmidt ( Chapter 4) presents geography’s role in citizenship educa-
tion as an opportunity to equalize citizen opportunities, including opportunities
to participate (voting, policy making), to be employed (workforce prepara-
tion), and to have affordable and adequate housing (residential equality), among
other social and economic issues. The author builds the case that citizenship is
deeply engrained in the struggle for political power, the major determinant of
representation in any political system. Spatially relevant issues that cross over
Preface xiii
between geography and citizenship include poverty, social justice, and political
disenfranchisement.
Stephen J. Thornton ( Chapter 2) begins with a general revisiting of geog-
raphy’s linkage to education, beginning with John Dewey. The social studies
movement in the United States is then addressed, focusing on the opportunities,
missed opportunities, and potential to build a mutually beneficial link between
geography and citizenship education. The author concludes that geography’s
efforts to address and improve the civic competencies of elementary and second-
ary students has been sporadic. He further discusses and encourages teacher edu-
cators and the preparation of teachers to demonstrate the importance of content
in order to build civic competency.
Todd W. Kenreich ( Chapter 6) takes the approach that fieldwork in geogra-
phy is an important gateway for civic and moral development among elemen-
tary and secondary students. In the absence of fieldwork in most schools, the
emphasis on inquiry as a classroom pedagogy becomes the next best option for
delving into issues that confront citizens. Kenreich presents a case study in which
inquiry and geospatial technologies are used to develop civic narratives in the
form of story maps. An out-of-school presentation to a local civic group is used
to communicate the conclusions of the study. Thus, citizenship and geography
education are presented as civic participation culminating with the presentation
of compelling geography information.
Tom Baker, Mary Curtis, and Lisa Millsaps ( Chapter 8) present the case for
the development of the spatial citizen as a goal of education in geography. The
widely popular and increasingly necessary use of geospatial applications in cell-
phones and cars, and the ubiquity of location-based tracking services ranging
from devices used with bird banding and Earth movement sensing, have made
a majority of people spatial citizens. The authors argue that geospatial technolo-
gies have expanded citizenship and civic engagement beyond local and national
borders to become a global platform by way of virtual communities. Emphasis
is given to applying geospatial technologies within the various school disciplines
that deliver curricula for citizenship, decision making, and problem solving.
Elizabeth R. Hinde (Chapter 9) draws attention to the development of citi-
zenship experiences in the elementary curriculum and in pre-service teacher
education. The author reminds readers that the purpose of education is to launch
students towards meaningful lives and to develop the dispositions and skills
necessary for responsible citizenship. An advantage for geography is the early
engagement in local studies and the gradual expansion to the study of the world
in many curricula. In the 21st century that process is accelerated considerably
and young students can begin participating globally with other communities
of student citizens through both planned and unplanned interactions along the
social pathways of the World Wide Web. The ability to connect with students
in other places expands school and national boundaries within which students
navigate socially and academically. Geography education has the technology and
xiv Preface
conceptual core for participation in making those connections meaningful expe-

riences for citizenship education.
Injeong Jo ( Chapter 10) builds the case that a citizen’s activities are enhanced
if students have the preparation to locate and use geospatial information. As
students make decisions and participate in the democratic process, the skills
and knowledge gained from geography prove to be valuable in both analyz-
ing and communicating the results of their inquiries. The author researched
bibliographies with citizenship and geospatial knowledge cross-referenced as
a methodology. The author concluded that there remains a dearth of research
or applied articles in the literature explaining geography’s role in citizenship
education. Recommended steps to remedy the situation include research publi-
cations devoted to the topic; the engagement of teachers and students in com-
munity projects that use digital maps on computers and hand-held devices; and
to engage students in the development of citizen story boards addressing issues
of significance to the public.
M. Beth Schlemper and Victoria C. Stewart ( Chapter 7) approach geography’s
role in citizenship education from a critical pedagogical perspective. The politi-
cal and social transformation of society envisioned by the authors will require
a gateway for greater geography education via citizenship education. This is
because citizenship education addresses the fundamental procedures of gov-
ernment and civic participation, and geography provides the content and skills
that will make civic participation meaningful and fruitful. The authors use the
example of geography education as the means to enact place-based learning. The
place-based approach necessitates a focus on local communities and the issues
faced by those communities. The means for geography to participate is under
the umbrella of citizenship education and the application of geographic content,
concepts, and skills, including the use of geographic information systems and
mapping.
Citizenship and civic responsibility are largely based on information that is
provided by direct observation or from reliable sources. Geography provides
a powerful means to acquire information, apply skills of analysis, and present
information in a format that is visual (maps) and interactive (computer models).
Many of the chapters in this book suggest that geospatial information and spa-
tial technologies provide the discipline of geography with a widely recognized
prominence in civic issues. Students in geography may be actively engaged in
collecting, organizing, analyzing, and presenting the information of significance
regarding issues of importance to individual citizens and their communities.
Local participation in matters of civic importance is a basic element of citizen-
ship. Citizens everywhere interact in their communities, regardless of where
those communities are located on Earth.
A persistent and compelling aspect of civilizations has been civic involve-
ment, but not necessarily equal participation by all members. Within Greek
civilization, there was a conscientious attention to engage communities in civic
Preface xv
activities, but not everyone in Greek society was included and not everyone was
a citizen. During the past 300 years, the preparation of young people for respon-
sible citizenship and the promotion of civic values and attitudes has rested within
the broader realm of formal education. Geography has been a relatively recent
addition to the disciplines that are increasingly forging linkages to citizenship
education. The chapters in this book clearly recognize that the powerful, dis-
ciplinary content of geography provides a means to understand the world and
its dynamic social and physical systems. Applying that understanding to civic
engagement has been enhanced by the introduction of geospatial technologies
and information, both of which are increasingly available to citizens. It is pos-
sible for citizens to encounter situations or recognize issues, both large and small,
and begin the process of inquiring about possible solutions using the content,
skills, and values that comprise geography. The chapters in this book are a major
step forward in disseminating the ways geographic knowledge and skills may
enhance citizenship education.
Joseph P. Stoltman
References
Barker, W. (1927). Geography in education and citizenship. London: University of London.
Carnegie Corporation of New York. (2003). The civic mission of schools. New York, NY:
Carnegie Corporation of New York.
Lambert, D., & Machon, P. (Eds.). (2001). Citizenship through secondary geography. London:
Routledge Falmer.
Stoltman, J. P. (1990). Geography education for citizenship. Bloomington, IN: Social Studies
Development Center.
Williams, M. (2001). Citizenship a democracy education. In D. Lambert & P. Machon
(Eds.), Citizenship through secondary geography (p. 33). London: Routledge Falmouth.
1
CONCEPTUALIZING SPATIAL
CITIZENSHIP
Euikyung E. Shin and Sarah Witham Bednarz
The purpose of this book is to make the case for geography’s vital and neces-
sary role in the preparation of citizens. We coin the phrase spatial citizenship
to illustrate how we believe that geography can contribute to a new type of
citizen—one with an enhanced understanding of the world as seen through the
key concepts of geography: space, place, scale, power, and human-environment
relationships. In this brief introduction to the book we describe what we mean
by spatial citizenship, examine the ways that geography has (and has not) partici-
pated in the past in citizenship education, and preview how the authors whose
work is collected here envision spatial citizenship. To be clear, we assert that citi-
zenship, however defined, is inherently spatial and recognizing that relationship
enables productive and positive engagement with important societal issues such
as equity, justice, and environmental stewardship.
Space
Geography studies the world from two perspectives: the spatial and the envi-
ronmental (Heffron & Downs, 2012). The environmental perspective focuses
on the complex interactions between the physical and human worlds in which
we live. Infused in the exploration of these relationships is the primary tool of
analysis geographers use, considering space. All events take place in space—
Earth space—and the relations among people, places, and environments are
spatial. They are also dynamic, constantly changing and evolving, influenced
by a number of factors, including power and control. Geographers use space to
conceptualize the patterns and processes we observe, including key contempo-
rary processes such as urbanization and globalization, hence, the importance of
the spatial in geography.
2 Euikyung E. Shin and Sarah Witham Bednarz
Developing an understanding of space and taking a spatial perspective as a

habit of mind contributes to the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that determine
students’ views of the physical and social world (Anderson, 1983; Wade, 2001;
Williams, 2001). This idea forms the core of The National Geography Standards
(Heffron & Downs, 2012) which are the definitive statement on what geogra-
phy should be taught and learned in the United States. Subtitled Geography for
Life, the Standards assert that the goal of geography education is to help students
become geographically informed people who can make important decisions about
our well-being in regard to environmental, political, and societal issues (Hef-
fron & Downs, 2012). Until the release of the Standards, some critics might
argue that geography had only played a marginal and ambiguous role in citi-
zenship education (see Stoltman’s Preface in this volume for an account of this
observation).
The Standards attempted to change that position by firmly making three
points: that geography education’s goals aligned with the goals of citizenship
education; that geography had something significant to contribute to citizenship
education; and that a promising approach was through actively doing geography.
Through geographic inquiry, encapsulated in five fundamental skills (asking
geographic questions, collecting geographic information, organizing geographic
information, analyzing geographic information, and answering geographic ques-
tions), young people could learn to make informed decisions in, for, and about
society. So, the idea of spatialized (geographically enhanced) citizenship was
born. These skills have since been revised and re-conceptualized as the practices
of geography. The term practice better captures the complexity of the behaviors
that comprise authentic geographic inquiry and problem solving (Road Map for
21st Century Geography Education, 2013). A central concern for geography educa-
tors, thus, is designing ways to support students in acquiring and exercising these
practices to do geography in active and authentic ways to support sound citizen-
ship. But what is “sound citizenship”?
Citizenship
Because of our pluralistic, immigrant culture, the experience of a civil war,
and ongoing perceived needs to create a unified, national identity, the United
States has struggled with the issue of citizenship. One institution used to achieve
the goal of identity formation has been public education. The creation of an
informed citizenry, able to participate in democratic institutions, has always been
a primary goal of America’s schools (Thornton, 2004). At the beginning of the
20th century, when immigration was at an all-time high, the stated purpose for
social studies was to promote patriotism and citizenship in order to assimilate
newcomers into “American” society. This concern has persisted into this century
leading to a parochial view of citizenship focused solely on national identity
and patriotism (Myers, 2006). This is mirrored in the views on amnesty for the
Conceptualizing Spatial Citizenship 3
thousands of Dreamers here in the United States. Critics on the right emphasize
the illegal nature of their status and use this as justification for their immediate
deportation rather than sympathizing with their plight and actual contribution
to society.
Typically, school curricula focus on citizenship in a formal, legal sense and
its accompanying rights and duties, including the responsibility to participate
in governance in appropriate ways. Political scientists and social studies educa-
tors have proposed several definitions and ways to frame the issue of citizenship
(see Bednarz and Bednarz in this volume for a discussion of several) as a way
to work toward clear goals. One well-accepted scheme identifies three versions
of citizenship: the personally responsible citizen, the participatory citizen, and
the justice-oriented citizen (Westheimer & Kahne, 2004). Another perspective
of citizenship promotes self-interest and ways identity politics affect decisions
about collective issues, especially issues that are not limited within spatial bound-
aries (Lambert & Machon, 2001). Critical geographers and social studies educa-
tors are examining the concept of citizenship and how to develop young people’s
nuanced and empowered perspectives through critical spatial thinking ( Gordon,
Elwood, & Mitchell, 2016). For the purposes of this book, we understand that
the concept of citizenship is not “fixed” (Lambert & Machon, 2001, p. 4) and is
highly contested. This book is grounded on a conceptual understanding of citi-
zenship rather than on operational or procedural classifications and regulations
related to obtaining citizenship.
Geospatial Technologies
The geospatial revolution, the explosive and concurrent growth of geospatial
technologies and location-based social media, has changed our world, how we
live, and the discipline of geography, particularly how it is taught and learned.
As Downs (2014) makes clear, the ubiquity of GIS, Remote Sensing, GPS, and
associated technologies, particularly mapping technologies, has affected the
relationships people have with each other and the world in which they live.
Enormous amounts of geographic, spatial data are available digitally, in real
time. We are tracked on closed circuit television systems; we check in to let
friends know where we are through Facebook and Yelp; our smartphones
track our physical activities and locations. We express our opinions on a range
of issues frequently through Twitter, Instagram, and other sharing applica-
tions. We report on traffic patterns, complain about neighbors who don’t
pick up their garbage, and alert authorities about suspicious activities through
place-oriented social media. We use our smartphones to video and hold wit-
ness to events we encounter, to be shared on social media to make social and
political statements. Who we are, where we are, what we do, and how we feel
is shared in spatial contexts. The world is at everyone’s fingertips, all the time
( Downs, 2014).
This new and evolving, hyper-connected world is changing society and indi-
viduals as members of society. It is also affecting our roles as citizens and at a
range of scales. Geographers, leaders in the use of geospatial technologies, are
thinking about the challenges and opportunities for educators to take a leader-
ship role in preparing the next generation of geospatially literate citizens. This
has led to new thinking about the contribution of geography education to citi-
zenship education since the recent development of geospatial technologies, social
media, and the increased availability of such technologies has enabled new ways
to participate in democratic practices (Schulze, Gryl, & Kanwischer, 2014).
While there has been a thin thread of ongoing conversations about promot-
ing spatial citizenship using geospatial technologies, this book we hope will fill
a long overdue gap in geography and social studies education by exploring ways
to engage and promote citizenship through spatial and geographic perspectives,
with and without the use of technologies.
A Guide to Spatial Citizenship

The subtitle to this book is Citizenship through Geography. To outline the argu-
ment for this premise, we invited both geography and social studies educators to
contribute, knowing that while these are two distinct intellectual groups, both
would offer valuable perspectives and examples of spatial citizenship. The first
three chapters following this one establish the context for spatial citizenship. We
begin in Chapter 2 with an examination of geography as a social study provided
by Stephen J. Thornton. He takes an historical perspective to trace the relation-
ship between the social studies and citizenship education to ask: “What kind of
geography will likely result in educating for civic competence?” He provides
insights into what he terms, “the relative passivity” of geographers to account
for the traditional lack of engagement with civic education and, in the process,
comments on the marginal position of geography within the social studies. His
deep knowledge of the history of geography brings him to illustrate the methods
the pioneering geography educator Lucy Sprague Mitchell used to prepare young
learners for life in society. To conclude, Thornton asks, “The great question still
confronting us is what conditions will support it (civic education) more broadly
and how can that knowledge be used to inform both curriculum policies and
teacher education?”
Chapter 3, written by the British geography educator David Lambert, takes
a different, yet still foundational look at spatial citizenship through the lens of
two ideas: geocapabilities and powerful knowledge. Building off the capabilities
approach suggested by Nussbaum and Sen (1993), Lambert explains GeoCapa-
bilities as the ways geography contributes to developing an educated person and
to the “beings and doings of people, their agency and ultimately their free-
dom.” He links GeoCapabilities to spatial citizenship as a mechanism to frame
geography curriculum, bringing in the idea proposed by Michael Young (2008)
of powerful knowledge. Powerful knowledge is that disciplinary knowledge that

affords its holder with useful and important understandings that generate further
and deeper learning. Ultimately, Lambert makes the case for the role of geog-
raphy in educating, “informed, autonomous, and critical citizens ready for the
challenges of his day and age.” He positions traditional geography squarely in the
realm of citizenship education.
Sandra J. Schmidt, in Chapter 4, takes an equally philosophical and feminist-
critical tack to explore the role of space in citizenship education, explaining her
stance that, “Critical theories in geography provide a framework and discourse
for exploring citizenship as a spatial process, one shaped by and repeatedly shap-
ing socio-political contexts.” She uses four case studies and the 2017 Women’s
March to illustrate her central points about the spatial dimensions of citizenship
and the ways that some individuals are marginalized and not involved in the
processes of belonging that are a component of being a citizen. She concludes
her powerful chapter by asking how the “spatial claims and renegotiations of
spaces” can bring the voices of the underrepresented forward. In distinctive but
very useful ways these three chapters build the argument for geography’s unique
and important contribution to citizenship education.
The next four chapters examine the ways that geospatial technologies can be
used to support and extend spatial citizenship. Chapter 5 by Sarah Witham Bed-
narz and Robert S. Bednarz examines how citizenship education can be fostered
in our current hyper-connected, Internet-focused world through geospatial
technologies and social media. They root their comments in the call by Kahne,
Hodgin, and Eidman-Aadahl (2016) to redesign civic education to respond to
the changes in political life in the United States brought by digital technologies.
They review several competing conceptualizations of citizenship and suggest
ways to prepare young people for civic engagement through geography, maps,
and spatial analysis. This chapter grounds the following chapters which capture
very specific case studies of precisely this tactic.
Todd W. Kenreich presents a fascinating case study of work in inner-city
Baltimore in Chapter 6. He, colleagues, and teachers developed a community
mapping project one year following the devastating riots in 2015 following the
death of Freddie Gray while in police custody. The teachers were introduced to
Story Maps, a presentation template produced by ESRI, to spark their imagina-
tions on ways to interest students spatially about their own communities. The
chapter then follows a teacher and her fourth-grade students in their personal
mapping project thinking geographically about the neighborhood in which
they lived. The chapter concludes with a very useful guide to initiating a similar
project.
Chapter 7 echoes Kenreich’s initiative in Baltimore in encouraging young
people to use spatial thinking and geospatial technologies for civic purposes.
Schlemper and Stewart use the idea of critical pedagogy as a foundation to their
work with high school-aged African American students in Toledo, Ohio. They
developed a summer program to prepare students to understand their commu-

nity and its challenges through a spatial lens. The intellectual framework for
the project rested in a curriculum model they devised, influenced by the well-
known 5E model. The students learned how to develop inquiry projects and how
to use geospatial tools to assist in their research. The results are explained in the
chapter and like Kenreich’s, Schlemper and Stewart provide a detailed outline of
how to use the experiential model and why, based on their research, it works to
support student civic engagement. The final chapter in this section, Chapter 8,
by Baker, Curtis, and Millsaps, explores the use of a range of geospatial technolo-
gies and provides a rich guide to how to use such technologies in school settings.
The discussion in this chapter on teacher professional development is important
because all of the endeavors described in the previous two chapters depend upon
partnerships among educators, young people, and the university personnel who
are committed to civic education. If Chapters 2, 3, and 4 are about why spatial
citizenship is valuable, together, these last four chapters are about how to imple-
ment spatialized programs for civic education.
The concluding three chapters focus on institutional and developmental
issues related to citizenship education. Chapter 9 by Elizabeth R. Hinde con-
siders the capabilities of young children and ways to support their geographic
and spatial knowledge. The chapter acknowledges the many barriers to teach-
ing geography and the social studies in elementary schools these days, includ-
ing teachers’ poor preparation in geography, but suggests some work-arounds.
The chapter makes us aware of how much work needs to be done to restore
civic education to the mission of public education and concludes hopeful that
innovative educators will find ways to subvert the system of high stakes testing
and over-emphasis on language arts and mathematics. The following chapter,
written by Injeong Jo, researches the presence of spatial citizenship in secondary
geography curriculum. Jo conducted an exhaustive review of the literature to
examine the status of spatial citizenship in teaching, with and without the use of
geospatial technologies. She finds few instances in which the concept and core
competencies of spatial citizenship exist currently. However, to conclude, she
discusses the opportunities for more work in this arena arising from the adop-
tion of the College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies coming
from the National Council for the Social Studies (2013). In the final chapter,
Shin discusses the important link between teacher education and spatial citizen-
ship. She asserts that teachers’ spatial knowledge and skills are the critical foun-
dation for the infusion of spatial citizenship in their curriculum and practices.
Teacher education, she claims, should provide opportunities to build the spatial
knowledge and skills teachers need to enhance and direct their instruction to
take this perspective. Lastly, Shin calls for elevating spatial citizenship by draw-
ing more attention to it. This is the central way to foster teachers’ professional
commitment to spatial citizenship because teachers’ epistemologies affect their
practices and students’ learning.
The Road Forward

The Road Map for 21st Century Geography Education (Bednarz, Heffron, & Huynh,
2013), a foundational examination of the status of geography education funded
by the National Science Foundation, suggested a way to build capacity in geog-
raphy education was to develop a focused, concerted, systematic framework to
guide research. To conclude this introduction, we suggest that geography and
social studies educators need to craft such a research agenda focused on the inter-
section of civic education and spatial citizenship. The Road Map proposed four
education-related research questions, each capturing a different aspect of geog-
raphy education. These questions were thought to be applicable to geography
learners of all ages and educational backgrounds, whether they were engaged
through schools or informal communities, including pre-service students pre-
paring to teach geography. We offer these as clear targets for future research in
spatial citizenship, with some modifications.
Question 1: How Do Geographic Knowledge, Skills, and Practices

Develop Across Individuals, Settings, and Time?
This question considers three dimensions of learning: individual differences, set-
tings, and time. Research about how individuals learn, how they learn at different
timescales (e.g., during a single session, a course, or a sequence of courses), and
how they learn across significant life transitions (e.g., from youth to adulthood)
is needed. Settings refer to organized activities that offer participants the oppor-
tunity to learn knowledge and skills. Most importantly, research concerning
how individuals in a range of contexts and socio-economic conditions develop
the disposition to think spatially (and geographically) is important.
In the context of citizenship education, research concerning this question
should consider the knowledge and skills foundational to learning about civic
life through geography as well as the learning progressions in the subject. Are
there key concepts that must be addressed before a deep appreciation of larger
scale issues can be grasped? Related to this is concerns that all young people
have the opportunities to explore their communities with and without geo-
spatial technologies. The digital divide exists and could work to privilege some
learners over others. We need research focused on how individuals’ exposure to
and experiences of civic decision-making processes, with or without geospatial
technologies, influence their participation in society.
Question 2: How Do Geographic Knowledge, Skills, and Practices

Develop Across the Different Elements of Geography?
Geography is a varied discipline encompassing both physical and social sciences
as well as the humanities. Each aspect of the discipline demands different
cognitive processes to learn. Developing a concern about the presence of liquor

stores in a community as Kenreich described in Chapter 6 may require differ-
ent background knowledge and implies different approaches to mapping and
problem solving than does a question about sustainability or developing an
ability to practice ethical geographic reasoning. Research should illuminate
the specific ways content shapes the skills, practices, and ways of thinking
critical to the development of spatial citizenship in varied dimensions and
applications.
Question 3: What Supports or Promotes the Development of

Geographic Knowledge, Skills, and Practices?
In the course of everyday activities, especially in our hyper-mediated world,
young people develop forms of naïve geographical thinking and reasoning.
They have an understanding of the community in which they live and their
society gleaned from personal experience, television, and the Internet. How-
ever, such understandings may be rife with misconceptions, stereotypes, and
biases. They will not serve well to make decisions in civil societies. More
sophisticated patterns of reasoning require external support. Curriculum,
instructional materials, and teaching strategies, both in classrooms and in real-
world settings such as through fieldwork, create the foundation for learning.
Geography and social studies educators must understand how learners acquire
the core ideas of the relevant disciplines and how to support and nurture stu-
dents’ intellectual growth. There is a concurrent need for research on the
implementation and effects of various participatory pedagogies on spatial citi-
zenship and civic education.
Question 4: What Is Necessary to Support the Effective and

Broad Implementation of the Development of Geographic
Knowledge, Skills, and Practices?
To sustain new practices and new ways of shaping young people’s sense of civic
engagement, we must simultaneously introduce and sustain strategies to support
their implementation. This will require research concerning teacher preparation
and professional development. Institutionalizing and supporting implementation
of innovations in teacher preparation may require research about teacher knowl-
edge and the beliefs that influence their approach to civic education (including
their subject and pedagogical content knowledge). Finally, more research about
the institutional forces and policies that shape the role and status of geography
and the social studies in education systems is required.
Together, these research questions may provide a starting place and an agenda
and direction for geography education research on spatial citizenship.
References
Anderson, R. C. (1983). Geography’s role in promoting global citizenship. NASSA Bul-
letin, 67, 80–83.
Bednarz, S., Heffron, S., & Huynh, N. (Eds.). (2013). A road map for 21st century geography
education. Washington, DC: Association of American Geographers.
Downs, R. M. (2014). Coming of age in the geospatial revolution: The geographic self
re-defined. Human Development, 57, 35–57.
Gordon, E., Elwood, S., & Mitchell, K. (2016). Critical spatial learning: Participatory
mapping, spatial histories, and youth civic engagement. Children’s Geographies, 14 (5),
558–572, doi: 10.1080/14733285.2015.1136736
Heffron, S. M., & Downs, R. M. (2012). Geography for life: National geography standards.
Washington, DC: National Council for Geographic Education.
Kahne, J., Hodgin, E., & Eidman-Aadahl, E. (2016). Redesigning civic education for the
digital age: Participatory politics and the pursuit of democratic engagement. Theory
and Research in Social Education, 44 (1), 1–35.
Lambert, D., & Machon, P. (Eds.). (2001). Citizenship through secondary geography. London:
Routledge Falmer.
Myers, J. P. (2006). Rethinking the social studies curriculum in the context of globaliza-
tion: Education for global citizenship in the US. Theory & Research in Social Education,
34 (3), 370–394.
National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) (2013). The college, career, and civic life (C3)
framework for social studies state standards: Guidance for enhancing the rigor of K-12 civics,
economics, geography, and history. Silver Spring, MD: NCSS.
Nussbaum, M., & Sen, A. (1993). The quality of life. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Schulze, U., Gryl, I., & Kanwischer, D. (2014). Spatial citizenship: Creating a curriculum
for teacher education. GI_Forum Conference Proceedings. doi: 10.1553/giscience2014s230
Thornton, S. J. (2004). Citizenship education and social studies curriculum change after
9/11. In Social education in the twentieth century: Curriculum and context for citizenship
(pp. 210–220). New York: Peter Lang.
Wade, R. (2001). Global citizenship: Choices and change. In D. Lambert & P. Machon
(Eds.), Citizenship through secondary geography (pp. 161–181). London: Routledge Falmer.
Westheimer, J., & Kahne, J. (2004). What kind of citizen? The politics of educating for
democracy. American Educational Research Journal, 41(2), 237–269.
Williams, M. (2001). Citizenship and democracy education: Geography’s place, an inter-
national perspective. In D. Lambert & P. Machon (Eds.), Citizenship through secondary
geography (pp. 31–41). London: Routledge Falmer.
Young, M. (2008). Bringing knowledge back in. London: Routledge.
2
GEOGRAPHY AS A
SOCIAL STUDY
Its Significance for Civic Competence
Stephen J. Thornton
Over a century ago John Dewey (1966) recommended teaching “geographi-

cal subject matter in its vital human bearings” (p. 211). The outcome of such
instruction would be, he predicted, that “our doings gain in significant content”
(p. 208). Since that time, however, limited progress has been made toward his
vision. This chapter asks why and what it might look like if such a vision were
realized. First I explore what it means to link geography to citizenship objectives.
I next turn to how such an emphasis can inform school geography. Then, given
the predominance of history, especially U.S. history, in American social studies
programs, I examine how both it and geography may be profitably combined
as studies in the service of citizenship education. Finally, I hypothesize how one
aspect of teacher education, better preparing educators to teach the kind of cur-
riculum described herein, might be approached.
The geographer Jan O. M. Broek (1966) reminded us that the social sciences
“stem from a common pool of knowledge” (p. 3; see also Barton, 2017; Thorn-
ton & Barton, 2010). He continued, “What distinguishes [geography] from the
other[s] . . . is its concern with the character of ‘place,’ that is, the integrated
whole of a people and its habitat, and the interrelations between places” (p. 3).
For a century now, geography has in the United States and some other nations
been combined with other social sciences (including history) to form a social
studies curriculum. A key justification offered for this curriculum was that col-
lectively the social sciences can contribute to the development of civic compe-
tence in children and adolescents. How does geography fit in this scheme?
One answer can be found in Geographic approaches to social education (Kohn,
1948a), the only yearbook-treatment the National Council for the Social Studies,
the leading professional association in social studies, ever afforded the relation-
ship. In the foreword, the volume’s editor (Kohn, 1948b) pointed out “geographic
Geography as a Social Study 11
knowledge and understanding” contributes to “insight into human problems”

but adds as a caution that this academic exposure may not be enough for young
people “to develop a point of view about life situations.” Developing such a
point of view requires provision of “learning experiences which will give . . .
opportunities to look at everyday affairs [emphasis added] from a geographic point
of view” (p. vii).
Proponents of connecting everyday affairs to the academic subject generally
recommend instruction through themes or problems intended to invite active,
intelligent student inquiry (Noddings, 2006; Watras, 2009). Dewey (1966)
thought such an approach engages “a person in specific activities having an aim
or purpose of moment or interest to him” (p. 132).
Before proceeding, a note on “civic competence” which serves as an indicator
of effective citizenship education. Citizenship education has traditionally been
used to denote the public sphere more than the private sphere. But citizenship
in a democracy involves more than “a form of government,” it is, Dewey (1966)
memorably continued, “a mode of associated living, of conjoint communicated
experience” (p. 87). Thus I am using “citizenship” and “civic competence” in a
broad way that includes, for instance, family and communal life as well as more
traditional civics-study focused on politics and economics ( Crocco, Munro, &
Weiler, 1999; Noddings, 2013). In the same manner I take into account the civic
implications of the relationship between place and identity (Noddings, 2005). As
Sandra Schmidt (2011) points out, “one of the identities common in the teaching
of places is citizenship” (p. 107).
The Idea of Connecting Geography to Citizenship Education

We should recognize that students are unlikely to learn what is not in the cur-
riculum. Nonetheless, there is ample evidence that the mere presence of geogra-
phy in the curriculum offers no guarantees for citizenship purposes. The subject
must be marshaled to the task.
Unlike civics, which was created as a school social study for purposes of
citizenship education, geography exists as an academic subject independently
of its uses in school or community programs, what we might call “disciplin-
ary geography.” It may require adaptation to unlock its potential for citizen-
ship education and therefore school geography can be, and sometimes has been,
divergent from a simplification of the “grown-up” discipline. In a book directed
at educators, the geographer Isaiah Bowman (1934) identified some reasons for
this divergence: “Geography has an important place in the social studies not by
‘proving’ things about complex reality, but by introducing a point of view, by
expertly handling specialized data, and by expressing generalizations with . . .
caution” (p. 31). Pioneer social-studies curriculum maker Harold Rugg (1939)
similarly warned that the social sciences approached merely as they are currently
understood in higher education hold no special warrant as citizenship education.
12 Stephen J. Thornton
Consequently, consideration of advanced secondary-school courses intended to

mimic college-level work such as in Advanced Placement Human Geography are
beyond the scope of this chapter.
Rather, I am interested here in the academic study of geography primarily
for purposes of citizenship education. This approach, broadly understood, has a
long history. In the aftermath of the American Revolution geographic writing
was already being consciously employed to build national identity (Livingstone,
2005). While 19th-century school geography tended to emphasize physical
geography via recitation of geographic terms and locations of natural features, it
was nonetheless connected to issues of citizenship and national identity, albeit in
baldly nationalistic form. For example, school geographies, as school geography
textbooks were called, encouraged students’ pride in the American landscape by
boasting of its “magnificent size and its future possibilities” (Elson, 1964, p. 37;
see also Schulten, 2001). School geographies of the 19th and early 20th centuries,
too, validated racial hierarchies ( Spearman, 2012) effectively legitimating only
European Americans as deserving of full political citizenship.
By 1900 the trend was for school geography to connect physical geography
with the life of people (Bednarz & Bednarz, 1992; see also Barton, 2009). For
example, Dewey (1966) declared that the “definition of geography as an account
of the earth as the home of man expresses the educational reality” (p. 211).
Growing acceptance of this viewpoint pushed geography in the American cur-
riculum from a mostly natural-science study to a mostly social-science study.
Eventually geography came—along with history and civics—to be considered a
keystone of the new overarching field of social studies.
Once having adopted a social perspective, geographers might then have rea-
sonably been expected to settle into their subject’s role as part of a social studies
framework. However, a lasting pattern was set in the early decades of the 20th
century: geographers and geographic educators did not enter the curricular fray
with anything like the energy and enthusiasm shown by proponents of U.S. his-
tory and civics. These proponents proceeded to lay claim to the lion’s share of the
social studies curriculum for history and civics. This process was abetted by the
appearance of history and civics textbooks that were attuned to the demands of
educating citizens (Thornton, 2008). The relative passivity of geographers may
help explain why a particularly robust discourse on just how geography served
the citizenship objectives of social studies failed to emerge, or at least failed rela-
tive to history and civics.
These circumstances effectively left geography as both part of social stud-
ies and to some degree its curricular rival. Indeed it should hardly be surpris-
ing that sometimes geographers and their allies did openly wonder whether
geography should stand apart from social studies. But mostly they had to rec-
oncile themselves to the fact that social studies was apparently a permanent
part of the curriculum landscape. The bigger question became how substantial
a slice of social studies programs geography could secure. Geographers’ quest
for satisfactory answers to this question as well as to finding consensus among

themselves about it has occupied them down to the present day (Bednarz, Hef-
fron, & Solem, 2014).
Nevertheless, whatever qualms geographers may have had—and admittedly
to varying degrees from one curriculum situation to the next—from the out-
set geography was recognized as key to social studies programs. For instance,
the report generally credited with popularizing the term “social studies” rec-
ommended considerable work in the seventh and eighth grades in geography,
“which should be closely correlated with the history and civics” (Dunn, 1916,
p. 14). Some years later a related approach was evident in the much more detailed
curriculum materials constructed by Rugg (1941) to explicate “how people live
together” (p. 194). These materials became an early archetype for the social stud-
ies field and hence the materials’ manner in coopting geography into a cross-
disciplinary exploration of the problems of modern social life would be fitfully
imitated thereafter. Rugg judged this method as exactly the way geography (and
all the other social sciences) ought to be utilized in order to prepare children and
adolescents for associated living. Indeed, he proudly announced that his method
led to “the frequent obliteration of the lines between conventional ‘subjects’ such
as history, geography, civics” (Rugg, 1939, p. 149). Geographers asked, however,
whether his and related social-studies methods inherently short-changed specifi-
cally geographic knowledge and skills (Bednarz & Bednarz, 1992)?
As Rugg’s case demonstrates, geographers and geographic educators (more fre-
quently the same people then than now) often in practice left geography’s cur-
ricular fate in the hands of social studies educators. This did not entirely rule
out curriculum initiatives specific to geography but these tended to occur only
periodically (Fraser & Stoltman, 2001). One historian of geographic education
characterized geographic educators as generally “distancing themselves from cur-
riculum reform” as well as from “from schoolteachers” (Schulten, 2001, p. 124).
Meanwhile, perhaps unsurprisingly, the geography that did find its way into
school programs seldom seemed enough or of the right type to satisfy specialists
in geographic education. For instance, sometimes geography played no more than
an enabling role in social studies courses such as by naming or locating places in
history lessons but without focus on spatial concerns ( Gregg & Leinhardt, 1993).
Frequently “the same few geographic concepts,” education researchers Made-
leine Gregg and Gaea Leinhardt (1994) discerned, “are taught over and over”
when the subject is only taught in tandem with other social studies such as his-
tory or political science (p. 314). At times geography curriculum and instruction,
an astute analyst (Muessig, 1987) once observed, became something of a see-saw
between “brief, superficial factual information on . . . topics such as landforms,
climate, vegetation . . . communication, and population” and “address[ing] sig-
nificant personal and social concerns” (p. 522). Much of the time, the former
method prevailed in classroom practice. Geographers were wont to complain
such methods were a predictable outcome of teacher preparation that featured
the broad range of subjects in the school social studies curriculum rather than
intensive training in geography.
Thus far, I have suggested that frequently school geography holds a weak
connection to citizenship objectives even when curriculum policies demanded
substantial linkage. In the next section, I take up how addressing such objectives
might be advanced in geography curriculum and instruction.
Geography Taught for Citizenship

Geography taught for citizenship suggests the selection of appropriate topics for
study. Appropriateness is gauged by relevance to the demands of associated liv-
ing. But as Nel Noddings (2003) insists, “Simply being about . . . associated
life . . . is not sufficient justification for including a topic in the curriculum.”
(p. 255) After all, just about any topic in geography is somehow related to associ-
ated life. Rather, she underscores, such curricular justification involves a “careful
search” for “topics that may enhance” associated life (p. 255). What does this
look like?
No educator has better exemplified how this “enhancement” might be accom-
plished than Lucy Sprague Mitchell (1991). Here I will focus on geography in ele-
mentary education although these methods are readily adaptable for older students.
Mitchell was concerned that schoolchildren live in a world of “end-products . . .
removed from the forces which determine the functioning” of the environment
they inhabit (p. 6). Mitchell saw active geographic inquiry as the remedy. By “end-
products” she meant, for example, that with the food they consumed schoolchil-
dren lacked understanding of how food moved farm to table. The educational
explorations Mitchell recommended might include visits to a local food distribu-
tion warehouse so children could “develop the habits of firsthand observation and
experimentation and the attendant ‘relationship thinking’” (p. 7).
Mitchell (1991) saw geographic relationships as key to understanding
the broader world and not just the local area she emphasized with younger
elementary-school children. For instance, she describes how older elementary
children (12-year-olds) were introduced to the study of modern European his-
tory. The students began with an abstract (that is, without political maps or
related information) discussion of how natural barriers and national political
borders might be related. Drawing on their existing knowledge and surmises,
the students decided that the two types of borders did not always coincide. They
continued to deliberate about what modern nations needed to live such as natural
resources and access to trade routes. Eventually the students were supplied with
political maps showing the actual national borders of the day as well as the dis-
tribution of some important natural resources and transportation routes. They
then proceeded to explore the hypotheses they had come up with earlier. They
discussed how the Pyrenees and the Alps might cause transportation problems
for the Iberian nations and Italy, respectively. They considered how the location
of natural resources sometimes failed to coincide with the nation in which they
were needed by industries. And so on. Notably, too, disciplinary boundaries
were regularly crossed suggesting the artificiality of disciplinary boundaries in
addressing real-world problems. The students were well-placed for and had
already anticipated many key problems to come later in fuller form in their study
of European history (pp. 20–21).
Her biographer (Antler, 1987) summarized Mitchell’s approach to geo-
graphic relationships: “The essence of thinking meant seeing, understanding,
and interpreting relationships—in this case [geography] between earth forces,
social groups, cultural traditions, and work habits. Students could discover this
interrelationship if they thought scientifically and experimentally, rather than
vicariously” (p. 298). This conclusion about Mitchell’s approach to geography is
echoed by more recent scholars (e.g., Downs, 2016; Vascellaro, 2011).
A word is in order about instructional arrangements in Mitchell’s scheme.
As valuable as the information identified was as an advance organizer for their
study of European history, the information alone would have been insufficient
for securing the kind of learning that occurred. The discovery exercise (possibly
with some unobtrusive scaffolding from the teacher) was significantly an exer-
cise in active student inquiry for which “telling” them the information could
be no substitute. Mitchell, like others since (e.g., Slavin, 1992; Vascellaro, 2011),
recognized in the group problem solving that the collaborative experience was
in itself a major objective relevant to associated living.
Scholar-practitioners like Mitchell make a convincing case for geography as
citizenship education and recent scholars (e.g., Helfenbein, 2013) have bolstered
the case through critical geography. Nonetheless, geography is these days often
short-changed in elementary- and secondary-school curricula. For instance,
Florida, the third most populous state, requires no geography courses at all in
grades 6–12 while reading and mathematics have increasingly crowded out
geography, or any social studies, in elementary schools.
One possible place to turn is to look for more satisfactory inclusion of geo-
graphic perspectives in the flagship social studies course, U.S. History. Educa-
tors are periodically admonished to include geographic perspectives in history
courses, but there is scant evidence that substantial knowledge of geography
finds its way into business-as-usual history courses (Thornton, 2007). I now turn
to how this situation might be improved.
Geography in U.S. History Courses

Geography, of course, arises naturally in the subject matter of U.S. history ( Stein-
berg, 2002). When he was speaking of associated life, Dewey (1966) underscored
that, “it takes place on the earth.” This “setting,” making sure the implication
was not missed, “enters into the very make-up” of “history” (p. 211; see also
Bednarz, 1997; Broek, 1941; Brown, 1948). No forced union is required.
Rather, consider in the context of U.S. history the concept of “boundary”

already touched on earlier in the form of national borders in European his-
tory. Boundaries are human constructs established for some human purpose; they
often become taken-for-granted social knowledge ( Sinton, 2013). Think of how,
for example, people have long sought to identify a physical boundary between
Europe and Asia. What cultural markers does this quest reveal? How, when, and
why were the Urals settled on as a boundary? In this scheme, is the Black Sea
Republic of Georgia “European” as is often asserted? Georgia lies to the west of
the Ural Mountains, yet it is east of Anatolia (i.e., Asia Minor).
A further example, which has played a large role in U.S. history, is the idea of
the globe’s Western Hemisphere. Unlike, say, the Equator or the South Pole the
idea of a “western hemisphere” rests on no objective criterion for the location of
a place or region of Earth. Its boundaries rest instead on arbitrary and vaguely
defined meridians of longitude. Nonetheless, it has been used to justify a funda-
mental tenet of U.S. foreign policy, the Monroe Doctrine, and invoked in cases
such as Franklin Roosevelt’s directions to the navy for “hemispheric” defense in
World War II and the same for John Kennedy’s naval blockade at the time of the
Cuban Missile Crisis (Thornton, 2013).
Perception of place and space is also to a significant extent socially deter-
mined. Perception—not just observation of physical phenomena—determines
what one “sees” in a landscape. There is no better example than Americans’
perceptions of the Great Plains prior to the second half of the 19th century.
As experienced teachers will recognize, students can find it confusing that the
customary U.S. history textbook narrative of the westward movement is inter-
rupted because settlement in the 1840s and 1850s leapfrogged the Great Plains
for the Oregon Country and California. In fact parts of the American West such
as Nevada were settled by an “eastward movement” from California (Billington,
1962). This seeming anomaly is explained by environmental perception.
Before developments in technology, communications, and transportation
afforded by the Industrial Revolution, which altered views of what kind of agri-
cultural activity was possible on the plains, people from the eastern United States
perceived the brown, treeless grasslands of the plains as a “desert.” They effec-
tively defined arable land as green and nurtured by regular rainfall as in the states
east of the Mississippi River (Thornton, 2007).
An instructional unit on the settlement of the Great Plains also illustrates how
history and geography are at a more general level intertwined, “complementary
studies” as Dewey aptly dubbed them. It does not take a great deal of educa-
tional imagination to see the potential for integrating geography even within a
history textbook designed to be basic (Nevins, 1965). This text included only
three subtopics about the Great Plains: “Railroads and Settlements,” Ameri-
can “Indian Wars and Cattle Kingdom,” and “The End of the Buffalo” (pp.
188–193). How, specifically, might geography add significant content about
associated life?
Perhaps the most obvious way to integrate these subtopics and geography
“without fancy footwork [is] by including mapwork” (Parker, 1991, p. vi). None-
theless, maps are sometimes included in ways that fail to contribute to the thrust
of a lesson. Ideally, mapwork would extend to tasks which involve thinking
with maps, particularly in ways relevant to lesson objectives, not merely point-
ing to individual geographic features nor taking the form of disconnected skills
exercises. For example, student thinking could be extended by comparing and
contrasting maps showing the annual average rainfall, natural vegetation types,
and where railroads were constructed. This exercise could be further extended in
any number of significant ways to, say, maps documenting the steady diminution
of land still in the hands of its original inhabitants.
Many questions seem to be simultaneously historical and geographic, although
a geographic prompt such as place, space, distance, elevation, and so forth might
stimulate an inquiry activity: how was the relative location of the plains effec-
tively changed by the coming of the railroads? Where did cities and towns
develop along the railroads and why there? How common was it for mining
towns to become depopulated and turn into ghost towns? Does that still happen?
What happened to plants and other animals as a result of the extermination of
the bison?
A Needed Step in Teacher Education

However laudable teaching geography for citizenship may be, relatively few
teachers receive the kind of preparation that would support such a pedagogical
approach. My intention in this brief section is not to speak of teacher preparation
overall, a task that I obviously cannot take on in a few paragraphs. Nor am I able
to turn to empirical research to substantiate my argument about a vital element
of teacher education because by and large it does not exist. Rather I want to sug-
gest we have neglected what appears to be key to the situation.
While it is possible some teachers may work out how to do what I have been
writing about for themselves, this seems to be rare. Few available case studies of
teaching geography for citizenship are available. And even those there are (e.g.,
Weber, 2013) seldom document in any useful depth how and why the teacher
came to tend the curricular-instructional gate in such an uncommon manner.
Some biographical investigations of such practitioners could be instructive.
A key stumbling block, perhaps the key one it seems to me, is that teachers
are not really prepared to teach the kind of curriculum I have been sketching
(Thornton, 2005). Assuming teachers go through a preparatory program related
to the profession, which cannot be taken for granted in recent years, teacher
education programs separate subject-matter and pedagogy courses. To be sure,
at the undergraduate level prospective social studies teachers do take a range of
courses in the social sciences but the contents of these courses are seldom related
in any systematic way (beyond titles such as “World Regional Geography”) to
the school curriculum. Whereas other professional majors, say, nascent engi-
neers take courses in mathematics and composition designed for their prospec-
tive career, no comparable opportunity is typically afforded education majors.
But if, as Nel Noddings (2006) persuasively argues, “the school curriculum is the
fundamental subject matter of teachers” (p. 284), then the social science courses
they take ought to be closely related to that subject matter. Since the demise of
the old teachers’ colleges this appears almost never to happen.
The lack of articulation continues with teaching methods courses the ratio-
nale for which is to demonstrate how to organize subject matter for effective use
in elementary or secondary classrooms. While it might be assumed these courses
hold great importance for teachers, they are generally only one or two courses
of the roughly 40 courses required for a bachelor’s degree in education. Even so,
seldom do we hear of a methods course with a carefully articulated relationship to
subject-matter courses or vice-versa (e.g., McKee & Day, 1992).
The solution of simply adding more subject-matter courses, even it was feasible
given other demands, often mandated, on time in teacher-education programs
of study, does not alone seem to reliably produce the type of reflective teachers
who would contribute to citizenship objectives (Barton & Levstik, 2003). More
broadly, there seems good reason to think that teachers will not teach content in
ways they have never encountered with profit themselves. Given this dim situ-
ation, even limited moves toward a union of subject matter and pedagogy seem
steps in the right direction—for example, fieldwork in a methods course (e.g.,
Crocco & Marino, 2017) or microteaching (e.g., Harte & Reitano, 2015).
Conclusion
The methods of Lucy Sprague Mitchell provide an image of the desirable. They
demonstrate how geography can be taught for civic competence, indeed for life
relevance ( Downs, 2016). Nevertheless, the utilization of such methods happens
only sporadically in some places and with some teachers. The great question
still confronting us is, what conditions will support it more broadly and how
can that knowledge be used to inform both curriculum policies and teacher
education?
References
Antler, J. (1987). Lucy Sprague Mitchell: The making of a modern woman. New Haven, CT:
Yale University Press.
Barton, K. C. (2009). Home Geography and the development of elementary social educa-
tion, 1890–1930. Theory and Research in Social Education, 37, 484–514.
Barton, K. C. (2017). Shared principles in history and social science education. In M.
Carrertero, S. Berger, & M. Grever (Eds.), International handbook of research in historical
culture and education (pp. 449–467). New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.
Barton, K. C., & Levstik, L. S. (2003). Why don’t more teachers engage students in inter-
pretation? Social Education, 67, 358–361.
Bednarz, R. S., & Bednarz, S. W. (1992). School geography in the United States: Lessons
learned and relearned. In A. D. Hill (Ed.), International perspectives on geographic educa-
tion. Boulder, CO: Center for Geographic Education.
Bednarz, S. W. (1997). Using the geographic perspective to enrich history. Social Educa-
tion, 61, 139–145.
Bednarz, S. W., Heffron, S. G., & Solem, M. (2014). Geography standards in the United
States: Past influences and future prospects. International Research in Geographical and
Environmental Education, 23, 79–89.
Billington, R. A. (1962). The far western frontier, 1830–1860. New York, NY: Harper
Torchbooks.
Bowman, I. (1934). Geography in relation to the social sciences. New York, NY: Charles
Scribner’s Sons.
Broek, J. O. M. (1941). The relations between history and geography. Pacific Historical
Review, 10, 321–325.
Broek, J. O. M. (1966). Compass of geography. Columbus, OH: Charles E. Merrill Books.
Brown, R. H. (1948). The treatment of geographic knowledge and understanding in
history courses, with special reference to American history. In C. F. Kohn (Ed.), Geo-
graphic approaches to social education (pp. 261–272). Washington, DC: National Council
for the Social Studies.
Crocco, M. S., & Marino, M. P. (2017). Promoting inquiry-oriented teacher preparation
in social studies through the use of local history. The Journal of Social Studies Research,
41(1), 1–10.
Crocco, M. S., Munro, P., & Weiler, K. (1999). Pedagogies of resistance: Women educator
activists, 1880–1960. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
Dewey, J. (1966). Democracy and education. New York, NY: The Free Press.
Downs, R. M. (2016). Meeting the challenge of systemic change in geography education:
Lucy Sprague Mitchell’s young geographers. Journal of Geography, 115, 3–11.
Dunn, A. W. (1916). The social studies in secondary education. Washington, DC: Govern-
ment Printing Office.
Elson, R. M. (1964). Guardians of tradition: American schoolbooks of the nineteenth century.
Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
Fraser, R., & Stoltman, J. P. (2001). Teaching methods in physical geography: Bridging
tradition and technology. In J. Brophy (Ed.), Subject-specific instructional methods and
activities (pp. 315–345). Amsterdam, Netherlands: JAI.
Gregg, M., & Leinhardt, G. (1993). Geography in history: What is the where? Journal of
Geography, 92, 56–65.
Gregg, M., & Leinhardt, G. (1994). Mapping out geography: An example of epistemology
and education. Review of Educational Research, 64, 311–361.
Harte, W., & Reitano, P. (2015). Pre-service geography teachers’ confidence in geograph-
ical subject matter and teaching geographical skills. International Research in Geographi-
cal and Environmental Education, 24, 223–236.
Helfenbein, R. J. (2013). New meridians: Social education and citizenship in a critical
geography. In T. W. Kenreich (Ed.), Geography and social justice in the classroom (pp.
150–160). New York, NY: Routledge.
Kohn, C. F. (Ed.). (1948a). Geographic approaches to social education. Washington, DC:
National Council for the Social Studies.
Kohn, C. F. (1948b). Foreword. In C. F. Kohn (Ed.), Geographic approaches to social educa-

tion (pp. vii–ix). Washington, DC: National Council for the Social Studies.
Livingstone, D. N. (2005). ‘Risen into empire’: Moral geographies of the American
republic. In D. N. Livingstone & C. W. J. Withers (Eds.), Geography and revolution (pp.
304–335). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
McKee, S. J., & Day, A. L. (1992). The social studies methods course: A collaborative
approach. Social Education, 56, 183–184.
Mitchell, L. S. (1991). Young geographers: How they explore the world and how they map the
world (4th ed.). New York, NY: Bank Street College of Education.
Muessig, R. H. (1987). An analysis of developments in geographic education. The Elemen-
tary School Journal, 87, 519–530.
Nevins, A. (1965). A history of the American people since 1492. London and Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Noddings, N. (2003). Happiness and education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Noddings, N. (2005). Place-based education to preserve the earth and its people. In N.
Noddings (Ed.), Educating citizens for global awareness (pp. 57–68). New York, NY:
Teachers College Press.
Noddings, N. (2006). Critical lessons: What our schools should teach. New York, NY: Cam-
bridge University Press.
Noddings, N. (2013). Education and democracy in the 21st century. New York, NY: Teachers
College Press.
Parker, W. C. (1991). Renewing the social studies curriculum. Alexandria, VA: Association for
Supervision and Curriculum Development.
Rugg, H. (1939). Curriculum-design in the social sciences: What I believe. . . . In J.
A. Michener (Ed.), The future of the social studies: Proposals for an experimental social-
studies curriculum (pp. 140–158). Cambridge, MA: National Council for the Social
Studies.
Rugg, H. (1941). That men may understand: An American in the long armistice. New York,
NY: Doubleday, Doran, & Co.
Schmidt, S. J. (2011). Making space for the citizen in geographic education. Journal of
Geography, 110, 107–119.
Schulten, S. (2001). The geographical imagination in America, 1880–1950. Chicago, IL: Uni-
versity of Chicago Press.
Sinton, D. S. (2013). The people’s guide to spatial thinking. Washington, DC: National
Council for Geographic Education.
Slavin, R. E. (1992). Cooperative learning in the social studies: Balancing the social and
the studies. In R. J. Stahl & R. L. VanSickle (Eds.), Cooperative learning in the social
studies classroom: An invitation to social study (pp. 21–25). Washington, DC: National
Council for the Social Studies.
Spearman, M. (2012). Race in elementary geography textbooks: Examples from South
Carolina, 1890–1927. In C. Woyshner & C. H. Bohan (Eds.), Histories of social studies
and race: 1865–2000 (pp. 115–134). New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.
Steinberg, T. (2002). Down to earth: Nature’s role in American history. New York, NY: Oxford
University Press.
Thornton, S. J. (2005). Teaching social studies that matters: Curriculum for active learning. New
York, NY: Teachers College Press.
Thornton, S. J. (2007). Geography in American history courses, Phi Delta Kappan, 88,
535–538.
Thornton, S. J. (2008). Continuity and change in social studies curriculum. In L. S.

Levstik & C. A. Tyson (Eds.), Handbook of research in social studies education (pp. 15–32).
New York, NY: Routledge.
Thornton, S. J. (2013). Borderlands of the Southwest: An exercise in geographical his-
tory. Social Education, 77, 19–22.
Thornton, S. J., & Barton, K. C. (2010). ‘Can history stand alone?’ Drawbacks and
blindspots of a ‘disciplinary’ curriculum. Teachers College Record, 112, 2471–2495.
Vascellaro, S. (2011). Out of the classroom and into the world: Learning from field trips, educat-
ing from experience, and unlocking the potential of our students and teachers. New York, NY:
The New Press.
Watras, J. (2009). Social studies education. In C. Kridel (Ed.), Encyclopedia of curriculum
studies (Vol. 2, pp. 795–798). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Weber, B. D. (2013). Geography for civic action in East Los Angeles. In T. W. Ken-
reich (Ed.), Geography and social justice in the classroom (pp. 103–113). New York, NY:
Routledge.
3
GEOGRAPHY, CAPABILITIES,
AND THE EDUCATED PERSON
David Lambert1
Introduction
This chapter introduces the GeoCapabilities project (www.geocapabilities.org)
to explore school geography’s contribution to citizenship education. This was
a three-year EU-funded project2 which finished its funded work in early 2017,
although its ideas will continue to evolve because it has built considerable and
widespread momentum internationally with associate partners across Europe,
the United States, China, Japan, and Australasia. The project was oriented on
developing leadership capacity in secondary school teachers of geography, focus-
ing on the significance of teachers’ “curriculum making” responsibilities (Lam-
bert & Biddulph, 2014; Lambert, 2016). Led from London (UCL Institute of
Education), and with a U.S. partner (the American Association of Geographers
[AAG]), it draws strongly from Anglo-American traditions of curriculum stud-
ies and school level curriculum “enactment” (Doyle & Rosemartin, 2012) but
has gained substantially from north European traditions of subject didactics (see
Hudson, 2016), working with the “didactic triangle” and heuristic of subject,
teacher, and student.
The GeoCapabilities project is not explicitly concerned with citizenship edu-
cation, still less about “spatial citizenship”—a term first coined by Thomas Jekel
and colleagues (Gryl & Jekel, 2012). Spatial citizenship captures the importance
of using spatial representations to develop competence with Geographical Infor-
mation (GI) technologies, in order to participate effectively in society (Jekel,
Gryl, & Schulze, 2015; Schulze, Gryl, & Kanwischer, 2015). The focus of Geo-
Capabilities is fairly and squarely on the role and purpose of geographical knowl-
edge in relation to conceptions of the educated person (Lambert, Solem, & Tani,
2015). The two key ideas, then, are geography and education; and capabilities
GeoCapabilities and the Educated Person 23
acts as a device for bridging between the two. However, the capabilities approach
(Nussbaum & Sen, 1993; Nussbaum, 2013), which encourages us to think about
education in terms of its contribution to the “beings and doings” of people,
their agency and ultimately their freedom, can readily be aligned with concepts
of citizenship education in its broadest sense. Elsewhere (Lambert, 2013; Lam-
bert, 2018) I have stressed the significance of geography education in developing
global understanding, as a matter of human survival in the Anthropocene epoch.
We Live in Interesting Times

The discussion offered in this chapter has been crafted in a manner that is highly
conscious of the social, cultural, economic, and political context in which it is
written: the fine-grained context of “this day and age.” The chapter is written
in the UK in early 2017, shortly after the inauguration of a new President of the
United States knowingly calling for “America First,” and the Brexit vote in the
UK in 2016 won on the slogan “taking back control.” Several European elections,
notably in France and Germany, have featured strong “anti-establishment” inter-
ests and the influence of various forms of alternative political voice. It is a period
still less than a decade on from the Global Financial Crisis of 2008, the effects
of which are still felt acutely by those at the sharp end of “austerity” (especially
those reliant on public money), and which has convulsed politics with shock and
unpredictability. The so-called Arab Spring, following the popular overthrow
of the government of Tunisia in January 2011, the aftermath of western policies
in the Middle East (especially the Iraq war of 2003–11) and conflicts elsewhere
in northern Africa (not to mention the effects of climate change exacerbating
drought in, for example, Somalia) have fueled enormous migration pressures in
Europe which have clearly also shocked the system of open borders between
EU states. As I write, headlines point to the rise in nationalism across Europe:
for instance, the impact of an openly racist “Freedom Party” influencing the
Dutch elections and shaking up the hitherto sturdy concept of Dutch liberalism
with talk of banning the Koran and closing mosques. The possibility of Scotland
seceding from the UK (the openly expressed goal of the devolved government
in Edinburgh) is not based on racism and xenophobia but is nevertheless part of
the trend to reassert national and regional identity which, as discussed by Painter
(2008), began before the Euro crisis from which some countries such as Greece,
Italy, and Spain have suffered so acutely.
There is evidence to show that political instability and the rise in the appeal of
strong or charismatic figures often resorting to tried and tested populism may be
the result of a longer-term breakdown of trust in democratic processes. Indeed,
recent global polling shows a decline in the belief that living in a democracy is
thought to be essential ( Foa & Mounk, 2017). Such hesitancy, especially among
the young, may have led to a “deconsolidation” of democracy in nations such as
24 David Lambert
far apart as Venezuela and Poland. This trend has been coupled with a rise in the
share of citizens wishing for a strong leader “who does not have to bother with
elections” (ibid., p. 7). These are the circumstances that have been exploited by
individuals, from Putin in Russia to his admirer in the United States the avowed
non-politician Trump, both of whom have taken on the media and the judiciary
and moved to consolidate power within the executive. And as Foa and Mounk
observe,
The success of Donald Trump and his fellow populists . . . is not a

temporary or geographic aberration. Nor is it certain to trigger self-
correcting mechanisms that will return the political system to the sta-
bility of a bygone era.
(ibid., p. 8)
Among the populations of democratic states, including those completing their

formal education, there may be confusion about how representative democracy
works in its many forms, as well of a lack of understanding about alternative
forms of government. In addition, in the context of the Brexit fantasy that leav-
ing the EU will enable the UK to “take back control,” and Trump’s nativist echo
of the 1930s,3 the significance of post-1945 supra-national achievements may
also be poorly understood today. This is the world of the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO), the United Nations (UN), World Trade Organization
(WTO), International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and the most
ambitious example of shared sovereignty, the European Union (which did not
really come into being until the 1992 Maastricht Treaty). In the global context of
catastrophic species loss, climate change, pollution, weapons of mass destruction
(WMDs), global corporations, vast money flows, intricate trade arrangements,
and of course the mass movement of people and ideas, it seems that the populist
appeal to retreat to national and even regional identities (defended by walls and
fences) may be impossible to achieve—even if for some reason it was thought to
be desirable.
Theories abound as to the cause of this loss of faith in democracy and in inter-
national institutions such as the EU on the one hand, and the rise of populist and
nationalist leaders on the other. For instance, some analysts (Heartfield, 2013)
have suggested that rejection of the EU is a healthy re-assertion of democracy, a
reaction to the perceived “soft coup” that put Brussels bureaucrats in a dictato-
rial position over member states (especially those with weaker economies such
as Greece or Portugal). It seems even amongst geographers there are those who
appear to fear the loss of “sovereignty” in the modern interconnected world and
have difficulty embracing the notion of shared sovereignty. One such is Alex
Standish who in 2007 wrote:
The elevation and conflation of the local and the global in the proposition
‘think global, act local’ is implicitly a rejection of the national sphere. It
represents a denial of the political system through which citizens currently

express their collective will via political representatives: the national will as
sovereign power in the international sphere. Therefore, not only is global
citizenship disingenuous with regard to how the world currently operates
(there is no world government, nor global body for citizens to hold to
account), it is rejecting collective interest as a means through which poli-
tics is conducted while offering no democratic alternative.
( Standish, 2007, p. xx)
We need carefully to consider this position, for later we read that global citi-
zenship education “encourages deference to higher authority rather than inde-
pendent political thought” (ibid., p. xx). A simple “definition” of citizenship is
concerned with the individual’s relationship with the state. You are a citizen of
a state, and citizenship is concerned with your relationship with the state and its
legal, political, and economic structures. By this definition, you cannot be a citi-
zen of the world (cf. Standish: “there is no world government, nor global body
for citizens to hold to account”). It is this that appears to drive Standish’s instinct
to reassert the significance of the nation: indeed, he has written two books
on the subject ( Standish, 2009, 2013). However, although national boundaries
in today’s world are without question important, to suggest that the nation is
somehow the basic, “natural” unit, immutable and (ironically?) the receptacle for
“independent political thought,” seems simply out of date and out of step with
many geographical perspectives, from Doreen Massey’s insights on the global
sense of place (Massey, 2014) to Peter Taylor’s theorizing political geography and
in particular the state and the scale of ideology (Taylor, 1981, p. 27).
Before we consider how geography in school can respond to these challenges
and uncertainties, we should note another signal feature of our interesting times:
the influence of technology. The Internet, social media, and other forms of com-
puting power underpinning for example GI and GPS have all had extraordinary
effects which can be judged to be at the same time enormously emancipat-
ing, and a tyranny. Everybody with access to a smartphone or computer and
electricity has information at their fingertips and the power to communicate
instantly. This may be a mixed blessing—enabling government by tweet, the
spread of propaganda, falsehoods, and lies which can seriously undermine expert
or specialist authority (including school teachers perhaps). Society has only just
begun to get to grips with this technological revolution and schools, being part
of society, are in no better position. But it is a challenge that cannot be ignored.
There is now much hyperbole about the importance of “21st-century skills” and
the replacement of obsolete school subjects with generic learning competences,
much of which seems to be accepted without question. However, as Gert Biesta
(2005, 2012, 2013) has explained so convincingly, the co-option of the school
curriculum by mainly economic imperatives such as notions of “work-ready”
have led to the widespread replacement of a moral language of education with the
stultifying and narrow language of learning. It seems clear that taken together the
26 David Lambert
forces of economics and technological change have undermined belief in tradi-

tional forms of schooling—the final death knell of traditional banking models of
education based of transmission of a pre-decided, “given” knowledge canon. In
itself, this is no bad thing—there have been great advances in our understanding
of powerful, social pedagogies since the second half of the 20th century. But the
weak epistemological foundations of teaching have appeared to allow the leach-
ing away any principled resistance to relativism and naive forms of social con-
structivism divorced from disciplinary thinking (Firth, 2011, 2013, 2014, 2018).
As well as undermining teaching, postmodern relativism has eroded faith in
expert, scholarly knowledge, a trend even taken up cynically by some politicians
who would rubbish experts encouraging the view that everyone’s opinion and
judgments are of equal worth and that ignorance (see John Morgan, 2017, for an
interesting discussion of geographical ignorance) is an acceptable basis for mak-
ing decisions.
To conclude this section, there is one final comment to make—as if we did
not have enough to worry about. None of my introductory remarks, apart from
a passing reference to the Anthropocene, have so far ventured anywhere close to
the really big one—the bottom, bottom line so to speak—which is the environ-
ment. Despite remnants of climate change denial, including in the United States
where the current President has characterized climate change to be a Chinese
hoax and part of “fake news,”4 there is no denying the geographical challenges
which face any young person growing up today. For instance, possibly hundreds
of millions of people will be displaced as a result of rising sea levels and advanc-
ing desertification: can “we” in less vulnerable places live comfortably in this
knowledge? But in addition, we know that the oceans are also being poisoned by
plastic and urban air quality has been impaired to dangerous levels by the burn-
ing of fossil fuels in motor cars. Whether we can rely on technocratic fixes for
these issues or not, these are global pressures which form the backdrop of grow-
ing up in this day and age. What are the educational implications? And what is
the role of geography as a component of the school curriculum?
GeoCapabilities: Framing the Geography Curriculum

The GeoCapabilities project begins with the question: Who are the young people
we teach? This is the prior question to why we would teach them geography (and
what we should teach them, and how). This question requires us to think about
the circumstances in which young people are growing up. The question requires
us to respond to the challenges discussed in the previous section and to say what
young people need in order to face the future with some confidence. That is to
say, in what ways do we think young people should be equipped with knowl-
edge and an enhanced intellectual capacity to think and imagine their place in
the world? There are many different ways to answer this, for the case can easily
be made that young people need scientific knowledge, historical perspectives,
artistic imagination, and access to many other forms and field of thought. Geo-
Capabilities simply makes the case that within the mix geographical knowledge
and thought is a key component.
The GeoCapabilities approach contrasts with other very influential trends in
education (Hazel, 2017). For example, the Organization of Economic Coopera-
tion and Development (OECD) has responded to internationally felt pressures
to reform education by proposing to test a set of “global competences” in the
next round of the Program of International Student Assessment (PISA) in 2019.
Andreas Schleicher, the OECD’s director of education and skills, explained that
such competences would encourage teachers in school to show children how to
recognize “fake news” by testing their analytical and critical skills. These are
posited as generic skills which, presumably, he believes are not currently taught
effectively enough in schools today. However, the limitation of Schleicher’s posi-
tion is its strong tendency to undermine the role of subjects in the school curric-
ulum. The very origin of the subject disciplines was to question orthodoxies and
sometimes superstitions about how the world works: the sciences, geography,
history (and other subject specialisms) have developed through focusing analyti-
cal and critical thought. They have developed distinctive perspectives, methods,
and ways of thinking (such as Susan Hanson (2004) has tried to identify in geog-
raphy as the “geographic advantage”). In searching for better knowledge and
more truthful accounts the disciplines are never static nor fixed, but dynamic
and evolving. The capabilities approach is therefore quite distinctive from the
OECD’s competence-based approach: it requires us to think about the purpose
of subjects in schools and not dismiss them merely as given “contents” and by
implication an impediment for what is valuable in the educative process (such as
critical thinking). School subjects in the context of the specialist disciplines that
produce them embody forms of critical thinking.
In his final volume of work Basil Bernstein (2000) argued for the “pedagogic
rights” of young people to individual enhancement, social inclusion, and politi-
cal participation (see also McClean et al., 2013). These “rights” are expressed
as outcomes of educational processes and are strikingly similar to the notion
of capabilities as developed in the GeoCapabilities project ( Solem, Lambert, &
Tani, 2013; Lambert, Solem, & Tani, 2015). For Bernstein, access to knowledge
is the key educational contribution to fighting the inequalities of educational
outcomes, or as we argue here, in preventing capabilities deprivation. It is for this
reason that Michael Young’s development of the helpful concept of “powerful
knowledge” (Young, 2008, 2013, 2014) has been conceptually significant in the
GeoCapabilities project. In direct opposition to those who urge a skills-based
curriculum based on imparting generic “competences” (often deemed especially
appropriate to “less academic” students), Young and colleagues argue that it is a
matter of social equity that all young people have the right to be introduced to
powerful—or disciplinary—knowledge, for this provides the building blocks for
a high quality general education. Young has developed a social realist position,
28 David Lambert
usefully discussed by Roger Firth in the context of the geography curriculum in

English schools ( Firth, 2011, 2013), which counters both the extreme relativist
positioning of much “progressive” skills-led thought in education and those who
propose ultra “traditionalist” knowledge-led perspectives, who see the contents
of the school curriculum as a fairly fixed selection or canon of “core knowledge”
(Hirsch, 1987, 2007). Hirschian “core knowledge” is limited. Whilst it appears to
value the accumulation of facts, powerful knowledge stresses the systematicity of
knowledge—how it links and builds, and how it can be tested and given warrant.
The social realist position promotes a progressive knowledge-led curriculum.
In an attempt to develop the idea of a progressive, knowledge-led curriculum,
Young and Muller (2010, 2016) have introduced an extremely helpful “Three
Futures” heuristic (see Figure 3.1). “Future 3” (F3), which is underpinned by
powerful disciplinary knowledge, has become a key element in the GeoCapa-
bilities project, the extent to which the project encourages the realization of an
F3 geography curriculum. An essential element to this, and the debate which
a capabilities perspective opens up, is to clarify ways in which geographical
knowledge in the curriculum can be considered to be “powerful knowledge.”
Following Alaric Maude’s analysis of Young’s writings (Maude, 2016), the power
of knowledge depends mainly on what the knower can do with it: it resides
in their enhanced capacities to think (see Figure 3.2). Putting the “geo” into
GeoCapabilities, therefore, is concerned with specifying the essential contribu-
tion geographical knowledge makes to the education of all young people: to
be able to think geographically (I have elsewhere [Lambert, 2017] opened up
the meaning of this for practitioners, albeit mainly for a UK context). Or put
another way, how the realization of an F3 curriculum, in which students inter-
act effectively with powerful geographical knowledge, contributes in particular
ways to enhancing their capabilities. It is important to realize the significance
of F3—based upon the acquisition of powerful geographical knowledge. F3 is
not some “middle way” combining the inadequacies of both F1 and F2. It is a
way of thinking about the curriculum as experienced by the students in which
epistemic quality—the quality of what is being taught—is paramount. It is not
an overstatement to suggest that in both F1 and F2 teachers can abrogate respon-
sibility for epistemic quality. Not so for F3.
The Place of Knowledge in Three Alternative

Curriculum “Scenarios”
F1 Subject “delivery”: this curriculum consists of knowledge for its own
sake. It is organized by traditional subjects—as stable, enduring, and
“given” bodies of core knowledge. This is under-socialized knowl-
edge. It characterizes “schooling” in the popular imaginary and is
indeed what many experience around the world to this day.
F2 Skills, competences, and “learning to learn”: this curriculum,

strongly influenced by social constructivism, sees traditional sub-
ject divisions to be artificial and arbitrary; integrated themes and
or “issues” are the preferred content organizers. This is experiential
and over-socialized knowledge. This is frequently the contemporary
vision of progressive education promoted by OECD, the EU, and
many national governments.
F3 Engagement with powerful knowledge: a Future 3 approach agrees that
subjects are not “given” (as in F1), but that they are not arbitrary either (as
in F2)—knowledge development is led by the epistemic processes of spe-
cialist communities, to provide better ways to understand the world and
to take pupils beyond their everyday experience. Excellent specialist teachers
may have always achieved this, a curriculum marked by its “epistemic
quality” (Hudson, 2016).
FIGURE 3.1
Source: adapted from Young and Muller (2010). See also Young and Lambert (2014)
Geographical Knowledge and the Teacher

Young people who do not have access to powerful geographical knowledge,
maybe because geography is not even offered as part of the curriculum or
because they are taught by ill-prepared teachers, are, according to the capabili-
ties approach outlined earlier in this chapter, deprived or diminished in certain
aspects of their human potential. GeoCapabilities argues that to deprive children
access to powerful disciplinary knowledge (possibly children considered to be
“less academic” or more suited to developing practical skills) undermines their
capabilities as citizens and as human beings.
If this sounds like an overreaching claim then remember that the capable citizen
is not only a person armed with information, “competence” and a marketable
skill-set. Capability is, we argue, also tied up in a person’s capacity to think (see
Figure 3.2), to use, and to apply knowledge in their encounters with the world (its
social, cultural, economic, environmental, and political dimensions). This is what
the Geographical Association, in its 2009 “manifesto,” referred to as geography’s
potential to enable autonomous thought and for young people to gain “a different
view” of themselves in the world (GA, 2009). GeoCapability, then, is heavily reliant
upon the acquisition and development of powerful geographical knowledge and
the profound questions this raises for teachers have both a curriculum and peda-
gogic dimensions. What is it you are teaching, and in what manner are you teach-
ing it, so that it contributes to your students’ acquisition of powerful geographical
knowledge?
30 David Lambert
Powerful Disciplinary Knowledge: What It Enables

You to Do
powerful knowledge refers to what the knowledge can do or what

intellectual power it gives to those who have access to it. Power-
ful knowledge provides more reliable explanations and new ways of
thinking about the world and acquiring it and can provide learners
with a language for engaging in political, moral, and other kinds
of debates.
( Young, 2008, p. 14)
knowledge is powerful because it provides the best understand-

ing of the natural and social worlds that we have and helps us go
beyond our individual experiences.
( Young, 2013, p. 196)
knowledge is “powerful ” if it predicts, if it explains, if it enables

you to envisage alternatives.
( Young, 2014, p. 74)
FIGURE 3.2
Source: summary based on Maude’s analysis of Young’s writings (Maude, 2016)
Powerful disciplinary knowledge (PDK) is thus specialized knowledge and exists

beyond the everyday experience of people. It is often abstract, being theoretical or
conceptual, but it is enabling. The GeoCapabilities project developed a method to
engage teachers with the kind of thinking they must undertake in order to iden-
tify (and prioritize) the powerful disciplinary knowledge in what they teach. This
method is to write PDK “vignettes,” several examples of which are found on a Story
Map (also accessed through Module 1 of the GeoCapabilities website).5 An example
of powerful geographical knowledge fully illustrated on the GeoCapabilities website
is what Doreen Massey (2014) referred to as a “sense of the global,” not just in the
everyday sense of mediated images through film, music, and fashion, but in the
counterintuitive sense of the planet as a single entity or place, with all the physical
and human interdependencies that make it so. Armed with a global conception of
place—of places as meeting points with porous boundaries through which phenom-
ena of all kinds flow (rather than discrete entities with firm boundaries than can be
sealed)—we have the means at least to doubt simple nationalist political messages
about “taking back control.” This global sense of place is illustrated by Massey in her
“three-minute essay” shown in Figure 3.3 and featured in GeoCapabilities Module 1.
A strong sense of the global is derived from powerful geographical knowledge that
is available to all—if there are specialist teachers equipped and available to teach it.
If a F3 geography curriculum as advocated here has any single metaphorical

tone, it is “engagement,” not “delivery.” The key outcome then is not to trans-
fer into the heads of young people a list of facts (or indeed theories or models
presented and learned as if they were facts). Likewise, the key attribute of an
educated person is not simply to recall such facts accurately in a quiz or test, for
although this may well denote an impressive ability, it does not necessarily pro-
vide much evidence of a person’s capacity to think or reason. The knowledge-led
curriculum proposed here is therefore not to be confused with some versions
of knowledge orientation such as Hirsch’s well-known and influential promo-
tion of core knowledge, which does indeed seem to reduce geography to a list
of essential facts. An F3 curriculum certainly does not ignore facts, but, like
Massey, places the facts into a conceptual frame that enables deeper understand-
ing of their relationship. An F3 curriculum would not simply deliver Massey’s
essay, but ask students to interrogate it.
Illustrating A Global Sense of Place

Professor Doreen Massey (1944–2016)
“There is an argument—about climate change—that goes like this.”
• “the UK’s contribution to global emissions of greenhouse gas is only

a small percentage.”
• “there’s not much point in taking responsibility for our own place
when India and China are growing as they are.”
Now, I might have found that a comforting argument. But it seems it is a

totally inadequate geography.
What that “small percentage” counts, is the greenhouse gas emissions
from the UK directly. In that sense, it treats the UK as an isolated entity.
But it is not.
Firstly, that calculation, it seems, misses out the effect of all the things
we import from elsewhere (many of them indeed from China). We demand
those goods but we do not count as our own the pollution of producing
them. Secondly, that “small percentage” does not take account of the role
UK companies in production around the world. It has been estimated, for
instance, that something like 15 percent of global carbon emissions derives
from companies listed on the London Stock exchange. Our economy is
said to benefit from those companies. So what responsibilities do we, as
UK citizens, have toward them?
I could go on. The point is this. That “small percentage” is meaning-
less in an interconnected world. We cannot pretend that because all that
greenhouse gas emission doesn’t happen here it doesn’t happen because of
us . . . that we are in no way implicated.
32 David Lambert
But surely, might come the reply, we are improving. The UK is on

course to meet its Kyoto target. Indeed it is. But why? It is largely because:
• we have allowed our manufacturing to collapse;

• we closed the mines and dashed for gas;
• we opted for an economy based on services and, especially, finance.
It is not so much that we are behaving better, as that:
• we have exported our pollution;

• and we have reshaped the UK’s role in the global economy.
That reshaping has also reshaped the geography of the UK itself, as
• manufacturing regions have declined;

• the north-south divide has widened;
• our economy revolves more and more around London’s financial sector.
“Forget that comforting geography of small percentages. These are some of

the other geographies that lie behind responsibilities for climate change.”
FIGURE 3.3
Source: First broadcast on the BBC Radio 4 Today Programme, 01.01.07.

See also Lambert and Morgan (2010, pp. 43–45)
To hear Massey read this go to www.geocapabilities.org/training-materials/module-1-the-capabilities-
approach/into-practice/
Just as we have to be careful not to confuse a knowledge-led curriculum with

the delivery of predetermined facts, we also have to exercise some care with
the idea of engagement. “Learning by doing” has had a long history of thought
and practice in western education systems and, although clearly very difficult to
implement meaningfully, has reached the point of general orthodoxy amongst
educationists and policymakers. Thus, today in the UK, teachers (who are under
scrutiny as never before) are now castigated for talking too much in class; fre-
quently, they are told that classrooms should be “active” instead. Pedagogy (how
shall we teach this?) is therefore privileged to a degree that places it in an inap-
propriate relationship to curriculum, so that questions of “fitness for purpose”
do not even get asked. This is the apotheosis of “learnification” (Biesta, 2012,
2013) where the acquisition of the predominantly soft skills of “learning to learn”
becomes the vague and inadequate justification for sending children to school.
My use of “engagement” therefore is not meant to conjure images simply of
busy classrooms. Active learning can be meaningless unless the activity is fit for
purpose—is enabling access to and the development of a powerful generaliza-

tion, concept, or idea. A F3 “curriculum of engagement” is one in which both
teachers and students are interested (perhaps for different reasons) in notions of
better knowledge. To create better knowledge is what the disciplines are for, and
in saying this we can quickly acknowledge that such knowledge is always open
to contest, being contingent on new findings or fresh theoretical developments.
Better knowledge is clearly always in a state of becoming; it is developing and
dynamic, and for this reason teachers and their students need in some way to be
engaged with it. For example, the human backstory of continental drift as a the-
ory, and the subsequent development of plate tectonics (Hawley & Lyon, 2017)
provides a fine example of specialist knowledge production: of how orthodox
views can be overturned by argument, evidence, and imagination.
Capabilities, Geography, and the Educated Person

I acknowledge that a capabilities approach may not at first glance suggest a
knowledge-led curriculum (although the GeoCapabilities project bends over
backwards to privilege specialist geographical knowledge). This is where Young
and Muller’s “three futures” device (see Figure 3.1) is helpful in making some
distinctions that not only show the place of knowledge, but the nature of knowl-
edge in a progressive curriculum of engagement. This is one reason why Future
3 thinking has been taken up by the GeoCapabilities project as a means to sup-
port curriculum leadership in school geography internationally. It attempts to do
this not by writing some kind of international charter or laying down an ideal
curriculum, but by offering a framework to enable teachers to think about their
work in enacting the curriculum, or as GeoCapabilities describes it, their curricu-
lum making. Statements about educational outcomes, such as those we may wish
for citizenship education, are frequently made in generic terms, as we have seen
earlier in this chapter in the case of the OECD. Aims-led “grand designs” of the
curriculum often encourage this too, undermining subjects and thus promoting
an F2 curriculum. Of course, such curriculum thinking was and is a response
to the widely acknowledged deficiencies of F1. Such outcomes-led curricula,
though well-intentioned, are an inadequate response to the limitations of F1
owing to their seemingly careless disregard for knowledge as the foundational
curriculum principle.6 This is akin to “throwing the baby out with the bathwa-
ter.” This section attempts to show briefly how a capabilities approach to cur-
riculum thinking has the potential to help “bring knowledge back in” (Young,
2008) and to develop a genuinely F3 curriculum.
Capabilities are not the same as general competences or free-floating critical
thinking skills. Recent writing on the transformative potential of education has
shown that this is based on the individual’s acquisition of disciplinary knowl-
edge: there is, for example, some empirical evidence from Higher Education to
indicate that students value greatly the way such knowledge development enables
them to think more broadly about the world (McLean, Abbas, & Ashwin, 2011,
34 David Lambert
2013). Furthermore, induction into disciplinary knowledge or a specialism may

provide aspects of what Martha Nussbaum calls the capability of “affiliation.” It
is, according to Nussbaum (2000, p. 82), to “behave in an incompletely human
way” if a person thinks about the world and their place in it as if only their views
and experience mattered. Disciplines provide a way to enter complex forms of
discourse and perspectives that have arisen in communities using procedures of
argument and contestation. This includes abstract and theoretical knowledge
which by definition is beyond the experience of the everyday. As we are initiated
into disciplines we gain access to some of the excitement—and the significance—
of knowledge creation (a combination of “knowing that” and “knowing how”
in specialist communities or disciplines). We can become deeply committed to
what it means to be, or to think like, a historian, a mathematician, a musician . . .
or a geographer. Such initiation into disciplinary thought is of great value and, as
we argued in the previous section, should be available to all young people (and
not only those who go to university): all have the right to the capabilities offered
through such “epistemic ascent” (Winch, 2013).
The GeoCapabilties project explored the potential of the capabilities approach
to express the “power” of geography as a school subject (Lambert et al., 2015).
In doing this we hope to provide a deeper theoretical basis for teachers’ curricu-
lum making and indeed, the part curriculum making should play in teachers’
work (see GeoCapabilities Module 2)7 Following Walker and Boni (2013), the
project therefore argues that the capabilities approach can expand and deepen
the conceptual language of teaching and curriculum at the high school level.
The project purports to show that the notion of “GeoCapabilities” helps connect
a progressive form of discipline-oriented geography teaching to the context of
broad educational aims. In so doing it enables an F3 curriculum.
As we saw earlier, the prominent geographer Doreen Massey has recently argued
that geography is a discipline that helps us “take on the world” (2014, p. 202)
by revealing the concept of the planet as a whole and the realization that every
locality on Earth is connected to global processes. In a different way and in the
context of understanding cities, Andrew Kirby (2014) has made a different case for
geography as powerful knowledge, this time based on an idiographic understand-
ing of place contexts (in preference to the roughshod application of nomothetic
principles and processes). The two approaches are reconcilable and the relational
understanding that results forms a substantial element of what it means to “think
geographically.” Thus, powerful knowledge in geography (as in any subject) can-
not be itemized in Hirschian lists which claim to embrace the geography that
children “need to know.” Although a summary of powerful knowledge in geogra-
phy may legitimately reference the importance of geographical “facts” (referred to
metaphorically by the Geographical Association as the subject’s “vocabulary”; also,
see Lambert, 2011a, p. 251), it should mainly emphasize the acquisition and devel-
opment of systematic conceptual knowledge that informs geography’s “relational
understanding”—that is, metaphorically, the subject’s “grammar.” Here we are
referring to what are sometimes called geography’s “big ideas” or “key concepts”
rather than a long list of substantive concepts such as city, river, industrial location,
etc. Geographers argue about what these are and both Brooks (2013) and Taylor
(2008) provide an introduction to some of the disputes. Even so, there is some
international stability and agreement that geography is concerned principally with
place, space, and environment (occasionally scale is added)—these are complex and
dynamic ideas which have evolved markedly with the development of geography
as a discipline, and which will continue to do so.
In addition, powerful disciplinary knowledge should (crucially) include a
third element, which we could refer to as “procedural knowledge,” referred to in
Figure 3.1 as epistemic processes—how a discipline provides warrant. This may
also include a range of skills used widely in geography such as how to analyze
spatially referenced data using maps and GIS, for example. Such skills (which, of
course, are not unique to geography) are not to be taught as ends in themselves:
they are to be used self-consciously and critically, and within the intellectual
context of searching for meaningful distinctions and applying defensible conclu-
sions to geographical inquiries in real-world contexts. In schools, good teach-
ers do this through the judicious use of powerful pedagogies ( Roberts, 2014).
Margaret Roberts’s important book ( Roberts, 2013) on inquiry pedagogies in
geography provides a theoretically robust but practical guide on how to engage
students both with data and ideas.
Expressed like this, “procedural knowledge” assumes particular significance,
even providing a glimpse of how geographical knowledge has been (and continues
to be) produced. One can imagine the power of introducing students—even young
students—to disciplinary narratives: for example, of how the idea of continental
drift was established; how environmental determinism was roundly rejected; how
(and why) urban land use models have been produced; the attraction (and dangers)
of simple demographic transition models or push-and-pull theories of migration, of
stages-of-growth approaches to development . . . we could go on. But the general
point to emphasize is that geography pulls on its “vocabulary and grammar” in
order to make provisional and contingent sense of the world. This almost inevitably
includes a futures dimension—a consideration of how the world may become.
Thus, in the terms I have outlined here, teaching geography well (that is,
with an F3 curriculum mindset) is a demanding task, and requires highly devel-
oped curriculum-making abilities. Effective curriculum making depends on a
range of professional knowledges as we have seen, but especially a grasp on how
geography can be thought of as powerful knowledge—plus the pedagogic skills
to convey this. Through the GeoCapabilities project we have attempted to sum-
marize powerful knowledge in geography as consisting of:
• the acquisition and development of deep descriptive and explanatory “world

knowledge”; this may include (for example) countries, capitals, rivers, and
mountains; also world wind patterns, distribution of population and energy
36 David Lambert
sources. The precise constituents and range of this substantive knowledge is

delineated locally and influenced by national and regional cultural contexts.
• the development of the relational thinking that underpins geographical thought;
this includes place and space (e.g., the local and the global), the human and the
physical and notions of environmental interdependence and interaction. This
knowledge component is arguably more independent of local circumstances
and influences, being derived from the discipline: concepts like place, space,
and environment are complex, evolving, and contested and, referring back to
our earlier metaphor, can be thought of as fundamental components of geog-
raphy’s syntax. They are sometimes referred to as geography’s “big ideas,” “key
concepts,” or “second order” concepts (see Brooks, 2013 who refers to Taylor’s
(2008) ground clearing work on concepts in school geography).
• a propensity to apply the analysis of alternative social, economic, and envi-
ronmental futures to particular place contexts; this draws on a range of skills
developed through appropriate pedagogic approaches such as decision-making
exercises; in addition to intellectual skills such as analysis and evaluation this
also encourages speculation, imagination, and argument (see Hicks, undated).
If we accept that it is what students are then able to do (including, to think in
new ways) that give geographical knowledge its “power,” then this category
of what we might think of as “applied geography” is crucial (adapted and
developed from Lambert, 2011a, 2011b, 2016; Solem, Lambert, & Tani, 2013)
Understanding geography in this way is not straightforward, for it is not easily

derived from everyday experience and popular images of what is meant by the
geographical. To organize teaching in a way that brings about powerful school
geography requires what the GeoCapabilities project describes as specialist “cur-
riculum leadership,” manifest through effective curriculum making. Module 28 of
the project introduces the practical device of using carefully chosen curriculum
“artifacts” as a way both to illustrate and enact curriculum-making principles. The
main audience of the GeoCapabilities website are trainers and teacher educators,
particularly of specialist teachers who are (or have been) engaged with geographic
disciplinary thought and knowledge to first-degree level. A subsequent develop-
ment of the project will be to develop the capabilities approach and the specific
training devices (the powerful knowledge “vignettes” and the curriculum making
“artifacts”) with non-specialist teachers of geography. The goal will remain the
same—to improve the epistemic quality of geography taught in secondary schools
Conclusion
In this chapter, which draws heavily from the GeoCapabilities project, I have
attempted to make the case for the role of high quality geography teaching in
educating informed, autonomous, and critical citizens ready for the challenges
of this day and age. Unspoken along the way is my realization that there is in my
discussion more than a hint of “liberal education” and a focus of the educated
individual—possibly redolent of a previous age. I make no apologies for calling

for something from the spirit of the Enlightenment that informed that previous
age. Even though in this day and age—of fast capitalism and financial crisis;
of environmental degradation and the threat of climate change; and of loss of
trust in democracy and progress—we may seem to have different priorities from
gentler times, I say the priorities remain constant. It is sometimes said, with some
justification, that education provides no guarantees: as witnessed by the fact that
the mid-20th century holocaust was propagated by the best-educated and most
cultured European nation. But education is all we have. There were no gentler
times. As the great English educationist Harold Rosen wrote, in his poem trying
to situate himself in relation to the horrors of the Nazi genocide,
“Are you too asking yourself

Why is there no blood on these sheets?
And how can we sleep with ghosts?”9
He is asking that we remain alert, ask questions, and perhaps, hone those intel-
lectual skills that contribute to what Postman and Weingartner (1969) memora-
bly called “crap detection.” Education has many purposes and teachers get pulled
all which ways. But somewhere in the mix is the need to enable children and
young people, to detect crap or, as Basil Bernstein put it perhaps more elegantly,
“to think the unthinkable and the not yet thought” (Bernstein, 2000, p. 30).
This refers to the Enlightenment idea that knowledge is the only real source
of freedom. Unlike Postman and Weingartner, who were early Future 2-ists,
the GeoCapabilities project has sought to show that informed, dynamic, critical
thought can be accomplished when specialist subjects, including geography, are
thought of in terms of their powerful knowledge and taught with appropriately
powerful pedagogies. The capabilities approach encourages the claim that with-
out powerful geographical knowledge an individual’s education is significantly
impaired. This chapter has tried to show precisely how and in what way.
Acknowledgment
The author would like to thank two anonymous readers of an earlier draft of this
chapter. Their comments were most helpful, though of course any remaining
deficiencies are all my own.
Notes
1. david.lambert@ucl.ac.uk
2. “GeoCap2 Teachers as Curriculum Leaders” 539079-LLP-1–2013–1-UK-COME
NIUS-CMP/2013–3433
3. In Trump’s inaugural address he twice used the phrase “America First”—a phrase
that has been considered toxic ever since its use by the 1930s movement, designed to
accommodate Hitler and keep the U.S. out of the war against Nazi Germany.
38 David Lambert
4. This is another phrase that seems consciously to take us back to the mid-20th century
and that previous period of economic uncertainty and loss of faith in democracy.
Hitler frequently referred to the Lügenpresse (lying press) in the 1930s, a part of the
conspiracy that he convinced his followers he was fighting against on their behalf.
5. www.geocapabilities.org/training-materials/module-1-the-capabilities-approach/
into-practice/
6. In the British context the Royal Society for the Arts (RSA) “Opening Minds” cur-
riculum would be a good example: www.rsaopeningminds.org.uk/.
7. www.geocapabilities.org/training-materials/module-2-curriculum-making-by-
teachers/aims/
8. www.geocapabilities.org/training-materials/module-2-curriculum-making-by-
teachers/into-practice/
9. The final line of his poem “In the SS barracks, 1945.” Printed in full in Richmond
(2017, p. 569).
References
Bernstein, B. (2000). Pedagogy, symbolic control and identity: Theory, research, critique (revised
ed.). London: Rowman & Littlefield.
Biesta, G. J. J. (2005). Against learning: Reclaiming a language for education in an age
of learning. Nordisk Pedagogik, 25, 54–66.
Biesta, G. J. J. (2012). Giving teaching back to education: Responding to the disappear-
ance of the teacher. Phenomenology and Practice, 6 (2), 35–49.
Biesta, G. J. J. (2013). Comment on Bill Boyle’s Blog: ‘The importance of teaching:
Learnification part 2’. Educarenow. Retrieved from http://educarenow.wordpress.
com/2013/03/09/the-importance-of-the-teacher-learnification-part-2/
Brooks, C. (2013). How do we understand conceptual development in school geography?
In D. Lambert & M. Jones (Eds.), Debates in geography education (pp. 76–88). London:
Routledge.
Doyle, W., & Rosemartin, D. (2012). The ecology and curriculum enactment: Frame
and task narratives. Interpersonal Relationships in Education, 3, 137–147. Retrieved from
http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-94-6091-939-8_9
Firth, R. (2011). Making geography visible as an object of study in the secondary school
curriculum. Curriculum Journal, 22 (3), 289–316.
Firth, R. (2013). What constitutes knowledge in geography? In D. Lambert & M. Jones
(Eds.), Debates in geography education (pp. 59–74). London: Routledge.
Firth, R. (2014). Constructing geographical knowledge. In B. Barratt & E. Rata (Eds.),
Knowledge and the future of the curriculum (pp. 53–66). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Firth, R. (2018). Recontextualising geography as a school subject. In M. Jones & D. Lam-
bert (Eds.), Debates in geography education (2nd ed.). Abingdon: Routledge.
Foa, R. S., & Mounk, Y. (2017). The signs of deconsolidation. Journal of Democracy, 28 (1),
5–15. Retrieved 15 March 2017 from www.journalofdemocracy.org/sites/default/
files/02_28.1_Foa%20%26%20Mounk%20pp%205-15.pdf
GA. (2009). A different view. Sheffield: Geographical Association. www.geography.org.
uk/resources/adifferentview/
Gryl, I., & Jekel, T. (2012). Re-centring geoinformation in secondary education: Toward
a spatial citizenship approach. Cartographica, 47(1), 18–28.
Hanson, S. (2004). Who are ‘we’? An important question for geography’s future. Annals
of the Association of American Geographers, 94 (4), 715–722.
Hawley, D., & Lyon, J. (2017). Plate update: Refreshing ideas for teaching plate tectonics.
Teaching Geography, 42 (1), 30–32.
Hazel, W. (2017). Pisa boss: Pupils ‘should be taught to recognise fake news’. Times Educa-
tional Supplement, 18 March 2017. Retrieved 20 March 2017 from www.tes.com/news/
school-news/breaking-news/pisa-boss-pupils-should-be-taught-recognise-fake-news
Heartfield, J. (2013). The European Union and the end of politics. Winchester: Zero Books.
Hicks, D. (undated). Teaching for a better world: Learning for sustainability. Retrieved 21 March
2017 from www.teaching4abetterworld.co.uk/futures.html
Hirsch, E. D. (1987). Cultural literacy: What every American needs to know. New York, NY:
Houghton Mifflin.
Hirsch, E. D. (2007). The knowledge deficit: Closing the shocking education gap. New York,
NY: Houghton Mifflin.
Hudson, B. (2016). Didactics. In D. Wyse, L. Hayward, & J. Pandya (Eds.), The Sage
handbook of curriculum pedagogy and assessment. London: Sage.
Jekel, T., Gryl, I., & Schulze, U. (2015). Education for spatial citizenship. In O. Muniz
Solari et al. (Eds.), Geospatial technologies and geographical education in a changing world.
Cham: Springer.
Kirby, A. (2014). Geographic leadership, sustainability and urban education. Geography,
99 (1), 176–182.
Lambert, D. (2011a). Reframing school geography. In G. Butt (Ed.), Geography, education
and the future (pp. 127–140). London: Continuum.
Lambert, D. (2011b). Reviewing the case for geography and the ‘knowledge turn’ in the
English national curriculum. Curriculum Journal, 22 (2), 243–264.
Lambert, D. (2013). Geography in schools and a curriculum of survival. Theory and
Research in Education, 11(1), 85–98.
Lambert, D. (2016). Chapter 25: Geography. In D. Wyse, L. Hayward, & J. Pandya (Eds.),
The Sage handbook of curriculum, pedagogy and assessment. London: Sage.
Lambert, D. (2017). Thinking geographically. In M. Jones (Ed.), Secondary geography
handbook. Sheffield: Geographical Association.
Lambert, D. (2018). Towards a future 3 curriculum: The case of geography. In D. Guile,
D. Lambert & M. Reiss (2017), Sociology, curriculum studies and professional knowledge:
New perspectives on the work of Michael Young. London: Routledge.
Lambert, D., & Biddulph, M. (2014). The dialogic space offered by curriculum making
in the process of learning to teach, and the creation of a progressive knowledge led
curriculum. Asia Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 43(3), 210–224.
Lambert, D. & Morgan, J. (2010). Teaching Geography 11–18: A Conceptual Approach. Maid-
enhead, UK: Open University Press.
Lambert, D., Solem, M., & Tani, S. (2015). Achieving human potential through geogra-
phy education: A capabilities approach to curriculum making in schools. Annals of the
Association of American Geographers, 105(4), 723–735.
Massey, D. (2014). Taking on the world. Geography, 99 (1), 202–205.
Maude, A. (2016). What might powerful knowledge look like? Geography, 101(2), 70–76.
McLean, M., Abbas, A., & Ashwin, P. (2011). Pedagogic rights and human capabilities.
Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the Society for Research in Higher Education,
Newport, Wales, 7–9 December 2011.
McLean, M., Abbas, A., & Ashwin, P. (2013). University knowledge, human development
and pedagogic rights. In A. Boni & M. Walker (Eds.), Human development and capabili-
ties: Re-imagining the university of the twenty-first century (pp. 30–43). London: Routledge.
Morgan, J. (2017). The making of geographical ignorance? Geography, 102 (1), 18–25.
40 David Lambert
Nussbaum, M. (2000). Women and human development. Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press.
Nussbaum, M. (2013). Creating capabilities: The human development approach. Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press.
Nussbaum, M., & Sen, A. (1993). The quality of life. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Painter, J. (2008). European citizenship and the regions. European, Urban and Regional
Studies, 15(1), 5–19.
Postman, N., & Weingartner, C. (1969). Teaching as a subversive activity. New York, NY: Dell
Publishing. Retrieved from http://kairosschool.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/
Teaching-as-a-Subversive-Activity.pdf
Richmond, J. (2017). Harold Rosen: Writings on life, language and learning 1958–2008. Lon-
don: UCL IoE Press.
Roberts, M. (2013). Geography through enquiry. Sheffield: Geographical Association.
Roberts, M. (2014). Powerful knowledge and geographical education. The Curriculum
Journal, 25(2), 187–209.
Schulze, U., Gryl, I., & Kanwischer, D. (2015). Spatial Citizenship education and digi-
tal geomedia: Composing competences for teacher education and training. Journal of
Geography in Higher Education, 39 (3), 369–385. doi:10.1080/03098265.2015.1048506
Solem, M., Lambert, D., & Tani, S. (2013). GeoCapabilities: Towards an international
framework for researching the purposes and values of geography education. Review of
International Geographical Education Online [RIGEO], 3(3), 204–209.
Standish, A. (2007). Geography used to be about maps. In R. Whelan (Ed.), The corruption
of the curriculum. London: Civitas.
Standish, A. (2009). Global perspectives in the geography curriculum: Reviewing the moral case
for geography. London: Routledge.
Standish, A. (2013). The false promise of global learning: Why education needs boundaries.
London: Continuum.
Taylor, L. (2008). Key concepts and medium-term planning. Teaching Geography, 33(2),
50–54.
Taylor, P. (1981). A materialist framework for political geography. Transactions of the Insti-
tute of British Geographers, 7(1), 15–34.
Walker, M., & Boni, A. (2013). Higher education and human development: Towards
the public and social good. In A. Boni & M. Walker (Eds.), Human development and
capabilities: Re-Imagining the university of the twenty-first century (pp. 15–29). London:
Routledge.
Winch, C. (2013). Curriculum design and epistemic ascent. Journal of Philosophy of Educa-
tion, 47(1), 128–146.
Young, M. (2008). Bringing knowledge back in. London: Routledge.
Young, M. (2013). Overcoming the crisis in curriculum theory: A knowledge based
approach. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 45(2), 101–118.
Young, M. (2014). Powerful knowledge as a curriculum principle. In M. Young & D.
Lambert (with Roberts, C. & Roberts, M.) (Eds.), Knowledge and the future school: Cur-
riculum and social justice (pp. 65–88). London: Bloomsbury.
Young, M., & Lambert, D. (with Roberts, C., & Roberts, M.) (Eds.). (2014). Knowledge
and the future school: Curriculum and social justice. London: Bloomsbury.
Young, M., & Muller, J. (2010). Three educational scenarios for the future: Lessons from
the sociology of knowledge. European Journal of Education, 45(1), 11–27.
Young, M., & Muller, J. (2016). Curriculum and the specialization of knowledge. Abingdon:
Routledge.
4
THE SPATIAL PRODUCTION
AND NAVIGATION OF
VULNERABLE CITIZENS
Sandra J. Schmidt
Introduction
A 30-year-old democratically inclined Myanmarese woman, Maya, needs money
to support herself and her child. She has been a political agitator but has not
“done enough” to warrant refugee status. She has friends who have used traf-
ficking networks to find employment in Los Angeles. An 18-year-old black man,
Leroy, in rural Alabama in 2014 wants to activate the rights associated with his
recent birthday by registering to vote. He wonders where he can get the neces-
sary ID. A 23-year-old white male college graduate, Jacob, in 2011 is frustrated
by his inability to find a job upon graduation and takes his tent to Zuccotti Park
in New York City to join the Occupy Wall Street movement. A 40-year-old
queer woman, Theresa, identifies herself as a relatively passive moderate but on
January 21, 2017 finds herself driving from Madison, Wisconsin to Washington
DC to participate in the Women’s March.
These stories all reflect people whose civic attachments and rights are vul-
nerable because of spatial practices. Unequal access to space and distribution
of resources coincide with juridical processes that privilege certain bodies and
experiences. Citizenship is sometimes expressed as fundamental right of birth;
we become a citizen of the place where we are born. The meaning and experi-
ence of citizenship is not universal; hence, Westheimer and Kahne (2004) ask
“citizens of what” and “what kind of citizens?” The U.S. was founded on exclu-
sionary citizenship. Black people, women, poor people, and indigenous peoples
needed federal laws or constitutional amendments to be recognized as birthright
citizens. The increasingly mobile world places pressure on nations to recognize
the legal and social rights of people who cross international borders and take up
multiple citizenships. Even with legal status conferred, certain citizen-groups
42 Sandra J. Schmidt
struggle to access the civic, political, and social citizenship rights they are prom-
ised (Marshall, 1987).
Citizenship too often appears as the disciplinary domain of political science
or sociology. This chapter and the larger book situate citizenship as inherently
spatial. Critical theories in geography provide a framework and discourse for
exploring citizenship as a spatial process, one shaped by and repeatedly shap-
ing socio-political contexts. Westheimer and Kahne (2004) remind educators
that citizenship is attached to location. Spatial process including the drawing
of boundaries, the regulation of bodies, and socially constructed senses of place
shape both how we come to belong and how we act as citizens. These processes
can invite or exclude bodies or engagements (Dikec, 2001). Ongoing interac-
tions with spaces shape civic subjectivity. This chapter uses four stories to criti-
cally examine the spatial practices that create vulnerable citizenship and provide
opportunity to resist disenfranchisement.
Spatial Unevenness and Civic Opportunity

Social unevenness has long been explained spatially. Taken together, Said (1993)
and Foucault (1997) manifest intersecting physical and discursive dimensions of
inequality. Said (1993) argues that imperialism relied on geographic differences to
alter access to resources, dictate the value of resources, reconfigure the processes
of production, and shape the imagination of racial hierarchy that justified these
decisions. Foucault long resisted directly addressing the spatiality others claimed as
foundational to his genealogies/philosophies of power and knowledge. In Society
Must be Defended, Foucault (1997) examines the transition from sovereign rule to
regulation through biopower. Biopower refers to the manners in which govern-
ments regulate bodies. He extends Said’s argument to observe how lived practices
of racial hierarchy and segregation take away the right of some to live or thrive
so that others may. The technologies of biopower include a symbolic association
of state imagination/identity and the application of the resultant differentiation to
policies and practices that eliminate undesirable attributes or people. Said (1993)
and Foucault (1997) contemplate the nefarious practices of geography that threaten
universal access to citizenship. If the production of space simultaneously produces
and relies on a grossly uneven world order, then its accompanying state-to-citizen
or subject-to-subject practices produce a desperately vulnerable class of citizens
whose disempowerment propels others to/in power. Spatial theorists/social geog-
raphers paint a similarly nihilistic landscape. But when they advance space as a
social production, they also present opportunities for the social re-formation of space
through the reclamation of the physical arrangements and symbolic associations
of space. Herein lies opportunity to consider both the study of how vulnerable
citizens are made and take advantage of space.
In their deconstruction of the cityscape, Marxist geographers explore how
dynamic interplay between perceptions, conceptions, and imaginations shape
Spatial Production and Navigation 43
life in the city (Harvey, 2012; Lefebvre, 1991; Soja, 2009). Soja (2010) articulates
geographic practices that make social experiences inherently different based on
geographic relation to racial inequity (i.e., South African apartheid) or capitalist
positions (cf. Massey, 2007). Central to this is the physical arrangement of urban
areas which allocate space for certain activities and groups (Dikec, 2001). Civic
activities, groups of people, and the means of production are physically separated
from one another. Spaces acquire a narrow meaning that shapes their accessibil-
ity and use. The physical practices within a city are integrated into global con-
cepts and flows of power and discourses ( Soja, 2010). These arrangements are not
immune from social relationships and people’s imaginations of justice (Harvey,
2012). Lefebvre’s (1996) declaration of “the right to the city” has been widely
adopted to encourage the reclamation of physical space or the accompanying
symbols and imagination that have produced unjust geographies.
Feminist geographers suggest that the interrelationship between human and spa-
tial attributes/identities produce boundaries around participation and entrance
(McDowell, 1999). A highly attended to matter of feminist geographers and
historians is the division between public and private according to social and
economic distinctions, ones that correlate private/home/woman to repeat-
edly perform and reproduce a social view of the proper place for women. The
spatial-discursive interplay shapes the identity of both women and home associ-
ated with passivity and care-taking ( Schmidt, 2012). As Hubbard (2002) notes
in his study of queer, engagement with spaces influences identity and agency.
The particular ways of learning to be or imagine queer (or female or black) are
intimately shaped by relating to or against how sexual identities are perceived in
socio-spatial interactions. As women take the private into the public, they cre-
ate overlapping spaces or borderlands wherein new/liberating narratives can be
imagined and activated ( Friedman, 1998). These narratives may arise from grap-
pling with the affective experience in space (Massey, 2005). Feminist geogra-
phies offer a spatial lens through which to evaluate how identities and attributes
affect how/why people resist or reproduce the systems of inequality or mobility.
The exercise of resistance positions the citizen in space.
The spatial dimensions of citizenship involve processes of belonging and civic
activities. Civics scholars recognize the unevenness of civic participation, marked
by the cultural question of who is a citizen. Anthropologists contend that the
efficacy to activate citizenship rests in a sense of belonging. Rosaldo (1994) uses
the potential oxymoron cultural citizenship to critique forms of citizenship that
privilege particular cultural identities or practices (cf. Foucault, 1997). He con-
tributes to a set of scholarship that takes up belonging as foundational to being,
becoming, or enacting citizenship. García-Sánchez (2013) posits that citizenship
must incorporate cultural processes: “These models emphasize cultural citizen-
ship and belonging as a process, as a set of practices, performed and contested
at the intersection of social reproduction, human agency, and the production of
new cultural spaces” (p. 481). The implication is that nations or other entities
that grant citizenship are wary of narrow conceptions of the good citizen, lest
people/groups feel excluded based on language, gender, attire, or religious display
( Glenn, 2011). The process of actualizing citizenship and civic identity begins
with recognition of oneself, a sense of belonging to the “where” associated with
that citizenship. Those not deemed “good” or who cannot identify with the
cultural practices of citizenship constitute the domain of vulnerable citizenship.
The activity of citizenship requires that people feel confident to act, have
the formal knowledge of how to act, and imagine the change they can produce.
This has been hampered by unequal access to the civic and political rights and
knowledge required of citizens (Levinson, 2012). Within citizenship education,
the language has shifted from articulating a civic engagement gap to a civic
opportunity gap (Levinson, 2012). The language changes the onus of exclusion
to recognize how the failures of education and inclusion limit people’s efficacy
or feelings of empowerment to participate (Levinson, 2012). Verba, Schlozman,
and Brady (1995) note, “Those who possess civic skills, the set of specific com-
petencies germane to citizen political activity, are more likely to feel confi-
dent about exercising those skills in politics and to be effective . . . when they
do” (p. 305). Shifts in measurement also reflect the more inclusive language of
engaged citizenship which measures means of civic as well as formal political
participation (Dalton, 2008). These include whether people act in ways that sup-
port the welfare of self and others. It is this social focus, marked by participation
and opportunity gaps, that leads Levinson (2012) to advocate for education that
recognizes the oppressions and exclusions inherent in citizenship and to redress
these through broad forms of engagement and critical reflection with them.
Geographers offer theories that allow us to conceive of belonging or the invi-
tation to engage in citizenship as a spatial process. While they enable such inves-
tigation, they do not tend to how these theories shape the everyday practices
of individuals. Political scientists and civic educators explore important aspects
of the knowledge and cultural alignments that enable citizenship but do not
explore how these are shaped by the regulation of boundaries or identifications
of/with space. If we accept that citizens are vulnerable—whether through the
juridical process of exclusion or the consequence of not being able to access civic
rights—then their lived experience of that struggle rests in the interplay of theo-
ries of space and citizenship.
Vulnerable Citizens
This section creates four fictitious but realistic stories to contemplate the vulner-
able citizen as a spatial production and to envision her civic engagements as simi-
larly spatial (Harvey, 2012; Soja, 2010). The stories utilize contemporary civic/
political events that seemingly frame both space and citizenship. The first story
examines the challenges migration presents to who is juridically and socially
allowed to claim citizenship. It takes up permeable borders and how women
maneuver within localized discourses in advancing their subjectivity. The second

explores how the raced arrangement of space impacts how legal citizens struggle
to engage in formal citizenship activities. The third and fourth transition from
how space acts on citizens to how people advance their citizenship. One exam-
ines civic engagement as the struggle for control of space, while the last explores
how embodying space might expand the civic imagination. Across, I suggest
that in this intersection, we see vulnerable as both a lived and discursive form that
is integrated into landscapes. It is simultaneously through plays with space that
people may be able to challenge/change their position as vulnerable.
Belonging and Citizenship of Coerced Migrants

Maya’s is a story of the physical and rhetorical boundaries of good citizenship and
belonging. Maya is a coerced migrant, a category that includes refugees, people
who are trafficked, and others who are forcibly relocated across national borders.
She stares at the limited choices facing many women because refugee is a status
generally afforded men; trafficked is a position accessible to women ( Sharma,
2003). Her political affiliations in Myanamar curtail her civic rights. She juridi-
cally belongs to Myanmar but is un-belonged by her government because she does
not act the good citizen. This places her in jeopardy for detention or worse. Fur-
thermore, she needs money (and freedom) to support her daughter. Her activism
as well as simply being a woman limits her opportunities in the formal economy.
In search of economic sustainability, Maya offers herself to a trafficker. She real-
izes the risks, but is optimistic that the conditions of trafficking can be offset by
the opportunities of/in a new place. Once in Los Angeles, she must confront that
the United States does not warmly welcome her.
Maya’s story belongs to many women who challenge the global celebration
of mobility by visibly placing migrants within the discourse (Hyndman & Giles,
2011). If the (positively) mobile are embodied in a professional class that jetsets
around the globe for economic benefit, then migrant is reserved for those who
bring problems ( Castles, 2010). They remind the world of troubling conditions
that cause migration and the struggle of many nations to incorporate their new
plurality. Both groups are mobile and give pause for discussion about the rela-
tionship between boundaries and citizenship, between the attributes of people
and how they come to/are invited to belong as citizens. These relationships are
heavily gendered (and raced). In Maya’s case, even though she is un-belonged,
she has different paths available to change her circumstances. For example,
women have more difficulty becoming refugees, typically reliant on a husband
for such access (Hyndman & Giles, 2011). To explore how the movement across
space intersects with citizenship, I further explore the language used to depict
these women and their paths to belonging.
Trafficked women disrupt the patriarchy/masculinity that quietly rests behind
civic structures. Trafficked women often find themselves in sex industries, a
sector that is simultaneously taboo and acceptable, because it fulfills male needs.
Societies support patriarchal systems of sex that demand prostitution and coerce
women (Pickup, 1998). Thus, prostitution involves men and women but they
are differently positioned/regarded by the law. Those who prostitute receive
stronger social critiques of immorality and are vulnerable to losing their citizen-
ship rights; few countries punish male clients or view prostitution as an act of
violence ( Shifman, 2003). Trafficked women must determine how they want to
take up their subject position within this frame of immorality. As long as traf-
ficked or coerced modifies prostitution, the women occupy an acceptable form of
citizenship—the victim in need of rescue (Andrijasevic, 2009). This character-
ization affords certain privileges in terms of a civic subject position. If women
submit to the victim status, they potentially benefit from a state willing to pro-
tect vulnerable women, regardless of whether their border crossing was legal.
The new nation may seek to reform these women and transform them into pro-
ductive citizens. This view does not recognize the agency of women to use traf-
ficking to penetrate porous borders or find economic reward (Doezema, 2002).
Some women take advantage of dysfunctional patriarchy rather than submit to
victimhood (Pickup, 1998). The resistors who claim to prostitute voluntarily
run the risk of being beyond state protection. Instead, they embody a manner of
being that is perceived as a threat. No matter her choice, she is caught in a patri-
archal organization of space that makes women vulnerable within and across
borders. Here is a narrative of power, activated through space, that confines
movement, economic positions, and the possibilities for accessing citizenship.
Residing within the tension about how mobile women can position them-
selves economically is how they build senses of belonging foundational to civic
identity.
Border controls—and the moral panics that drive them—have very little to
do with stopping movements of people. Instead, they work to make those
who do cross the line incredibly vulnerable within the spaces defined as
‘belonging’ to members of the ‘nation’ and protected by ‘their state.’ In
other words, ever-increasing restrictive immigration policies do not work
to restrict people’s movements but to create a group of people completely
vulnerable to exploitation in the workplace; a population of workers that
benefits employers by providing them a cheapened and weakened alterna-
tive to ‘legal’ workers.
( Sharma, 2003, pp. 56–57)
As women cross borders and become vulnerable, Sharma suggests a need to

consider where and how these women belong. The decision to identify as victim
may be an avenue toward belonging in the secondary location, but a decision that
requires the adaptation of corrective behavior to acquire and sustain this sense
of belonging. There is sacrifice of self in order to comply with the regulations of
citizenship that exist from taking advantage of porous borders. To return to the
first location contains the vulnerabilities that led the women to migrate in the
first place. In watching these women and considering how they make decisions
about work and residence, we see the struggle over civic belonging. Citizenship
is attached to location. Simultaneously, the conditions of that citizenship are not
one’s own sense of belonging but the conditions and activities that make one vis-
ible and accepted in that space. In the circumstance of trafficking, women, even
when agentive, are caught in patriarchal institutions that constrain their efforts
to belong.
Mobile women, particularly those engaged in trafficking-related activities,
reveal many issues that unsettle people in a “global” world. Borders are more
porous not just because people physically find ways through, but because they
need to be in order to move labor across the globe. Women move and sati-
ate demands that nations recognize, but want to make invisible. And yet, the
women, by their own efforts or those of international organizations including
the United Nations, help make these women visible. Thus, movement becomes
intertwined with the sense attached to a place and whether mobile subjects adopt
the identifiers that retain this normative sense of nation and society. Women,
coerced to become migrants and potentially trafficked, are vulnerable to capital-
ist systems interlaced with patriarchy that limit income-generation to sex indus-
tries and the physical threats it entails. This system of selling oneself extends to
their relationship with the state, in both homes. States make women vulnerable
within and across borders by requiring “correct” ways of engaging economically
and civically. To do otherwise holds potential to force them into the position of
the un-belonged, a status that places them outside the social and likely juridical
claims to citizenship.
Accessing Places of Engagement

Leroy tells the story of how the relocation of resources prevent civic participa-
tion. Leroy lives in Livingston, Alabama, the county seat of Sumter County. He
celebrated his 18th birthday on October 1, 2014 and was excited to be able to vote
in the upcoming November elections. He knows that his state recently passed
a voter ID law so he needs to obtain state ID. For some kids his age, this isn’t
an issue; they can use their driver’s license. Leroy doesn’t have a driver’s license,
choosing instead to bike in his small town given the costs of car ownership. In
researching how to get to the DMV in Livingston, he learns that it is one of the
closed locations. If he wants to vote in November, he must get a ride to the busy
DMV an hour away in Tuscaloosa or the smaller one almost 90 minutes away in
Selma. He wonders who has the time to take off work to drive him and wait at
one of these centers and he is frustrated that there is no DMV in his county. He is
struck by the fact that his county is predominantly African American while the
neighboring counties that have DMVs still open have a larger White population.
Theoretically, anyone with citizenship should be able to enjoy the rights and
privileges associated with it. Leroy’s story suggests that these cannot be taken for
granted; geography can be utilized to limit access to fundamental civic rights or
responsibilities. Voting is supposed to be one of these fundamental rights and yet
states relocate voter registration sites, polling places, and congressional office to
limit accessibility. The issue of voter identification has been challenged legally,
but those court cases did not address the ease with which citizens could acquire
the necessary ID. Following Shelby County v. Holder (2013), Alabama no longer
needed congressional approval to change voting laws. Alabama quickly imple-
mented a voter ID law and months later, in order to save $11 million, closed 31
DMVs across the state (Marsh, 2015). It was quickly suggested that these closures
were primarily in the “Black belt” or the swath of predominantly black coun-
ties across the state. The DMV provides many services, one of which is voter
registration and identification. This was a problem for many reasons, but most
importantly because African Americans, Latinx Americans, women, and college
students are least likely to have requisite identification (Mock, 2015). Thus, in
Alabama the groups suddenly needing IDs appeared to have the greatest diffi-
culty obtaining them.
The case was taken up by the Department of Transportation. It was not unlike
a 2012 Department of Justice case regarding voter ID laws in Texas, ruled on
prior to Shelby County v. Holder. In that case the DOJ wrote,
Second, in 81 of the state’s 254 counties, there are no operational driver’s

license offices. The disparity in the rates between Hispanics and non-
Hispanics with regard to the possession of either a driver’s license or per-
sonal identification card issued by the DPS is particularly stark in counties
without driver’s license offices. According to the September 2011 data,
10.0 percent of Hispanics in counties without driver’s licenses offices
do not have either form of identification, compared to 5.5 percent of
non-Hispanics.
(cited in Mock, 2015)
Whitmire (2017) did a similar geographic analysis in Alabama. He mapped the clo-
sures and county demographics. He found that in the 10 counties with the highest
black population, eight of the counties lost their DMV in 2014. The Department
of Transportation determined that the closures were racially biased and they are
reopening.
The story may have a happy ending for Leroy who would have been able to
actualize his voting rights when the DMV returned to his county. But the saga
reminds us that spatial organization shapes civic involvement. Soja (2010) writes,
The U.S. legal system also has built-in defenses against claims of spatial
injustice. . . . It aims to supply justice to everyone equitable, at least in
principle, and attempts to respond to demands of justice on egalitarian

terms as well, but for the most part the law ignores the unfairness of the
processes creating unjust outcomes in the first place.
(p. 49)
The U.S. legal system worked here but as Soja writes, not before reminding
people how easily they can be excluded. People do not have equal access to
the control of space and as such are vulnerable to the exclusionary acts of those
in power. Leroy is a vulnerable citizen. The physical distribution of resources
designed to regulate racial access has the potential to deny racial minorities and
poor people the means to participate in the most basic activities of citizenship.
The acts and the means of citizenship occur in real, lived places. Access is bound
to the whims of the conceivers of space who may have interests that do not pro-
tect equal access to citizenship and the law.
Reclaiming Spatial Symbols

Occupy Wall Street offers an opportunity to explore protest as participation
toward controlling the symbols linking citizens and space. Jacob, a recent college
graduate, finds himself congregating with others in Zuccotti Park rather than
earning the big salary he expected after four years at a rigorous academic insti-
tution. He is one of many college graduates who literally returned home after
college upon discovering that a degree did not guarantee a job. Jacob graduated
soon after the 2008 economic collapse, one that ushered in years of hiring freezes
and declining positions. Many blamed the collapse on unregulated speculations
from Wall Street. Jacob learns of Occupy Wall Street, an encampment in Lower
Manhattan, where people are resisting the power of Wall Street. Jacob is enticed
and leaves his parents to join other occupiers. His visible and collective presence
in the middle of the economic sector serves as a daily reminder to passersby
about the plight of many young people. It is also a launching point for a form of
participatory democracy that seeks to physically and symbolically occupy Wall
Street and pressure the government to enact reforms.
Occupy Wall Street was (rightfully) criticized for a lack of platform. This was
placed alongside past political occupations such as the Bonus Army (Kennedy,
1999), General Motors sit-down strike (West, 1986), and American Indian Move-
ment (Anderson, 1996) wherein occupation was accompanied by a clear demand
for remittances, wages, and access. It is perhaps difficult to measure the success
of a protest without such a platform. Maybe the organizers of OWS realized that
what mobilized them could not be satiated without a complete reorganization
of economic power. Perhaps, they did not really believe that without revolution
they could separate the influence of corporations rather than the people on mat-
ters of governance. There was a not a clear endpoint that could quickly improve
the lives of the “99%.” The structures of capitalism and corporatization were too
strongly woven through society and politics. Instead, they engaged in a struggle
over space rather than in space.
Mitchell (2003) argues that protest is inherently a matter of geography as
“rights have to be exercised somewhere, and sometimes that ‘where’ has itself
to be actively produced by taking, by wresting, some space and transform-
ing both its mean and use” (p. 81). The Occupy Wall Street occupiers never
physically occupied Wall Street, but the visibility and accompanying discourse
showed that re-imagining space (and its attributes) can change the lived prac-
tice of space and citizenship ( Lefebvre, 1996). The occupiers in New York
City and locales across the globe simultaneously claimed their right to the city
and their right to activism bound in spatiality. In New York City, Zuccotti
Park was chosen because of its designation as a privately owned public space
( Németh, 2009) and its proximity to Wall Street, an area set off by barriers
with ID-required entry. Zuccotti Park (at the time of the movement) was open
and accessible 24 hours a day and posted few other regulations such as those
about lying on benches that would later appear ( Foderaro, 2011). Occupiers
in other cities chose similarly, seeking public areas with few ordinances and
locations proximal to symbolic outposts of Wall Street/global capitalism and
supporting government agencies.
Occupy Wall Street movements were successful in their transformation of
Wall Street as a socially constructed space. Occupiers transformed the mean-
ing and attributes of Wall Street. They took the symbols of global finance and
repositioned these as markers of gross inequality, criminality, and greed. Link-
ing occupations around the world positioned Wall Street, lobbyists, ports, banks,
and some mayors as co-conspirators in the effort to serve their interests over the
good of the people. The laws may not have changed as a result, but the move-
ment produced a lasting penetration into how people think about governance,
corporations, and goodwill. Vulnerable citizens found that space afforded them
access to power discourse.
In the end, the struggle over space was also the movement’s demise, as the city
governments took back control of physical space through control of its percep-
tion (symbols). They ultimately became embattled with coordinated efforts of
city mayors (and federal legislators in Washington, DC) over the rights not to
merely control the physical space but its associations ( Schmidt & Babits, 2013).
Officials quickly realized that they lacked the physical means, due to law and
public accord, to eradicate many of the occupations. Mayors joined together
and changed their language about the protests. They turned occupiers into peo-
ple at risk and producers of risk to rewrite the rules of space such that occu-
pations could be dismantled. They cited health issues—fire hazards, rats, and
garbage—as things that might endanger occupiers (Bloomberg, 2011). Bloom-
berg and others also cited the (potential) violence by homeless people against the
unarmed occupiers. The discourse turned the protesters into vulnerable people.
In their presentation as vulnerable to health issues or physical violence, they
simultaneously re-acquired the status of vulnerable citizens, a status they origi-

nally claimed as indicative of their struggle to acquire economic resources or be
heard in legislative halls.
Dalton (2008) reminds us that a variety of activities comprise good citizen-
ship. Mitchell (2003) sets this inside a framework of needing a public that agitates
for rights when dispossessed. Most of the occupiers felt dispossessed even if they
were raised in privileged race and/or class backgrounds. They found that the
economic system was a common organizer or common oppressor across groups
of people and utilized that in a movement. The form of protest and claims for
justice necessitated a direct claim to physical space ( Soja, 2010). What makes
OWS interesting is how it worked between the concrete and abstract elements
of space. The vulnerable citizens did not have another means to access the spaces
that needed changing and thus attempted to disrupt them from outside by nego-
tiating symbols. These citizens are vulnerable because of their exclusions and yet
use spatial practices begin processes of change.
The Experience of Citizenship

The Women’s March presents a story of how collective embodiment produces
civic efficacy. Theresa, the queer woman who made her way from Madison, WI
to Washington, DC on January 21, 2017, wanted to have an impact. She took
to the stands along Pennsylvania Avenue and brought the chants of the streets
into the crowds lining the street: “No hate, no fear; immigrants are welcome
here,” “We will not go away; welcome to your first day.” This was her first
rally. She had the option of staying in Madison, but traveled to Washington
with her sisters to be part of history. She was mobilized by the election. She felt
it impossible to sit back and finally realized that protecting the rights of women
and others required a stronger presence by women. As she moved from home to
community organizations to DC, she engaged with space in a manner that was
constructing her sense of citizenship. Her sexuality and gender created the pos-
sibility for vulnerable citizenship. But is the decision to activate her civic rights
a means of disrupting the spatial margins of vulnerability?
The spatiality of citizenship attends to the boundaries that construct and
regulate who is a citizen and how this citizenship is activated. Doreen Massey
(2005) argues for a spatiality that is freed from the confines of temporality and
representation. She rejects the space/place distinction and brings them into one
as she theorizes the “event of place” rather than representations of space:
This is the event of place in part in the simple sense of the coming together
of the previously unrelated, a constellation of processes rather than a thing.
This is place as open and as internally multiple. Not capturable as a slice
through time in the sense of an essential section. Not intrinsically coherent.
(Massey, 2005, p. 141)
Her thinking is useful here to draw attention away from the meaning of the
march in historic terms and toward the embodied experience of the march as a
component of citizenship. The Women’s March in Washington, DC was argu-
ably the largest of its kind. The magnitude of the event was intensified by sister
marches in hundreds of cities within and beyond the United States. In many cit-
ies, including Washington, DC, the course of the march was changed just prior
to or during the march because organizers grossly underestimated the number of
participants. New York City was able to respond based on advanced RSVPs and
organize the day so that only 8000 people departed from Dag Hammarskjold
Plaza every 15 minutes. In Chicago and Los Angeles, the area set aside for the
march was simply insufficient. The event in Chicago was reclassified from march
to rally as the downtown area was overtaken by people. In Washington, DC, the
parade route had to be redesigned with multiple entry points toward the White
House because there was simply no space to move along the original path. The
march became historic and will likely be remembered and placed alongside and
repeatedly compared to other marches. Scanning news articles, there are already
claims about number, location, and number of arrests that make their way into
the newspaper articles. Marches are embodied experiences of civic action. What
does this mean for how the women who marched will be remembered or see
themselves as citizens?
The march created a sense of civic engagement and identity in people. It is too
early upon writing this chapter to fully study all the ways participants continued
or expanded their civic participation following the initial march. Early indicators
show liberals and Democrats increasing the number of phone calls made to their
representatives. In the city where I live, there were multiple protests planned in
the weeks following in response to specific threats around a number of issues
reflected in the platform of the Women’s March—women’s reproductive con-
trol, abortion, immigration, equal pay, representation, queer rights, trans rights,
black lives matter, support for Muslims, and more. It is not clear the extent to
which protests like the one(s) on January 21 shape change at the policy level.
Reports suggest that the media was watching and sharing the message but few
political leaders were in attendance. Some have suggested that marches of this
timeframe (only three months in planning) do not have the capacity to build
the networks and infrastructure to carry out its platform. Only time will tell.
Certainly, impact is one measure of “effectiveness,” but perhaps not the best here.
The march became a critical space in which to produce the possibility for
citizenship. The march mobilized thousands of people and organized them into a
collective public. People went for many reasons, but once there, people lived and
energized the civic space they occupied with others. The energy of the march
brought together many vulnerable voices—immigrants, women, trans people,
queers, Muslims, black people—who felt attacked either by the agenda set by a
new presidential administration or other recent attacks. The march offered an
opportunity to move from vulnerable and thus silenced to visible and vocal.
There was a collectivity that enabled this. This does not overlook moments when
people might have been silenced by another march participant. The organizers
understood vulnerability. They diversified the make-up of the organizing board
and platform to invite a diverse experience of oppression, they published materi-
als in advance that addressed the specific concerns of immigrants who were pro-
testing and more vulnerable to arrest. But at least for this day, the march reduced
the sense of vulnerability and produced an affective response of transformation.
It reminds us of the power and impact of embodying citizenship.
Discussion
When we speak of people living within a country’s borders, we often refer to
them as citizens of that place. Unfortunately, the relationship between belong-
ing and place has always been complicated. On the lands now called the United
States, the most egregious examples are the dislocation of indigenous peoples and
the enslavement and subsequent relocation of Africans. In the first case, people
who “belonged” to the land were removed from it when land was usurped for
private and public ownership. In the latter, enslaved Africans were displaced
from humanity and have struggled ever since to establish their belonging. In
many U.S. social studies books, these cases are presented as the past, distinct from
harmonious pluralism today. The natural pairing of place and citizenship fails
inside the United States and faces even greater challenge on a global scale. The
displacement of people within and across borders produces a vulnerable classifi-
cation of citizens. Their vulnerability is not merely an issue of enfranchisement,
but a matter of being allocated the resources and accompanying recognition that
are central to political, social, cultural, and economic belonging and justice in
communities and countries ( Fraser, 2000; Said, 1993).
Geographers and civics educators examine civic and social inequity. Through
the preceding stories and discussions, I propose that the redress to vulnerability
lies at the intersection of these literatures—both in fully conceiving how spatial
organization produces a certain citizenship and how re-envisioning or reclaim-
ing space is a significant form of civic engagement. At this intersection, we see
that the drawing of borders determines juridical standing, the struggle for space
shapes people’s need to access citizenship across national boundaries, the location
of engagements shapes people’s ability to act politically and civically, the experi-
ences and social relations in space shape how and whether people can and will
feel a sense of belonging or be invited to belong.
Belonging, connectivity to other members of a community, is increasingly
evident in civics literature. The concept is not new but increasing transnational
tensions and divided pluralities give renewed attention to this component of
citizenship. If one does not belong, one does not feel and thus act the part of the
citizen. Geographers (Dikec, 2001; Soja, 2010) note that the struggle over space
is wrought with a struggle over boundaries. The drawing of boundaries solidifies
the attributes of those inside while casting aside others ( Schmidt, 2011). Across
the stories, there are varying plays with boundaries. Maya recognizes the per-
meability of boundaries, adopting a necessary identity to transgress boundaries
that are supposedly closed to her. Within the United States, she may then find
a new set of boundaries—those of a category that potentially give rise to her
opportunity to adopt a new citizenship. The Alabama laws rely heavily on the
boundaries between counties mapped against racial demographics in the state.
People can physically move across the county boundaries. The state carefully and
precisely moved the places of registry as far from communities that needed them
to reproduce/maintain a race-based civic unevenness. The creators took advan-
tage of the boundaries between counties and economics to produce exclusivity.
Occupy Wall Street found ways to penetrate the wall that prevented people from
accessing the street by noting that Wall Street is not only a physical space, but a
conceptual one.
Political scientists and civic educators have a long interest in formal and infor-
mal means of engagement or participation. Levinson (2012) notates an oppor-
tunity gap between young people based upon race. She advocates for increasing
the opportunities young people have to join organizations and networks that
can advocate for social change. Much of the related literature resides in Dalton’s
(2008) distinction between the duty- and engaged-citizen. The forms of activ-
ism depicted in OWS and the Women’s March fall into the latter category, one
that provides broader classification for what constitutes participation. A spatial
understanding enhances this civic reading of the movements. The communi-
ties and relationships require a space of meeting. Collective ideas bring people
together to envision change (Harvey, 2012). The strength of the relationships
resides in their shared embodiment of a space or the collectively created vision
of how to reshape the rhetoric of the sites of protest and power. The occupiers
developed a strong sense of internal belonging that gave them the strength of
resistance. The embodied citizenship of 2,000,000 people gathered in Washing-
ton, DC and across the globe on January 21, 2017 allowed a physical closeness
that facilitated belonging on that day and possibly beyond. The pussyhats and
shared platform were visible imagery of belonging. These belongings are more
temporal than those depicted in social or cultural citizenship literature ( Glenn,
2011; Rosaldo, 1994). They reflect not merely a sense of belonging but how
belonging can activate engagement.
Social geographers align space and symbols as descriptive of the space, inform-
ing and aligning the identities of the people in their encounter. The stories high-
light the discursive struggles to align spatial connotations with political identity
(Verba et al., 1995). If engagement requires efficacy (Levinson, 2012; Verba et
al., 1995), then the identification of self with the symbols of citizenship or the
place of citizenship is significant for participation (Hubbard, 2002). The redress
of the vulnerable citizenship must contend with the discourse that regulates her.
Maya must decide whether she is an agent or victim. The subject position allows
her to envision herself and demand to be recognized as a particular citizen

( Friedman, 1998). In the story, she is an active subject who crosses boundaries,
exposes an uncomfortable socio-economic model, and demands the support
and recognition in the United States she was denied in Myanmar. Her mobil-
ity shapes migration policy. OWS occupiers recognized the potential of spatial
symbols in their struggle to claim their right in the city ( Harvey, 2012; Lefe-
bvre, 1996). They strengthened the political positioning and efficacy as they
wrestled with the language attached to self and space. Being able to connect the
attributes of the citizen and space enable formation of belonging and its resul-
tant forms of engagement.
Civics (education) scholars note the need to expand how we think about
civic activities or engagement (Dalton, 2008; Levinson, 2012). The argument
arises from recognition that people have uneven access to socio-political space
and institutions. Differences in opportunity to participate and learn arise from
raced, classed, gendered, religious, and sexualized access to power and place
(Abu El-Haj, 2007; Levinson, 2012). These differences are the constituencies
that I refer to as vulnerable citizens. They have different opportunities to access
and to become citizens and thus have uneven subject positions as citizens when
it comes to activating power. This one-directional lens on understanding the
spatial citizen reifies a marginal position. What the explanations attempt is a
more robust and contested position regarding vulnerable citizenship positions.
Embedded in the stories are a variety of forms of civic engagement that reposi-
tion or empower people in claiming space, physically or symbolically. Alabama
shows the limitations and resultant public discourse that engages people. The
spatial patterning allows an understanding and opportunity to disrupt. Maya in
Myanmar exemplifies women claiming their right to citizenship and acting as
such through the manipulation of space and disputed ideals. The final examples
more fully illuminate spatial practices that speak back to unevenness. OWS was
replete with teach-ins, community connectivity, marches, and the occupation
of space, all embodied and symbolic means for penetrating dominance politi-
cal position and making vulnerable positions and discourses available for public
deliberation. The march itself is the ultimate embodiment and building of col-
lective sense of citizenship and engagement. There is much to be learned about
how this embodiment shapes further participation. Across the cases, opportuni-
ties to transcendence became available through space.
In the end, the vulnerable citizen is produced through space and yet it is the
struggle over space that simultaneously offers redress to exclusion.
Conclusion
This chapter is written in a particular time, depicting examples that could but
should not be conceived of as more temporal than spatial. The examples are
not here to speak of a moment in time, but to propose that citizenship (both
its deployment and access to it) are embedded in and enacted through claims
and negotiations of space. Depicted here are issues of the use of space to exclude
members, the struggles to belong in and across space, and forms of civic engage-
ment enacted in and through space, particularly as they may evoke further par-
ticipation or exclusion. Such concepts remain even as the contexts or specific
movements change across time. Citizenship remains a spatial dilemma.
Citizenship is an inherently political topic. It cannot, unfortunately, be pre-
sumed that all people in and across places have equitable access to the legal or
socio-cultural aspects of citizenship. It is unlikely that Said (1993) is the first to
recognize that the struggle for power and recognition are ultimately a struggle
for geography. He does evoke not citizenship, but his colonial subjects recognize
that their struggle for power and intimately bound in their ability to belong or
at least to be recognized for the agentive subjects they are/should be. There may
be strong forces acting against people ( Foucault, 1997). In the contemporary
moment, we once again see global forces acting in multiscalar ways to shape
the experience of the citizen. The global scales create great risk for vulnerable
subjects who may fall between states. But the function of intersecting scales
produces networks and multipoint protest that may ultimately give increasing
resistive forces to people across the globe to enact their civic identities locally
and globally. The struggle for geography will not go away and as such, we will
remain a world where many people are at risk. The challenge for educators and
policymakers is how to utilize spatial claims and renegotiations of spaces to com-
bat the forces of erasure. There appear to be much potential here.
References
Abu El-Haj, T. R. (2007). ‘I was born here, but my home, it’s not here’: Educating for
democratic citizenship in an era of transnational migration and global conflict. Har-
vard Educational Review, 77(3), 285–316.
Anderson, T. (1996). The movement and the sixties: Protest in American from Greensboro to
Wounded Knee. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Andrijasevic, R. (2009). Sex on the move: Gender, subjectivity, and differential inclusion.
Subjectivity, 29, 389–406.
Bloomberg, M. R. (2011, November 15). Statement of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg on
clearing and re-opening of Zuccotti Park. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/
world/2011/nov/15/michael-bloomberg-statement-zuccotti-park
Castles, S. (2010). Understanding global migration: A social transformation perspective.
Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 36 (10), 1565–1586.
Dalton, R. J. (2008). The good citizen: How a younger generation is reshaping American politics.
Washington, DC: CQ Press.
Dikec, M. (2001). Justice and the spatial imagination. Environment and Planning A, 33,
1785–1805. doi:10.1068/a3467
Doezema, J. (2002). Who gets to choose? Coercion, consent, and the UN Trafficking
Protocol. Gender & Development, 10 (1), 20–27.
Foderaro, L. W. (2011). Privately owned park, open to the public, may make its own
rules. The New York Times.
Foucault, M. (1997). Society must be defended. New York, NY: Picador.

Fraser, N. (2000). Rethinking recognition. New Left Review, 3, 107.
Friedman, S. S. (1998). Mappings: Feminism and the cultural geographies of encounter. Prince-
ton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
García-Sánchez, I. M. (2013). The everyday politics of ‘cultural citizenship’ among
North African immigrant school children in Spain. Language & Communication, 33(4),
481–499.
Glenn, E. N. (2011). Constructing citizenship exclusion, subordination, and resistance.
American Sociological Review, 76 (1), 1–24.
Harvey, D. (2012). Rebel cities. London: Verso.
Hubbard, P. (2002). Sexing the self: Geographies of engagement and encounter. Social &
Cultural Geography, 3(4), 365–381.
Hyndman, J., & Giles, W. (2011). Waiting for what? The feminization of asylum in pro-
tracted situations. Gender, Place, and Culture, 18 (3), 361–379.
Kennedy, D. (1999). Freedom from fear: The American people in depression and war. New
York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Lefebvre, H. (1991). The production of space. Oxford: Blackwell.
Lefebvre, H. (1996). Writings on cities. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Levinson, M. (2012). No citizen left behind (Vol. 13). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press.
Marsh, R. (2015, December 9). DOT launches investigation in Alabama over DMV clo-
sures. CNN. Retrieved from http://edition.cnn.com/2015/12/09/politics/alabama-
dmv-closures-voting-rights/
Marshall, T. H. (1987). Citizenship and social class. In T. H. Marshall & T. Bottomore
(Eds.), Citizenship and social class (pp. 3–51). London: Pluto Press.
Massey, D. (2005). Space, place and gender. Malden, MA: Polity.
Massey, D. (2007). World city. Malden, MA: Polity.
McDowell, L. (1999). Gender, identity and place: Understanding feminist geographies. Min-
neapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
Mitchell, D. (2003). The right to the city: Social justice and the fight for public space. New York,
NY: The Guilford Press.
Mock, B. (2015, October 1). What effect will shuttering Alabama DMV offices have
on black voters. CityLab. Retrieved from www.citylab.com/politics/2015/10/what-
effect-will-shuttering-alabama-dmv-offices-have-on-black-voters/408571/
Németh, J. (2009). Defining a public: The management of privately owned public space.
Urban Studies, 46 (11), 2463–2490.
Pickup, F. (1998). More words but no action? Forced migration and trafficking of women.
Gender & Development, 6 (1), 44–51.
Rosaldo, R. (1994). Cultural citizenship and educational democracy. Cultural Anthropol-
ogy, 9 (3), 402–411.
Said, E. W. (1993). Culture and imperialism. New York, NY: Vintage.
Schmidt, S. J. (2011). Who lives on the other side of that boundary: A model of geo-
graphic thinking. Social Education, 75(5), 250–255.
Schmidt, S. J. (2012). Am I a woman?: The production of woman in U.S. History. Gender
and Education, 24 (7), 707–724.
Schmidt, S. J., & Babits, C. (2013). Occupy Wall Street as a curriculum of space. Journal
of Social Studies Research, 38 (2), 79–89.
Sharma, N. (2003). Travel agency: A critique of anti-trafficking campaigns. Global Move-
ments for Refugee and Migrant Rights, 21(3), 53–65.
Shelby County v. Holder, 570 U.S. 12–96 (2013).
Shifman, P. (2003). Trafficking and women’s human rights in a globalised world. Gender &
Development, 11(1), 125–132.
Soja, E. W. (2009). The city and spatial justice. Spatial Justice, 1(1).
Soja, E. W. (2010). Seeking spatial justice (Vol. 16). Minneapolis, MN: University of Min-
nesota Press.
Verba, S., Schlozman, K. L., & Brady, H. E. (1995). Voice and equality: Civic voluntarism in
American politics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
West, K. (1986). On the line: Rank and file reminiscences of working conditions and the
General Motors Sit-down Strike of 1936–37. Michigan Historical Review, 12 (1), 57–82.
Whitmire, K. (2017, January 5). As it turns out . . . Bentley’s driver’s license closures were
racial, afterall. AL.com. Retrieved from www.al.com/opinion/index.ssf/2017/01/as_
it_turns_out_bentleys_drive.html
5
CITIZENSHIP EDUCATION IN A
SPATIALLY ENHANCED WORLD
Sarah Witham Bednarz and Robert S. Bednarz
Kahne, Hodgin, and Eidman-Aadahl (2016) propose a redesign of civic educa-

tion in the United States to respond to changes that “the digital revolution” has
brought to political life in the United States. This revolution, they write, has
enabled new forms of participation in democratic processes. However, their call
disregards a significant aspect of “the digital revolution,” notably the geospa-
tial revolution. The explosive and concurrent growth of geospatial technolo-
gies including geographic information systems (GIS), Remote Sensing, global
positioning systems (GPS), and associated technologies, particularly mapping
technologies, used in conjunction with social media, have changed how we
live—and especially how we engage as citizens.
Underpinning the use of these geospatial technologies are two forms of
thinking: spatial thinking and geospatial thinking. Spatial thinking is defined as
the use of spatial concepts, spatial representations, and processes of reasoning to
conceptualize and solve problems (National Research Council, 2006). It involves
the ability to visualize and interpret data about space that is encoded and stored
in memory ( Sinton, 2011; Uttal, 2000). Geospatial thinking is a specialized form
of spatial thinking that is Earth or environmental scale (Baker et al., 2015). Both
forms of thinking are engaged concurrently and in a reciprocal fashion during
the use of geospatial technologies. Using a technology such as a GIS can enhance
spatial thinking abilities; at the same time, learning to think about the world
through the mediated perspective that technologies provide may affect geospatial
thinking and its development (Uttal, 2005). Our interaction with technologies
is shaping the ways we see, think about, and understand the world in which we
live.
Geospatial technologies not only influence our ways of thinking but also
affect the relationships people have with each other and with the world in which
60 Sarah Witham Bednarz and Robert S. Bednarz
they live. Enormous quantities of digital geographic data are available in real
time. We are monitored on closed circuit television systems; we check in to let
friends know where we are through Facebook and Four Square; our smartphones
track our physical activities and locations and tell us how to navigate in real space
and in real time. We express our opinions on a range of issues frequently through
Twitter, Instagram, and other sharing applications. We report on traffic patterns,
complain about neighbors who do not pick up their garbage, and alert authorities
about suspicious activities through place-based social media. Who we are, where
we are, what we do, and how we feel is shared in geographic contexts. The world
is at everyone’s fingertips, 24–7 (Downs, 2014).
This chapter examines the roles spatial and geospatial thinking and geospatial
technologies may play in citizenship education in the United States in the first
decades of the 21st century, a time of uncertainty, disruption, and rapid change.
It is obvious to the authors of this chapter that geography educators should exam-
ine how the affordances of geospatial technologies and social media may enrich
citizenship education. We begin by briefly examining the role geography has
traditionally played in citizenship education in the United States. We compare
three models of citizenship proposed by Westheimer and Kahne (2004); Bennett,
Wells, and Rank (2009) and Mayes, Mitra, and Serriere (2016) to situate geo-
spatial technologies in citizenship formation. Next, we describe what geospatial
technologies and spatial thinking can add to the development of educated and
committed citizens using a model proposed by Watts and Flanagan (2007). We
conclude with a call for further research on ways geospatial technologies can
contribute to the development of citizens.
Citizenship in the 21st Century

Conventional wisdom is that the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 (com-
monly referred to as “9/11”) made citizenship education a national impera-
tive. Without a doubt, the event sparked debate about the nature of citizenship,
the best ways to develop “good citizens,” and the appropriate responsibility of
schools and society in this endeavor. Since that cataclysmic event at the begin-
ning of the century, we have been confronted with new and ongoing concerns
related to climate change, terrorism, armed conflict, racial and ethnic animosi-
ties, and globalization in its many manifestations. Most recently, the tenor and
outcome of the presidential election of 2016, debates about immigration, and an
overall move to nationalistic, local-scale approaches to policies raises concerns
about appropriate roles for members of a civil society. While each generation
perceives the times in which they live as uncertain, a convincing case can be
made that we are living in a world with more uncertainty than ever before
(Bednarz & Bednarz, 2008). Perceptions of vulnerability influence the way we
view our society and our roles in it, in essence defining what it means to be a
citizen. Some suggest that geospatial technologies and data can help us manage
Citizenship Education 61
uncertainty. Certainly, as outlined in the beginning of this chapter, social media

also can play a role in coping with our uncertain world.
With a few exceptions (see the discussion which follows), U.S. geogra-
phy educators have not participated actively in discussions about citizenship,
leaving geographers vulnerable to charges that we are not concerned about
citizenship education, and that we have ignored a significant educational issue
( Bednarz & Acheson, 2003). A lack of public engagement in formal discussions
of citizenship does not necessarily lead to the conclusion that geography edu-
cators are not committed to civic education; nor does it mean that geography
has failed to contribute to this key arena through our research and curriculum
projects. This chapter and book is an attempt to remedy this situation. It is
obvious to us that geography educators have moral and ethical responsibili-
ties to examine the ways the affordances of geospatial technologies and social
media can enrich citizenship education. But what is citizenship education in
the United States today?
Citizenship Education in the United States

The notion of citizenship has been important in the United States throughout its
history. Because of our pluralistic, immigrant culture, we have struggled with
the issue of creating a unified national identity. One institution used to achieve
this goal has been public education. The creation of an informed citizenry,
able to participate in democratic institutions, has always been a primary goal of
America’s schools (Thornton, 2004). At the beginning of the 20th century, when
immigration was at an all-time high, the stated purpose for the social studies (of
which geography is a part) was to promote patriotism and citizenship in order
to assimilate newcomers into “American” society (Murphy, 2002). This concern
has persisted into this century leading to a parochial view of citizenship focused
solely on national identity and patriotism (Myers, 2006).
As interest in citizenship has grown, concern about young Americans’ under-
standing of core ideas and principles related to civics has arisen. The 2014
National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) in Civics revealed disturb-
ing gaps in students’ civic knowledge. Students in Grade 8 (roughly 14 years
old) improved performance between the first administration in 1998 and 2010
but showed no significant change between 2010 and 2014. Only 23 percent of
students performed at or above the proficient level, that is, were judged compe-
tent over the subject matter. The majority of students were not able to identify a
belief shared by most people in the U.S., interpret a graph about voting behavior,
or explain the benefits of international interactions (NAEP, 2015).
A report from the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning
and Engagement (CIRCLE) found that 57 percent of 15- to 25-year-olds are
completely disengaged from civic life (Keeter, Zukin, Andolina, & Jenkins,
2002). This followed the enormously influential work of Robert Putnam (2000),
the political scientist who chronicled the decline of civic engagement by identi-
fying ways in which U.S. residents have withdrawn from normal forms of social
interaction. It is widely accepted by many political and education leaders that the
public schools have failed to engage students with citizenship. The events of 9/11
and the uncertainty highlighted previously have magnified these concerns. Both
the lay public and professional educators acknowledge that traditional methods
of civics education are not preparing students adequately (Rubin, 2015). Research
indicates that young adults are now less likely to be involved in community
activities such as belonging to a group, reading newspapers, working on com-
munity projects, or affiliating with a political party ( Flanagan & Levine, 2010).
Only volunteering is on the rise, largely through school schemes emphasizing
service learning (Parker, 2014). Although many are critical of descriptions of
young people’s inadequate civic knowledge, citing that it fails to represent their
own sense of civic participation, it still indicates the types of civic education that
are privileged in U.S. classrooms.
While citizenship is perceived as important and worthy of attention and
promotion, it is not well defined. Among other things, citizenship denotes the
enjoyment of rights, active participation with members of a community in a
democratic form of government, and a legal status associated with nation-states.
Conceptualizations of citizenship have changed over time in response to internal
and external events such as shifts in political environments, societal understand-
ings of multiculturalism, and increased immigration and globalization. They
have further been shaped by changes in technology and the economy. Many
argue that the definition of citizenship should be broadened from a national to
an international scale (Myers, 2006). However, there is little will in the United
States to move in this direction. Consider, for example, the policies promoted by
President Trump.
At the individual level, people have different underlying beliefs about what
constitutes citizenship and thus, goals for citizenship education. Rationales for
civic education are contested as well. Research conducted to answer the ques-
tion “What kind of citizen do we need to support an effective democratic soci-
ety?” finds Americans hold three different but not mutually exclusive visions of
citizenship: the personally responsible citizen, the participatory citizen, and the
justice-oriented citizen (Westheimer & Kahne, 2004).
The personally responsible citizen acts conscientiously in his or her own com-
munity. Such a citizen engages in activities like paying taxes, obeying laws, vol-
unteering to aid charitable causes, and helping out in times of community crisis.
In contrast, the participatory citizen is an active participant in the civic affairs and
social life of communities at different scales of involvement—local, national,
and even international. Americans holding this view of citizenship believe that
a good citizen works actively within established systems and structures to solve
societal problems, to support democracy, and thus, to improve society. Such citi-
zens are motivated to “fight the good fight” whatever it is.
The third vision of citizenship, that of the good citizen as justice-oriented,

is the least common conceptualization. The justice-oriented citizen questions
authority, calls attention to matters of right and wrong, and works to pursue
issues of social justice. The justice-oriented citizen is more cerebral than vis-
ceral and seeks to analyze and understand social movements and the connections
between political, economic, and social forces in order to effect systemic change
by improving society. The vision of the personally responsible citizen deflects
attention away from the kinds of questions a justice-oriented citizen might ask
about, for example, corporate responsibility. Both the justice-oriented and par-
ticipatory citizens are active in civic affairs, but the emphasis on social problems
and critical analysis of root causes differentiates the justice-oriented citizen. To
summarize, a participatory citizen would organize a neighborhood recycling
scheme, a personally responsible citizen would contribute recyclable goods, and
the justice-oriented citizen would question why society recycles and reuses so
little and then act to solve the root causes of resource misuse.
New citizenship styles are evolving in response to changes in society and
communication technologies, particularly in online and offline environments.
Bennett et al. (2009) identified two paradigms of citizenship: the dutiful citizen
and the actualizing citizen. The dutiful citizen joins social organizations, partici-
pates actively in political movements, stays informed through the news media,
and votes. The actualizing citizen, in contrast, while not participating in tradi-
tional citizenship activities like voting or writing to his or her representative, is
engaged in social activism and focuses on what has been termed lifestyle politics
such as political consumerism, social activism, and concern with social issues like
gay marriage and animal rights. The learning styles of each type of citizen are
different; more young adults are actualizing citizens, the result of growing up
in an information culture based on digital media and hyper-social networking.
Mayes et al. (2016) suggest another conceptualization of types of citizenship:
productive citizenship, compliant citizenship, and consumer citizenship. Traditionally
young people have been prepared through their schooling and experiences to
be compliant citizens, abiding by rules and norms without questioning authority
or society’s structure. However, in the current hyper-globalized world where
countries compete for economic dominance through performance on standard-
ized tests like the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA www.
oecd.org/pisa/) they see a new instrumentalist view of young people who are
measured by their ability to contribute to the economy. This is termed productive
citizenship. A third model of citizenship has arisen during a time in which the
rise of the individual outweighs the collective responsibilities to contribute to a
common good. Individuals choose how to spend their social and civic capital in
order to garner the best possible outcome for themselves. Consumer citizens affect
production and the economy through their “purchasing” decisions.
The three competing typologies are a challenge to combine but all provide
worthwhile and useful perspectives. Dutiful citizens are personally responsible,
compliant, and participatory; actualizing citizens are more focused on their per-
sonal position in society, their ability to produce and consume, and lifestyle
issues related to justice.
How these types of citizens use geospatial technologies and social media will
vary, as will the education programs aimed at each of them. Programs and cur-
ricula with the aim of producing personally responsible, dutiful and compliant
citizens emphasize the development of character traits such as honesty, integ-
rity, hard work, and self-reliance. Such programs promote student volunteer and
service-learning activities so students learn to work for society. Education pro-
grams designed to prepare participatory (but dutiful) citizens emphasize under-
standing how organizations such as governments and charities work and provide
students with practice in planning and participating in organized “good
works.” Students learn to work in society. Justice-oriented, actualizing educa-
tional programs, in turn, teach students about social movements and strategies to
change the system rather than encouraging them to volunteer or do good works.
These programs prepare students to think critically about society.
Each vision of citizenship aims to develop a different type of citizen and uses
different educational means to accomplish the goals. It follows that educators and
others concerned with creating a citizenry in a democracy like the United States
should be aware of these competing views and means. Most citizenship educa-
tion programs emphasize personal responsibility, particularly the components
known as character education and service learning, while ignoring the other two
visions. In fact, citizenship in the current conservative, globally attuned political
and economic climate is limited and focused almost exclusively on “character
education.” This entails “education” in which young people “learn” core val-
ues such as honesty, integrity, loyalty, obedience, and responsibility for one’s
action, not civic engagement. Although these are admirable traits, they are not
attributes or skills which enable an individual to participate in a representative
democracy like the United States. Part of the reason that this rather narrow,
conservative view of citizenship has proven to be so enduring is the attitude of
teachers. When asked to characterize “good citizenship,” 66 percent of teachers
responded “personally responsible.” Only 25 percent chose “participatory” while
4 percent chose “justice-oriented.” As Patterson, Doppen, and Misco (2012,
p. 204) observe:
teachers’ conceptualizations of citizenship education can have a tremendous

impact on the sorts of citizenship learning experiences students receive. . . .
Teachers’ perceived levels of citizen involvement, the value and usage of
social studies content knowledge, and the location of citizenship education
in the curriculum can limit them to a personally responsible stance.
Participatory citizenship and justice-oriented citizenship are essential to a func-

tioning democracy. An artful blend of dutiful and actualizing individuals is
needed to prepare citizens skilled in all dimensions of civics. We need to under-

stand how young citizens become active participants in developing their notions
of citizenship as well (Mayes et al., 2016).
The key question for geography educators, however, is what role geogra-
phy and geospatial technologies can play in any of these conceptualizations of
citizenship.
Geography and Citizenship Education

Geography has historically played a small but important role in citizenship edu-
cation in the United States ( Stoltman, 1990). Early in the 20th century, geog-
raphy, as part of the social studies, served citizenship; it demonstrated “the
interdependence of men while it shows their common dependence on nature”
( Commission on the Reorganization of Secondary Education, 1918). In follow-
ing decades, geography contributed to the development of citizenship by helping
students understand local, national, and global environmental and civic issues
and by providing a geographic context for historical events. Topics and instruc-
tional methods adapted to meet the needs of a changing society. By providing
knowledge about people, places, environments and related political, economic,
and social issues, geography assisted in the preparation of justice-oriented citi-
zens. Traditionally, young Americans’ ignorance of critical world issues and lack
of participation in global affairs has been blamed on poor geography education
(Davis, 2002).
The National Geography Standards: Geography for Life 1994 and its revision
(2012) provided a rationale for geography’s inclusion in the curriculum stating,
“With a strong grasp of geography, people are better equipped to solve issues at
not only the local level but also the global level” (Heffron & Downs, 2012, p. 7).
The Standards squarely placed geography in a new position: preparing participa-
tory citizens. A report on the status of geography in the United States, A Road
Map for Geography Education in the 21st Century (Bednarz, Heffron, & Huynh,
2013) argues the importance of geography education is first and foremost citi-
zenship education.
K-12 geography education is critical preparation for civic life and careers
in the 21st century. . . . [I]n our democratic society, we all participate in
societal decision making about public health, social welfare, environmen-
tal protection, and international affairs. . . . [G]eography education helps
prepare people for these tasks.
(Road Map for Geography Education 2013, p. 17)
Yet another argument for the role of geography in citizenship preparation is the
emancipatory role of mapping in young peoples’ lives and the way it affects their
political formation (Mitchell & Elwood, 2012). One of the results of a year-long
exploratory mapping project with children was the finding that, “the actual
process of talking, writing, and mapping freely together about spatial and emo-
tional encounters—with adults who were not parents or teachers—gave them a
rare opportunity to publically articulate themselves in relation to a wider world”
(p. 797).
The emphasis on civic participation has led to the development of a number of
geography-based lessons in which students role-play to practice civic participa-
tion. Geographers have been quick to adopt service learning, a growing aspect of
citizenship education in the United States. Defined as community service inte-
grated into curricula, a number of examples in which students have served their
community through GIS-based projects exist (Demski, 2011). These projects
typically support a participatory vision of citizenship by encouraging students to
put into practice the knowledge and ideas learned in geography, helping to solve
real community problems alongside other community members. The explosion
of volunteered geographic information (VGI), crowd-sourced data shared across
the Internet by individual citizens is a social practice with enormous implications
for the development of both dutiful and actualizing citizens (Elwood, Good-
child, & Sui, 2012). The exciting work of the SPACIT project in Europe and its
rich conceptualization of spatial citizenship ( Gryl & Jekel, 2012) offers many
lessons for geographers with interests in citizenship in the United States.
In conclusion, geography has played a role in serving visions of citizenship
education in the United States and is now involved in developing personally
responsible citizens through service learning. While valuable, these strategies do
not necessarily involve geography educators in doing geography or developing in
students the skills, practices, and perspectives mentioned in the Standards. Geog-
raphy educators need a new way to contribute to citizenship education in a way
that capitalizes on the strengths of the discipline and its core spatial and ecologi-
cal perspectives. We suggest that geospatial technologies and enhanced spatial
and geospatial thinking, in the context of web-based CyberGIS, a synthesis of
cyberinfrastructure, geographic information science, spatial analysis, and spatial
modeling (Wang, 2010), can play an important role in citizenship education. In
the next section of this chapter we examine a model to prepare young people
for civic engagement and suggest a few venues through which dutiful, produc-
tive, actualizing, participatory, consumer, and justice-oriented citizens can be
developed. These venues fall into three categories: interactive mapping sites; vol-
unteered geographic information (VGI) initiatives; and citizen science projects.
Preparing Young People for Civic Engagement: Geography,

Maps, and Spatial Analysis
Much of the discussion about citizenship education focuses on what young peo-
ple do not know, cannot do, and do not care about. This emphasis on deficits does
not provide guidance to educators about what to do to move students forward
(Mayes et al., 2016) The psychologists Watts and Flanagan (2007) propose a
model based on research in liberation psychology, developmental psychology,
and youth activism that focuses on assets that promote socio-political develop-
ment and hence, civic engagement (Figure 5.1).
The four components of the model are worldview and social analysis; sense
of agency; opportunity structure; and societal involvement behavior. Critical
consciousness is central to worldview and social analysis. Developing in young
people a sense of agency, empowerment, and efficacy is a second component of
the model. Efficacy means a person feels that she or he can make a difference at a
range of scales: personal, collective, and political. The settings, places, contexts,
and resources available for action (opportunity structures) play a key role in pre-
senting young people with the opportunities to learn how to engage with their
communities. Mentors play a key role in these opportunity structures, helping
youth who might not otherwise be involved. The outcome of socio-political
development is engagement with society. Students who develop the assets of a
critical consciousness and sense of agency in positive, supportive settings may
develop the habit of mind to act in civically minded ways. This model does not
specify the type of citizen developed, but clearly a young person who is critical,
empowered, and conscious will be responsible, attuned to social justice issues,
and participatory rather than compliant or consumer-oriented.
We suggest here three ways that geospatial technologies can contribute to this
model of socio-political development.
Interactive Mapping Sites: When we completed a previous version of this chap-
ter, the homicide of a young African American man in Baltimore, Maryland,
and the catastrophic earthquake in Nepal provided a number of examples of ways
that maps, social media, spatial analysis, and geography shaped the development
of citizenship and political identity (see Chapter 6 in this volume). The demon-
strations in Baltimore, peaceful at first, were organized through social media,
Worldview & Societal Involvement

Social Analysis --Commitment
--Behavior
Sense of Opportunity
Agency Structure
FIGURE 5.1 Model of Assets to Promote Civic Engagement (after Watts & Flanagan,
2007)
primarily by high school students, aged 14–18. The ensuing confrontation with
police garnered national attention. But the story of the poverty of Baltimore and
the underlying economic, social, political, and structural factors contributing to
this societal crisis are best told through maps. A number of U.S. newspapers and
media providers, notably the Washington Post, the New York Times, and The
Atlantic Magazine’s CityLab use powerful interactive maps to explore a range of
spatial issues. In the hands of artful geography and social studies teachers, these
CyberGIS resources could encourage young adults to examine significant politi-
cal issues often focused on social justice and to develop knowledge, empathy, and
key citizenship practices. In fact, young adults consult such resources routinely
and rely on them for news, opinions, and analysis. The development of online,
interactive resources by newspapers and magazines is testament to the growing
importance of these information sources, especially to the younger generation.
Such resources contribute to the development of informed worldviews through
spatial analysis. “Location matters” is a key concept in geography and these
resources provide an opportunity structure to enforce this.
Voluntary Geographic Information (VGI) Initiatives : In Nepal the efforts of citi-
zen cartographers are contributing VGI to serve humanitarian efforts using
OpenStreetMap ( https://hotosm.org). Disaster relief has become a shared
experience with individuals thousands of miles away able to help with relief
efforts. The focus is not only on disasters but on community development as
well. Mobile phone applications like SeeClickFix allow citizens to report non-
emergency neighborhood issues such as trash accumulation or broken water
pipes to local government. Once an issue is resolved, contributors and others
in the area receive an update. This form of local community activism may
attract young adults who prefer loose social networks, individual as opposed
to collective actions, and who are avid mobile phone users. It is also an invit-
ing opportunity to learn how to make a difference. A third example of VGI
which contributes to peoples’ environmental awareness and can lead to both
participatory and justice-oriented action are roadkill sites. These are online
data collection points where people report of animals hit and killed by cars.
California and Maine are two states with active websites collecting informa-
tion on animal migrations through this mechanism. It is precisely the kind of
project that geographers can engage in to interest students in threatened and
endangered places and environments. The ability to access information and
visualize conditions in real time can make young people critically cognizant of
issues and conditions, the precursor to the formation of political identity and
action. Finally, a fourth example appears in this volume in Chapter 7 where
Schlemper and Stewart describe an ambitious project with urban high school
students to map and critically envision their neighborhood. Their results have
been shared with city officials and others to encourage changes in governance
and participation. Initial findings of the project show greatly enhanced sense
of efficacy in student participants.
Citizen Science Projects: In many cases it is difficult to distinguish between

VGI initiatives and Citizen Science projects; in both instances individuals are
engaged in collecting data and sharing it using web-based services. However,
Citizen Science projects tend to focus more on environmental issues and con-
cerns, to recruit amateurs to work with professional scientists, and to emphasize
doing science. The Citizen Science movement has been framed as a way to excite
the general public about science and to demystify the processes of “discovery.”
The Citizen Science project most close to geography and geography education is
FieldScope, sponsored by the National Geographic Society. FieldScope’s tag line
is online mapping for Citizen Science investigation and that is what it offers through
projects that range from understanding water quality issues in a heavily urban-
ized watershed, Chesapeake Bay, to monitoring the arrival of spring in order
to explore climate change. FieldScope incorporates a mobile phone application
linked to a website and allows individuals, primarily students aged 12–16, to
collect and contribute data that can be mapped. Some of the lessons designed for
use by educators explicitly require students to make decisions and recommend
policies based on their analyses of environmental data. These young adults par-
ticipate in a group endeavor to improve their community; they are developing
the critical and analytical skills essential to a justice orientation; and they are
contributing to the solution of community problems. Thus, while Citizen Sci-
ence projects are designed primarily to encourage young people to do science,
the opportunity to address broader, systemic, and structural issues from a justice
perspective and to develop socio-politically aware individuals is present.
Next Steps
Research on the effectiveness of various citizenship education programs in the
United States indicates mixed success (Mayes et al., 2016; Bennett et al., 2009;
Westheimer & Kahne, 2004) and focuses more on deficits than assets. Programs
that emphasize participation do not necessarily develop student abilities to ana-
lyze and think critically about the root causes of civic problems or move students
to develop socio-politically. At the same time, educational initiatives aimed at
character development do not create students interested in or possessing the skills
to engage and participate in civic life.
Geography educators should be committed to the development of well-
rounded citizens with the personal characteristics, skills, and habits of mind
required for citizenship in a democracy. While engaging in geospatial projects is
not the only way that geography can participate more fully in citizenship educa-
tion, we believe it is an effective and appropriate way for students to use the core
spatial and ecological perspectives of geography and to contribute to their com-
munity, nation, and world. To this end we recommend that geographers embrace
the ideals of citizenship education and marry it with our skills and practices in
dynamic representations. Finally, we conclude with a call for careful and focused
research to uncover the effects of these different types of geospatial technologies

on young adults. What works, why, how, for whom, under what circumstances,
and to what ends? How does working with geographic tools and perspectives
contribute to the development of young people as citizens?
References
Baker, T. R., Battersby, S., Bednarz, S. W., Bodzin, A. M., Kolvoord, B., Moore, S., . . .
Uttal, D. (2015). A research agenda for geospatial technologies and learning. Journal
of Geography, 114 (3), 118–130.
Bednarz, R. S., & Bednarz, S. W. (2008). The importance of spatial thinking in an
uncertain world. In D. Z. Sui & S. L. Cutter (Eds.), Geospatial technologies and homeland
security (pp. 315–330). New York, NY: Springer.
Bednarz, S. W., & Acheson, G. A. (2003). Learning to be a citizen in post 9/11 United
States: What role for geography? Proceedings of the commission on geographic education,
geography and citizenship education. Institute of Education, University of London.
Bednarz, S. W., Heffron, S. M., & Huynh, N. T. (2013). A roadmap for 21st century geogra-
phy education: Geography education research. Washington, DC: Association of American
Geographers.
Bennett, W. L., Wells, C., & Rank, A. (2009). Young citizens and civic learning: Two
paradigms of citizenship in the digital age. Citizenship Studies, 13(2), 105–120.
Commission on the Reorganization of Secondary Education. (1918). Cardinal principles of
secondary education. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office. Retrieved from
https://archive.org/details/cardinalprincipl00natiuoft
Davis, M. R. (2002, November 27). Paige urges new focus on international education.
Education Week, p. 20.
Demski, J. (2011). Map quests. The Journal. Retrieved from http://thejournal.com/Articles/
2011/09/12/Map-Quests.aspx?p=1
Downs, R. M. (2014). Coming of age in the geospatial revolution: The geographic self
re-defined. Human Development, 57, 35–57.
Elwood, S., Goodchild, M. F., & Sui, D. Z. (2012). Researching volunteered geographic
information: Spatial data, geographic research, and new social practice. Annals of the
Association of American Geographers, 102 (3), 571–590.
Flanagan, C., & Levine, P. (2010). Civic engagement and the transition to adulthood. The
Future of Children, 20 (1), 159–179.
Kahne, J., Hodgin, E., & Eidman-Aadahl, E. (2016). Redesigning civic education for the
digital age: Participatory politics and the pursuit of democratic engagement. Theory
and Research in Social Education, 44 (1), 1–35.
Keeter, S., Zukin, C., Andolina, M., & Jenkins, K. (2002). The civic and political health of
the nation: A generational portrait. Retrieved from www.civicyouth.org/research/products/
Civic_Political_Health.pdf
Mayes, E., Mitra, D. L., & Serriere, S. C. (2016). Figuring world of citizenship: Exam-
ining differences made in ‘making a difference’ in an elementary school classroom.
American Educational Research Journal, 53(3), 605–638.
Mitchell, K., & Elwood, S. (2012). Mapping children’s politics: The promise of articula-
tion and the limits or nonrepresentational theory. Environment and Planning D: Society
and Space, 30 (5), 788–804.
Murphy, J. B. (2002, September 15). Good students and good citizens. The New York Times.
Myers, J. P. (2006). Rethinking the social studies curriculum in the context of globaliza-
tion: Education for global citizenship in the U.S. Theory and Research in Social Educa-
tion, 34 (3), 370–394.
NAEP. (2015). Retrieved from www.nationsreportcard.gov/hgc_2014/#civics/achievement
National Research Council Committee on Spatial Thinking. (2006). Learning to think
spatially. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.
Parker, W. C. (2014). Citizenship education in the United States: Regime type, founda-
tional issues, and classroom practice. In L. P. Nucci, D. Narvaez, & T. Krettenauer
(Eds.), The handbook of moral and character education (pp. 347–367). New York, NY:
Routledge.
Patterson, N., Doppen, F., & Misco, T. (2012). Beyond personally responsible: A study of
teacher conceptualizations of citizenship education. Education, Citizenship and Social
Justice, 7(2), 191–206.
Putnam, R. (2000). Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community. New
York, NY: Simon & Schuster.
Rubin, B. C. (2015). A time for social studies: Talking with young people about Ferguson
and Staten Island. Social Education, 79 (1), 22–29.
Sinton, D. S. (2011). Spatial thinking. In J. Stoltman (Ed.), 21st century geography: A refer-
ence handbook (pp. 733–744). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Stoltman, J. P. (1990). Geography education for citizenship. Boulder, CO: Social Science
Education Consortium.
Thornton, S. J. (2004). Citizenship and social studies curriculum change after 9/11. In C.
H. Woyshner, J. Vargas, & M. Crocco (Eds.), Social education in the 20th century (pp.
210–222). New York, NY: Peter Lang.
Uttal, D. H. (2000). Seeing the big picture: Map use and the development of spatial cog-
nition. Geospatial technology competency model. Developmental Science, 3(3), 247–264.
Uttal, D. H. (2005). Spatial symbols and spatial thought: Cross cultural, developmental,
and historical perspectives on the relation between map use and spatial cognition. In
L. Namy (Ed.), Symbol use and symbolic representation: Developmental and comparative
perspectives (pp. 2–23). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Wang, S. (2010). A cyberGIS framework for the synthesis of cyberinfrastructure, GIS,
and spatial analysis. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 100 (3), 535–557.
Watts, R. J., & Flanagan, C. (2007). Pushing the envelope on youth civic engagement: A
developmental, and liberation psychology perspective. Journal of Community Psychol-
ogy, 35(6), 779–792.
6
REDISCOVERING THE LOCAL
Collaborative, Community Maps for
Civic Awareness
Todd W. Kenreich
In April 2015, thousands of Baltimore, Maryland residents protested in response

to the severe injury of Freddie Gray while he was in police custody. Several days
later, Gray died from his injuries, and the world watched as parts of his city
were set ablaze. The epicenter of the Baltimore uprising was the neighborhood
of Sandtown-Winchester. By all accounts, this particular neighborhood faced
significant urban challenges such as high rates of poverty, crime, school attrition,
unemployment, incarceration, drug addiction, food insecurity, abandoned hous-
ing, and homelessness (Jacob France Institute, 2016). The neighborhood was iso-
lated geographically from major transportation links and socially isolated from
the wider metropolitan area. In the wake of the uprising, city leaders offered sug-
gestions for urban reform, but the voices of the city’s children were largely absent
from the conversation. What if collaborative, community maps could provide
a fresh opportunity for children to see themselves as emerging civic actors who
have something to say about the community and its future?
This chapter explores the unique power of geography to advance social justice
aims within the broader project of citizenship education and what John Dewey
described as “creative democracy.” The chapter begins with an introduction to
education for social justice and then an explanation of the importance of local
geography in the curriculum. To translate this theory into classroom practice, an
example of a neighborhood mapping activity will be described. The chapter ends
with suggestions and resources for geography educators who seek to promote
spatial citizenship.
Education for Social Justice and Democracy

For nearly a century, progressives have questioned the traditional aims of educa-
tion in the United States. Writing at a time of enormous economic and social
Rediscovering the Local 73
upheaval in the 1930s, George Counts (1978) challenged teachers and schools to
take on greater responsibility for the improvement of society. For him, imme-
diate contemporary issues like poverty were topics that belonged in the school
curriculum. As such, schools needed to take on a leadership role in addressing
the social ills of the day.
Also, writing in the 1930s, education philosopher John Dewey noted that
“for a long period, we acted as if our democracy perpetuated itself automati-
cally” (1976, p. 225). While observing the rise of totalitarian states in Germany
and elsewhere, he warned that the “powerful present enemies of democracy
can be successfully met only by the creation of personal attitudes in individual
human beings” (p. 226). For Dewey, the democratic values of equal opportunity
and justice relied in part on a steadfast “faith in the capacity of human beings
for intelligent judgment and action” (p. 227). Education, then, was the key for
the cultivation of individuals who could think for themselves using democratic
values. Dewey went further to explain that “the task of democracy is forever
that of creation of a freer and more humane experience in which all share and
to which all contribute” (p. 300). Together, Counts and Dewey remind us that
progressive teaching and learning should not only develop the individual but also
serve the common good.
Local Geography in the Curriculum

Fieldwork in geography education has long been imbued with the larger aims
of moral and civic development. In the early 20th century, short walks around
a school’s vicinity, known as school surveys, were common in the UK. These
were designed not only to introduce important local physical and human fea-
tures but also to “foster civic awareness and promote popular participation in
local policy decisions” (Ploszajska, 1998, p. 762). In Germany, heimatkunde (study
of home environment) fulfilled a similar aim as teachers and children observed
and explored the local community (Barton, 2009). In early 20th-century Japan,
noted educator Tsunesaburo Makiguchi pointed to the value of geography
fieldwork on students’ daily living in order to promote character development
(Gebert & Joffee, 2007).
Today in the United States, the expanding horizons approach to the K-12
social studies curriculum begins with a study of the family and community
in the earliest grades, followed by an exploration of the state often in fourth
grade, and of the nation and world in middle and high school. The curriculum
seeks to prepare young people for active citizenship in a democratic society. By
high school, though, the expanding horizons approach marginalizes the local
community because the nation-state becomes the de facto frame of reference
for learning. Traditional high school courses in U.S. history, world history, and
American government often fail to make immediate connections to the commu-
nity. As a result, the expanding horizons approach inadvertently short-circuits a
vital component for active citizenship—namely a critical understanding of the
74 Todd W. Kenreich
community and one’s role in it—at the very time when older students are tak-
ing on new rights and responsibilities. Rediscovering the local, though, can be a
remedy to this problem.
There is a burgeoning interest in the use of digital geography by laypeople and
children. Participatory mapping often involves the public using geospatial tools
to address immediate, real-world concerns such as emergency response (Wridt,
Seley, Fisher, & DuBois, 2014). Now new attention has been paid to local map-
ping initiatives as a vehicle for students to develop a range of knowledge, skills,
and dispositions for spatial citizenship. Such initiatives promote an understand-
ing of local history (Alibrandi, Beal, Thompson, & Wilson, 2000), a knowledge
of the spatial expression of inclusion and exclusion ( Schmidt & Kenreich, 2015),
a deeper sense of place (Bartos, 2013; den Besten, 2010; Wood, 2013), the skill
of geographic reasoning (Alibrandi, Milson, & Shin, 2010; Bednarz, Acheson, &
Bednarz, 2006; Bednarz & Bednarz, 2008; Shin, 2007; Sobel, 1998), the skills
of data analysis and visualization ( Rubel, Hall-Wieckert, & Lim, 2016), and a
disposition for civic awareness and action (Elwood & Mitchell, 2013; Gordon,
Elwood, & Mitchell, 2016; Mitchell & Elwood, 2012a, 2012b; Taylor & Rogers,
2013; Weber, 2013; Wridt, 2005, 2010). For example, Taylor and Rogers (2013)
describe the practice of “counter-mapping” where youth create their own maps
as a way to challenge dominant narratives and existing power relations. In their
study, six non-driving teenagers explored mobility for bicyclists in a city, cre-
ated interactive maps of the uneven mobility for bicyclists, and ultimately they
recommended a new bike lane to city officials. This demonstrates that students’
emerging sense of place and sense of belonging are important in youth concep-
tions of citizenship (Hall, Coffey, & Williamson, 1999; Osler & Starkey, 2005).
One way to promote spatial citizenship is through inquiry-based learning.
Recent priorities in geography education support inquiry-based learning (Hef-
fron & Downs, 2012; National Academies of Science, 2006; Schell, Roth, &
Mohan, 2013). These priorities dovetail closely with the Common Core’s
emphases on disciplinary literacy and critical thinking skills ( Council of Chief
State School Officers, 2010) as well as with the College, Career, and Civic Life
(C3) Framework’s emphasis on inquiry learning (National Council for the Social
Studies, 2013). As such, geography teachers are well positioned to connect a
local mapping project to existing curriculum standards. Such a project deepens
disciplinary literacy through the use of geographic concepts and tools. At the
same time, the project promotes problem-solving and critical thinking through
what Scheurman and Newmann (1998) describe as “authentic intellectual work,”
namely learning tasks with value outside of a traditional academic setting. While
inquiry-based learning is an important aim in and of itself, a local mapping
project can go further by challenging students to venture beyond the classroom
to conduct geographic fieldwork in a real-world setting and consider themselves
as civic actors. By promoting spatial citizenship, geography inquiry can be a
powerful tool for students to develop a critical understanding of themselves in
relation to their community, state, nation, and world (Kenreich, 2013). What
follows is a description of a community map project, as well as a set of steps to
implement a similar project in the classroom.
“My Neighborhood, Our Baltimore”: A Community

Mapping Project
To commemorate the one-year anniversary of the 2015 uprising in Baltimore,
the Maryland Geographic Alliance offered a special workshop for Baltimore city
teachers. The workshop focused on geography as a tool to rediscover the local
community. Inspired by curriculum reform efforts to anchor the community
within a larger context (American Association of Geographers, 2002; Woyach &
Remy, 1982), this workshop provided teachers with the opportunity to learn
more about the urban geography of Baltimore. The teachers examined the Uni-
versity of Baltimore Jacob France Institute’s (2016) set of highly interactive maps
that trace key quality of life indicators in the city’s neighborhoods. Then, teach-
ers were introduced to ESRI’s mapping template known as Story Map. The tool
allows users to build a web-based series of slides that include maps, text, and
images with options for multimedia features. A Teacher Consultant modeled
the steps to design a Story Map, and then the teachers worked in pairs to create
a short Story Map of their own. This activity was designed to spark teachers’
imagination for the instructional application of this tool with their students.
As we discussed the upcoming anniversary of the 2015 uprising, teachers
anticipated instructional challenges and opportunities. One teacher mentioned
that little would be said by teachers in her school because “we have students
related to the family of Freddie Gray and we have students related to the police
officers charged in this case. We have to walk a fine line with this issue.”
Another teacher explained that “there is an air of despair that comes over kids
at my school. When tough times strike, they shrug and say ‘that’s the way it is
in Baltimore.’” However, another teacher suggested that “if my classroom isn’t
a safe space to discuss current issues, I don’t know where my kids will find the
support they need to ask the hard questions and make sense of what’s happening
in our neighborhood. Isn’t that part of the job of being a good teacher?” Mul-
tiple perspectives from teachers revealed the complexity of bringing community
issues into the classroom.
After participating in the workshop, Mrs. Washington (pseudonym), a life-
long resident of Baltimore and teacher in the 26th year of her career, planned for
a five-week “My Neighborhood, Our Baltimore” project that would promote
the spatial citizenship of her students (see Table 6.1).
During Week 1, she began a local mapping project by asking her fourth-grade
students to brainstorm problems in their Baltimore neighborhood. To open the
discussion, a girl paused and sternly stated, “I don’t know if this is what you’re
looking for, but I’m gonna say it. It’s way too dangerous. I don’t feel safe walking
76 Todd W. Kenreich
Table 6.1 Mapping Project Sequence
Week 1 Project Purpose and Brainstorming Topic of Inquiry

Internet Research of Locations
Week 2 Design of Interview Questions
Conducting Two Interviews
Week 3 Transcription of Interviews
Selection of Key Quotations from Interviews
Week 4 Collaborating on Story Map Design
In-Class Rehearsal of Story Map Presentation
Week 5 Story Map Presentation for Community Group
Written Reflection on Project
in the park.” Mrs. Washington replied, “Thank you. We want to know more
about that, but let’s start by putting down ‘unsafe’ on our list. Let’s hear from
some others.” Then the list of problems quickly expanded: drugs, shootings,
theft, garbage, and the police. A boy explained that the “police don’t step up
when there’s trouble and that’s a problem.” His comment shifted the discussion
briefly to the lack of trust between the community and the police. The teacher
took this moment to mention that crime was up since the uprising. Rather than
discussing this further, though, she returned to the list of problems and said,
“How about a few more ideas? I want to hear from everyone.” A girl quietly
called out, “Can’t get jobs,” and another girl followed up with “Too many [men]
go to jail.” Taking the discussion in a different direction, a boy grinned and said,
“Seems like everybody lit.” The teacher asked what the student meant by “lit,”
and the student explained “people drinking more than they should, you know,
all drunk.” Several students nodded in agreement. “I’m not just talking about my
uncle drinkin’ all weekend. I’m talking about what I smell in the morning . . .
when I pass by the homies standing around in front of the carry-out and the guys
sitting on the park benches. Just sippin’ from bottles in paper bags. I mean, who
they foolin’ with the paper bag?”
Seizing a teachable moment, Mrs. Washington asked her class to begin to
think geographically by considering the many neighborhood sites where alco-
hol was available. To the teacher’s surprise, her young students readily named
several local bars and carry-outs where alcohol was sold. Mrs. Washington then
explained that the students were going to create a “living map” of sites where
alcohol was served and use it to tell the story of alcohol as a problem in the neigh-
borhood. In this case, the students’ research did not involve visiting any of the
sites even though many of the students walk past more than one establishment
on their way to school. Instead, the students used Google Maps to identify the
addresses of local sites and recorded these on a graphic organizer.
During Week 2, the students moved into the fieldwork stage of the project.
This took the form of interviewing two adults in the community for their opin-
ions about the high density of local establishments that sell alcohol. To prepare
for the interview, the students worked in groups of three to draft two sample
questions. Circulating throughout the classroom, Mrs. Washington provided
support as students wrestled with what one student said, “getting the words just
right.” As groups shared their questions on the front board, the teacher invited
the students to walk up and put a star next to the top three questions. After
some lively discussion, Mrs. Washington announced that the interview ques-
tions would be: (1) where is alcohol sold in our neighborhood, and what is the
busiest place that sells it?, (2) why are there so many places that sell alcohol in
our neighborhood?, and 3) what can be done to address the problem of alco-
hol abuse in our neighborhood? The next day, the students received interview
graphic organizers that included a short scripted introduction, a request to record
the interview, each question with room for hand-written notes, and finally a
reminder to say “thank you” to the interviewee.
After students had conducted their interviews, they described the challenges
of transcribing the responses. This alone was far more difficult than most stu-
dents anticipated. One student observed, “My aunt talks so fast that it’s hard to
write it all down.” Another mentioned that “I used my mom’s iPhone to record
both interviews, and I felt pretty important asking my questions. I didn’t even try
to take notes during the interview. . . . But when I played back the interviews, it
took me forever to write everything out.”
During Week 3, Mrs. Washington led a powerful in-class discussion about the
interview responses and worked closely with students as they selected excerpts
from key quotations that could illustrate patterns of responses. For example, in
response to the first question about where alcohol is sold, a number of interview-
ees mentioned the same four places. Along two blocks of the main north-south
artery, there is a bar, a small restaurant, a liquor store, and corner carry-out.
While students pointed to the names of a few additional sites in the neighbor-
hood, they noted that the carry-out was most often identified as the busiest place
that sold alcohol. One boy shared a part of his interview with his grandmother:
“Hmm. It’s been problem here for long, long time. Ever since . . . [carry-out #1]
opened in the 90s, there have been a lot of men congregating at all hours on the
street corner. It’s even busier than . . . [bar #1] because . . . [carry-out #1] never
closes—open day and night.” It was clear that the students’ varied evidence had
answered the first question about where alcohol is sold and the busiest vendor.
Students struggled a bit to make sense of the responses for the more powerful
question: why are there so many places selling it here in our neighborhood?
To help students further tackle this complex question that addressed what Soja
(2010) calls spatial justice, the students learned about the concepts of zoning and
land use as well as the supply and demand for alcohol.
For Week 4, the students worked in the computer lab to collaborate on
their Story Map. First, Mrs. Washington walked the students through a sam-
ple from the ESRI Story Map gallery, and they discussed which design features
made the Story Map more appealing to the reader. “Less is more,” repeated
78 Todd W. Kenreich
Mrs. Washington in an attempt to steer the design process, but a few students
expressed earlier frustration from Week 3 that they “had way more quotes from
the interviews” that were now not included in the Story Map. Mrs. Washington
reassured the students that their hard work with transcribing was necessary in
order to reveal larger patterns of responses to the interview questions, and she
carefully explained that selecting excerpts of key quotations inevitably means
that not all interview responses were included in the Story Map. Still, the work
moved forward as students used their graphic organizer for the interview in
order to structure the slides of their Story Map to address each of the three ques-
tions. The final version of the Story Map included five slides: (1) an introduction
to the topic and methods of inquiry, (2) a neighborhood map with green dots
to indicate places that sell alcohol, a red dot for the busiest place, and three text
boxes with supporting quotations from interviews, (3) bullet points of two major
explanations for the density of alcohol vendors with two text boxes, (4) a list of
three recommendations to address the issue, and (5) a map with a class photo at
the location of the school that includes the caption, “Today’s presenters are . . .
[names] from Mrs. Washington’s 4th grade class.”
With Mrs. Washington’s help, her students found an opportunity to attend a
community meeting the following week. Two students volunteered and a third
was selected by the teacher to be the spokespersons for the presentation of the
Story Map. As a class, the students suggested important “big ideas” to include in
the presentation. The presenters practiced their lines for homework one night and
returned the next day for a dress rehearsal with their classmates. In Week 5, they
presented their Story Map and reported their findings about the community’s
easy access to alcohol. Pointing to their map of alcohol vendors, they used their
knowledge of zoning to offer explanations for the local density of vendors. As a
part of their recommendations, they explained the need to scrutinize when and
where new establishments might seek to sell alcohol. In addition, the students
recommended that the community do a better job of sharing information about
where and when meetings are held to help those who struggle with alcohol abuse.
By the end of Week 5, the teacher and her students reflected on the value
of the mapping activity. Mrs. Washington stated, “I was so proud to watch my
kids speak in front of a room full of adults. Listen, the map wasn’t my attempt
to bring back Prohibition. It’s my kids learning to identify alcohol as a real issue
and bringing in geography to see it better. The map got them thinking about
what needs changing around here.” One of the student presenters reflected on
the experience by saying, “Getting up in front of everybody, well, I loved that.
What felt the best was seeing the adults listen to us, I mean, really listening to
us. Our Story Map looked legit, so they had to listen up. We had info to back up
our ideas.” Another student wrote that “It’s the first time that I’m thinking about
how you can map almost anything . . . even places that sell alcohol. The project
showed me that maps can help you look at a problem up close . . . right here . . .
and start to figure it out.”
At the same time, the project was not without its challenges. Mrs. Wash-
ington explained that she found it difficult to draw the line between teacher-
led and student-led inquiry. She was concerned that she may have done too
much to shape the mapping project when she intended to allow the students
to guide more of the initial direction and topic selection. Mrs. Washington
raised an important point because inquiry learning by itself does not neces-
sarily lead to spatial citizenship unless the teacher intentionally helps to foster
students’ civic identity and their capacity as civic actors along the way. Mrs.
Washington went on explain that she “kept saying the name of the project,
‘My Neighborhood, Our Baltimore’ and exaggerating ‘my’ and ‘our’ to give
them a sense of belonging.” Also, one student’s ref lection cast doubt on the
effectiveness of the project in terms of its value for the community. She wrote,
“I learned about telling a story with maps, and that’s interesting. So, it [proj-
ect] was a good idea, but was it enough to fix the problem? I’m still wondering
about that and what else we should do.” Perhaps this perspective demonstrates
the complexity of the project in that some students may interpret positive first
steps in civic action as falling short of their goals. Yet, it also reminds us that
even fourth-graders can see that civic action must be more than a one-time
event in one place. At its best, spatial citizenship develops students’ capacity
to see themselves as civic actors in multiple settings and scales over space and
time. Viewing the process and product of this project together, Mrs. Wash-
ington’s class illustrates the power of a collaborative, community map to acti-
vate students’ spatial citizenship by engaging and empowering them to work
together for a stronger community.
Getting Started With Collaborative, Community Mapping

To promote spatial citizenship, inquiry-based mapping projects require careful
planning and structure. From the outset, the educator frames the project with
a clear emphasis on inquiry that can lead to greater civic awareness and action.
Such inquiry needs a purpose greater than merely “earning an A.” The power of
the project lies in taking up an issue that has meaning to students and to other
stakeholders in the community. Here are seven steps to follow in the creation of
a collaborative community map.
1. Collaborate with geographers. Reach out to local geographers before con-

ducting the project. The Network of Alliances for Geographic Education
(http://alliances.nationalgeographic.com/) is a great resource to help iden-
tify geographers at a local university, government office, or private firm.
Professional geographers are often interested in collaborating with a local
school to help students develop an interest in geography as a career. For stu-
dents, an embodied geographer can bring the field to life as they observe a
geographer in action, using her expertise to solve important problems. Also,
80 Todd W. Kenreich
geographers can provide technical support for teachers and students as they
use Story Map or other web-based mapping tools.
2. Brainstorm with students. The teacher’s job here is to set the stage for a
productive and lively exchange of ideas. Using an initial writing prompt
can promote greater student participation in the brainstorming sessions. Ask
students what places in the community are important to them. Why are
these places important? How might the students create a map that high-
lights places of interest? What audience would be interested in the students’
perceptions of the community? What sources of data could be gathered to
add details to the map? This is an exciting step where the students begin to
see themselves as spatial citizens by taking ownership of the project and thus
greater responsibility for their learning.
3. Select mapping tool. The teacher chooses a web-based mapping tool that
allows students to upload content to a map of the local community. There
are a number of tools including Story Map, MapMe, Scribble Maps, and
Google Maps. To expedite the project, the teacher should make three impor-
tant decisions at the very beginning. First, use the web-based mapping tool
to establish the boundaries of the community map. This sets the geographic
context for the entire project. Second, make decisions about whether the
access to the map is restricted to students or available to the wider public. If
the map is made available to the public, then be sure to protect the identity
of all students by using initials or pseudonyms for any student-created text
or comment. Third, identify which layers (or themes of data) may be added
to the map. Keep in mind that more than two layers may distract students as
they create their map. For more information about this, consult Alibrandi’s
(2011) guide for teachers. For advanced students, they can also read Chapter
1 from Brewer’s (2006) Designing Better Maps as a way to learn about carto-
graphic design concepts like visual hierarchy.
4. Gather data. Based on brainstorming, students work in teams or pairs to
gather data. This involves students in doing authentic intellectual work. For
example, one group conducts fieldwork beyond the school to photograph
landmarks of interest. Another group interviews classmates or community
members to capture people’s thoughts and opinions about the community.
Yet another group uses the Internet to conduct research on the historical
and economic development of the community. In each case, the groups are
responsible for collecting, editing, formatting, and storing their data so that
it can be uploaded to the community map.
5. Upload data. Working with a set of laptops or other devices, the teacher
leads students in the use of the web-based mapping tool to upload their data
to a common map. The success of this step depends in part on the digital
savvy of the students and the ability of the teacher to quickly field student
questions. Begin by demonstrating how to upload data (text or photo) to a
precise point on the map. For most mapping tools, this is a straightforward
task as long as the data is in the proper file format. After the data has been
uploaded to the map, students review and proofread their contribution to
the map.
6. Analyze map. Maps should be used to ask and answer geographic questions.
While some answers may prove elusive, the practice of using maps to ask
questions can help students to develop critical thinking skills necessary for
spatial citizenship. What geographic patterns emerge from our map? What
does our map tell us about our community and ourselves? What is missing
from our map? What additional data could be gathered to improve the map?
How might our map bring attention to important issues in the community?
How might we take collective action based on new conclusions from the
map? What did we learn from the process of creating a community map?
Powerful questions like these can build the habit of mind needed for spatial
citizenship.
7. Share map. Showcase the students’ map by proudly sharing it (online or in
print) with key stakeholders in the community. Parents, school administra-
tors, community leaders, and local government officials may enjoy viewing
the work of the students. A concise, well-crafted press release can alert local
media to the importance the students’ work. In addition, the local state geo-
graphic alliance can provide additional visibility for teachers and students.
Teacher Resources
Beyond the preceding steps, here are four resources that can help teachers further
conceptualize, design, and implement a local mapping project.
Baltimore Green Map (www.baltogreenmap.org/)

Thousands of cities throughout the world now host an interactive open map
where residents can use the signature icons of the international Green Map Sys-
tem to identify local sites in relation to sustainable living, nature, and commu-
nity resources. This Baltimore map is a powerful example of how participatory
mapping can “crowdsource” local geographic knowledge of green spaces and
the natural environment. The website includes regional, neighborhood, and the-
matic maps such as one that focuses on recycling sites throughout the city. With
a user-friendly interface, local green maps like these invite students to contribute
to the map in order to promote a more sustainable community.
Center for Understanding the Built Environment

(http://cubekc.org/)
For more than four decades, this Kansas City organization has promoted
community-based learning. Here educators can find instructional materials for
82 Todd W. Kenreich
the Walk Around the Block and Box City projects that involve students mapping
their community.
Child Friendly Spaces (http://childfriendlyplaces.org/)

Pamela Wridt and her colleagues in the Children’s Environments Resource
Group at the City University of New York have developed a comprehensive set
of instructional materials including an educator’s toolkit for launching a col-
laborative exploration of the community. The toolkit provides assessments and
strategies for planning, advocacy, and civic action related to six topics: (1) play
and recreation, (2) nature and ecology, (3) safety and protection, (4) health and
social services, (5) participation, and (6) housing and learning environments. Not
only are the materials available in English and Spanish, but also the materials
include well-designed icons and graphics to support younger students and those
who may struggle with reading.
My Community, Our Earth: Geographic Learning for Sustainable

Development (http://meridian.aag.org/mycoe/index.htm)
Sponsored by the leading organization of professional geographers in the United
States, this website introduces the concept of sustainable development as an aim
for education. It provides an instructional resource toolkit for teachers who seek
to start a class project. The gallery section documents a number of curriculum
projects related to issues such as: biodiversity, climate change, deforestation, epi-
demics, erosion, land use, natural disasters, natural resources, pollution, poverty,
recycling, transportation infrastructure, urbanization, and water. Here teachers
can find powerful examples of inquiry-based projects that effectively anchor
global issues within a local context.
Conclusion
Geographer Yi-Fu Tuan eloquently described geography as “the study of earth
as the home of people” (1991, p. 99), and this chapter foregrounds the concept
of “home” by rediscovering the local in order to promote spatial citizenship.
Developing a deeper sense of place goes hand-in-hand with the larger social jus-
tice aim of making the world a better place. Without a deeper sense of place, it
can be difficult for students to see themselves as spatial citizens who belong and
take a growing responsibility for themselves and their community. In an affluent
community, some students take their community for granted because the com-
munity consistently meets the basic needs of its members and provides for the
common good. Ironically, in this view, students see little need to take an interest
in the common good because the community operates effectively without the
students’ input or contribution. In an underserved community, though, some
students see an unsafe place where the need for self-preservation outweighs any
interest in the common good. The challenge, then, for social justice educators is
to meet students where they are, and the study of local geography does just that.
In an increasingly mobile society where many people move every several years,
we need to help students rediscover their local community by fostering: (1) a
greater appreciation of the community as a foundation for a communal identity
and sense of belonging, (2) an understanding of the community as a dynamic
microcosm of larger social and spatial forces, and (3) a vision of the community
as a site for civic action. In the “My Neighborhood, Our Baltimore” project, Mrs.
Washington’s students began to articulate a greater sense of belonging in the com-
munity as they explored the local issue of alcohol. One student wrote that
In my neighborhood, I know that lot of people drink too much. . . . My

family lives here, and I got to say that this is our problem, it’s everybody’s
problem—whether you drink too much or not. I’m learning that growing
up means looking straight at problems and not making excuses to look
away.
The students’ reference to “our problem” is evidence of a young person’s evolv-

ing civic identity that includes a greater responsibility for the community.
Mrs. Washington’s students placed their community within a larger con-
text when they explained that zoning rules informed where alcohol is sold in
their neighborhood. During the community presentation, one of the students
explained that “Zoning rules tell people where they can set up certain businesses
and where they can’t. The city sets the rules, and that shapes our neighbor-
hood and other neighborhoods.” Here the students began to situate the local
geography of alcohol vendors within a broader context that included the city
of Baltimore. While more could have been done to strengthen students’ under-
standing of the neighborhood’s ties beyond the city, this nonetheless represents
an important first step for fourth-grade students’ spatial citizenship. This step
lays an important foundation for enhancing students’ spatial citizenship in the
middle and high school grades with more sophisticated connections between the
community and the world.
A deeper sense of place and an understanding of the ties between places are
necessary but not sufficient for promoting spatial citizenship. In the end, view-
ing the community as a site for civic action is the linchpin of spatial citizenship.
By honoring her students’ lived experiences and perceptions of the community,
Mrs. Washington empowered her students to see themselves as civic actors who
can take collective action toward a shared goal. Along with the mantra that
“geography matters” was the idea that the students matter. Mrs. Washington
pointed out that the project was “about more than maps—it was about maturity,
trust, and putting my kids on the map with dignity.” For Mrs. Washington,
larger core values informed a robust spatial citizenship.
84 Todd W. Kenreich
Rediscovering the local requires a savvy teacher like Mrs. Washington who
creatively and strategically brings local geography into the curriculum. Yet, this
can be challenging for teachers who find that their school curriculum has nar-
rowed to align with the demands of standardized tests. At its worst, a simplistic
study of the local context could lead to a provincialism where students see their
community as superior to the world, inferior to the world, or separate from the
world. With such a distorted view of the local, there would be little reason to
learn and explore beyond the boundaries of the community. However, a rich
study of the local can spark students’ curiosity to examine the community’s
ties with the wider world. Making these connections can further enhance stu-
dents’ civic competence (Kirshner, 2015; Parker, 2003) as well as their world-
mindedness (Banks et al., 2005; Fitchett & Goodman, 2012; Gaudelli & Heilman,
2009; Kenreich, 2010; Pike, 2007).
As teachers and teacher educators, we need to pause and ask ourselves what
is the larger purpose of geographic inquiry in schools? Learning place-name
location and fundamental geographic concepts is an essential starting point, but
geographic inquiry can offer much more. Now, more than ever, digital geogra-
phy enables us to analyze the community in fresh new ways. By democratizing
geospatial information, digital geography offers unprecedented public access to
geospatial data and increasingly user-friendly mapping tools so that even stu-
dents can design a map that looks, in the words of one student, “legit.” With the
authority that maps convey, the students of the Baltimore mapping project began
to develop a sense of empowerment as spatial citizens who can marshal evidence
to persuade an audience. Digital community maps can help students cultivate
a deeper sense of place ( Gruenewald, 2003) and a civic awareness by enabling
students to explore local issues that matter to the community. The example of a
local mapping project in this chapter demonstrates that students can engage in
authentic intellectual work ( Scheurman & Newmann, 1998) that has meaning
beyond the classroom. With planning, teachers can promote collaborative, com-
munity maps as a powerful tool to promote spatial citizenship for all students.
References
Alibrandi, M. (2011). GIS in the classroom: Using geographic information systems in social stud-
ies and environmental science. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
Alibrandi, M., Beal, C., Thompson, A., & Wilson, A. (2000). Reconstructing a school’s
past using oral histories and GIS mapping. Social Education, 64 (3), 134–140.
Alibrandi, M., Milson, A., & Shin, E. (2010). Where we’ve been; where we are; where
we’re going: Geospatial technologies and social studies. In R. Diem & M. Berson
(Eds.), Technology in retrospect: Social studies in the information age 1984–2009 (pp. 109–132).
Charlotte, NC: Information Age Press.
American Association of Geographers. (2002). My community, our earth: Geographic learn-
ing for sustainable development. Washington, DC: Author. Retrieved 1 September 2017
from http://meridian.aag.org/mycoe/index.htm
Banks, J. A., McGee Banks, C. A., Cortes, C. E., Hahn, C. L., Merryfield, M. M., Mood-
ley, K. A., . . . Parker, W. C. (2005). Democracy and diversity: Principles and concepts
for educating citizens in a global age. Seattle, WA: Center for Multicultural Education,
University of Washington.
Barton, K. C. (2009). Home geography and the development of elementary social educa-
tion, 1890–1930. Theory & Research in Social Education, 37(4), 484–514.
Bartos, A. E. (2013). Children sensing place. Emotion, Sense, and Society, 9, 89–98.
Bednarz, S. W., Acheson, G., & Bednarz, R. S. (2006). Maps and map learning in social
studies. Social Education, 70 (7), 398–404.
Bednarz, S. W., & Bednarz, R. S. (2008). Spatial thinking: The key to success in using
geospatial technologies in the social studies classroom. In A. J. Milson & M. Ali-
brandi (Eds.), Digital geography: Geospatial technologies in the social studies classroom (pp.
249–270). New York, NY: Information Age Press.
Brewer, C. A. (2006). Designing better maps: A guide for GIS users. Redlands, CA: ESRI Press.
Council of Chief State School Officers. (2010). Common core state standards for English/
language arts. Washington, DC: Author.
Counts, G. (1978). Dare the school build a new social order? Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois
University Press (Original work published in 1932).
den Besten, O. (2010). Local belonging and ‘geographies of emotions’: Immigrant chil-
dren’s experience of their local neighbourhoods in Paris and Berlin. Childhood, 17(2),
181–196.
Dewey, J. (1976). Creative democracy: The task before us. In J. Boydston (Ed.), John
Dewey: The later works, 1925–1953 (pp. 224–230). Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois
University Press (Original work published in 1939).
Elwood, S. A., & Mitchell, K. (2013, December). Another politics is possible: Neogra-
phies, visual spatial tactics, and political formation. Cartographica, 48 (4), 275–292.
Fitchett, P. G., & Goodman, A. J. (2012). Teaching genocide through GIS: A transforma-
tive approach. The Clearing House, 85(3), 87–92.
Gaudelli, W., & Heilman, E. (2009). Reconceptualizing geography as democratic global
citizenship education. Teachers College Record, 111(11), 2647–2677.
Gebert, A., & Joffee, M. (2007). Value creation as the aim of education: Tsunesaburo
Makiguchi and soka education. In D. Hansen (Ed.), Ethical visions of education: Philoso-
phies in practice (pp. 65–82). New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
Gordon, E., Elwood, S., & Mitchell, K. (2016). Critical spatial learning: Participatory
mapping, spatial histories, and youth civic engagement. Children’s Geographies, 14 (5),
558–574.
Gruenewald, D. A. (2003, Fall). Foundations of place: A multidisciplinary framework
for place-conscious education. American Educational Research Journal, 40 (3), 619–654.
Hall, T., Coffey, A., & Williamson, H. (1999). Self, space, and place: Youth identities and
citizenship. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 20 (4), 501–513.
Heffron, S. G., & Downs, R. M. (Eds.). (2012). Geography for life: National geography stan-
dards (2nd ed.). Washington, DC: National Council for Geographic Education.
Jacob France Institute. (2016). Baltimore neighborhood indicators alliance: Vital signs 14. Bal-
timore, MD: University of Baltimore. Retrieved 1 September 2017 from http://bnia
jfi.org/
Kenreich, T. W. (2010). Power, space, and geographies of difference: Mapping the world
with a critical global perspective. In B. Subedi (Ed.), Critical global perspectives: Rethink-
ing knowledge about global societies (pp. 57–75). Charlotte, NC: Information Age Press.
86 Todd W. Kenreich
Kenreich, T. W. (2013). The future of critical geographic literacy. In Geography and social
justice in the classroom (pp. 161–163). New York, NY: Routledge.
Kirshner, B. (2015). Youth activism in an era of education inequality. New York, NY: New
York University Press.
Mitchell, K., & Elwood, S. (2012a). Engaging students through mapping local history.
Journal of Geography, 111(4), 148–157.
Mitchell, K., & Elwood, S. (2012b). From redlining to benevolent societies: The emanci-
patory power of spatial thinking. Theory & Research in Social Education, 40 (2), 134–163.
National Academies of Science. (2006). Learning to think spatially: GIS as a support system
in the K-12 curriculum. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.
National Council for the Social Studies. (2013). The college, career, and civic life (C3) frame-
work for social studies state standards: Guidance for enhancing the rigor of k-12 civics, econom-
ics, geography, and history. Silver Spring, MD: Author.
Osler, A., & Starkey, H. (2005). Changing citizenship: Democracy and inclusion in education.
Maidenhead, UK: Open University Press.
Parker, W. C. (2003). Teaching democracy: Unity and diversity in public life. New York, NY:
Teachers College Press.
Pike, G. (2007). Citizenship education in a global context. Brock Education, 17, 38–49.
Ploszajska, T. (1998). Down to earth? Geography fieldwork in English schools, 1970–
1944. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 16, 757–774.
Rubel, L. H., Hall-Wieckert, M., & Lim, V. Y. (2016, Winter). Teaching mathematics for
spatial justice: Beyond a victory narrative. Harvard Educational Review, 86 (4), 556–579.
Schell, E. M., Roth, K. J., & Mohan, A. (Eds.). (2013). A road map for 21st century geography
education: Instructional materials and professional development. Washington, DC: National
Council for Geographic Education.
Scheurman, G., & Newmann, F. M. (1998). Authentic intellectual work in social studies:
Putting performance before pedagogy. Social Education, 62 (1), 23–25.
Schmidt, S. J., & Kenreich, T. W. (2015). In a space, but not of it: Uncovering racial
narratives through geography. In P. Chandler (Ed.), Doing race in the social studies (pp.
225–248). Charlotte, NC: Information Age Press.
Shin, E. (2007). Using Geographic Information System (GIS) technology to enhance
elementary students’ geographic understanding. Theory & Research in Social Education,
35(2), 231–255.
Sobel, D. (1998). Mapmaking with children: Sense of place education for the elementary years.
Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
Soja, E. W. (2010). Seeking spatial justice. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
Taylor, K. T., & Rogers, H. (2013, July). Counter-mapping the neighborhood on bicycles:
Mobilizing youth to reimagine the city. Technology, Knowledge and Learning, 18 (1–2),
65–93.
Tuan, Y.-F. (1991, January). A view of geography. The Geographical Review, 81(1), 99–107.
Weber, B. D. (2013). Geography for civic action in east Los Angeles. In T. W. Ken-
reich (Ed.), Geography for social justice in the classroom (pp. 103–113). New York, NY:
Routledge.
Wood, B. E. (2013). Young people’s emotional geographies of citizenship participation:
Spatial and relational insights. Emotion, Space, and Society, 9, 50–58.
Woyach, R. B., & Remy, R. C. (1982, Summer). A community-based approach to global
education. Theory Into Practice, 21, 177–183.
Wridt, P. (2005). The neighborhood atlas project: An example of participatory action
research in geography education. Research in Geographic Education, 5, 25–47.
Wridt, P. (2010). A qualitative GIS approach to mapping urban neighborhoods with chil-
dren to promote physical activity and child-friendly community planning. Environ-
ment and Planning B : Planning and Design, 37, 129–147.
Wridt, P., Seley, J. E., Fisher, S., & DuBois, B. (2014). Participatory mapping approaches
to coordinate the emergency response of spontaneous volunteers after hurricane
sandy. International Journal of E-Planning Research, 3(3), 1–19.
7
CULTIVATING STUDENT
CITIZENS
Using Critical Pedagogy of Place Curriculum to
Enhance Spatial Thinking, Civic Engagement,
and Inquiry Through Student-Generated Topics
M. Beth Schlemper and Victoria C. Stewart
Think globally, act locally (Figure 7.1). Although there is some debate regarding
when, and by whom, this phrase was introduced, it has been applied to envi-
ronmental, political, and socio-economic challenges faced by people in the 20th
and 21st centuries.
One of the earliest mentions of it appeared in an April 1978 interview of René
Dubos, a French-born American microbiologist, in the EPA Journal (Temple,
1978). In response to a question about the meaning of Voltaire’s “Let us cultivate
our garden,” he remarked:
When I talk at universities to students, they always want to discuss saving

the globe, and I am all in favor of that of course. But I always answer, “It’s
very good to think about problems in a global way, I think it is a good
intellectual exercise, but the only way where you can do something is
in your own locality. So think globally, but act locally. If you cannot do
something about that stream or those lovely marshlands in your town, then
how do you think you are going to save the globe?”
( Temple, 1978, p. 7)
Indeed, cultivating our garden has a local-global, spatial dimension, as well as a

calling to all of us to be actively engaged citizens in our communities.
In the 21st century there are many global issues that students can explore,
including but not limited to, climate change, poverty, civil unrest, epidemics,
and shortages of resources. However, these challenges are quite overwhelming
and difficult to grasp, especially for students who tend to live their lives at the
local scale early in life and later expand their activity spaces to places beyond
their neighborhoods. Furthermore, researchers (Atkins & Hart, 2003; Rubin,
Cultivating Student Citizens 89
FIGURE 7.1 Think Globally, Act Locally Bumper Sticker

Source: www.peaceproject.com/stickers/fullsize/think-globally-act-locally-bumper-sticker
2007; Youniss, 2011) have suggested that engagement in and connection to the
local community is important for developing civic competence. In short, stu-
dents must first think and act locally, and then apply their knowledge and skills
to addressing global needs.
The statement, think locally, act globally, also served as a metaphor for our
approach to curriculum development, in our understanding of learners and their
interactions with content and their environment. When developing curriculum,
thinking locally translated to beginning with the learner for us. Aligning with
Dewey’s (1897) constructivist views, we considered curriculum as originating
from the experience and interest of the learner. Additionally, curriculum should
engage learners in social and collaborative activities that support students making
connections to new ideas, engendering new learning, and expanding into the
world around them, akin to acting globally. While constructivism was a starting
point for our curricular model, we recognized the power of student participation
in real-world problems to “promote a sense of their own agency and collective
capacity to alter their neighbourhoods or communities for the better” ( Smith,
2007, p. 192). Accordingly, we used critical pedagogy of place ( Gruenewald,
2008) as a framework to guide our work.
Critical pedagogy of place is derived from the theories of place-based education
and critical pedagogy. Place-based education can be distinguished from conven-
tional education due to the “attention its practitioners direct toward both social
and natural environments” ( Smith, 2007, p. 191) and the emphasis on educational
experiences “aimed at developing in young people a sense of affiliation with the
places where they live” (p. 192). Both aspects described by Smith are evident in
our work, in the focus topics and the cross-disciplinary approach to curriculum
development and engagement activities. Furthermore, critical pedagogy contends
that education is inherently political and the ultimate goal of education is political
and social transformation (Freire, 2000; Giroux, 1988; McLaren, 2003). Essential
to critical pedagogy is the development of critical consciousness, which supports
students’ ability to identify and question the injustice and oppression in society
that affects their lives (Freire, 2000). Considering the role of place from the per-
spective of citizenship extending from the local to global, Gruenewald (2008)
explained that “Place . . . foregrounds a narrative of local and regional politics that
is attuned to the particularities of where people actually live, and that is connected
to global development trends that impact local places” (p. 308).
90 M. Beth Schlemper and Victoria C. Stewart
Concepts described as essential to critical pedagogy are also those important

to civic engagement and active citizenship. There are numerous definitions for
civic engagement (Adler & Goggin, 2005; Gibson, 2000) ranging from indi-
vidual, informal, private activities (e.g., helping a neighbor) to those that are for-
mal, collective, and public (e.g., community volunteering). We elected to define
civic engagement with that described by Adler and Goggin (2005) as “how an
active citizen participates in the life of a community in order to improve condi-
tions for others or to help shape the community’s future” (p. 241). Accordingly,
our research team developed an interdisciplinary, inquiry-based research study
fostering students’ use of spatial thinking, geospatial technologies, and citizen
mapping to enhance their knowledge of and engagement in the community
surrounding their school. Specifically, our project was designed around ideas of
promoting civic engagement among students of traditionally underrepresented
groups, who live in neighborhoods with a variety of environmental and social
challenges. One goal of this work was to introduce students to the value of spatial
thinking and technologies for addressing these issues, and empowering them to
make a difference in their neighborhoods.
To prepare students to grasp local challenges using a spatial lens, we intro-
duced students to spatial thinking and how geographers analyze the arrange-
ment of points, lines, and areas across the earth’s surface as well as connections
across space and at various geographic scales. “Spatial thinking includes spatial
knowledge—of symmetry, orientation, scale, distance decay, and other concepts”
( Schultz, Kerski, & Patterson, 2008, p. 27). Further, spatial thinking involves a
particular way of framing and examining questions, and often includes the use
of geospatial tools to analyze data and illustrate results. The National Research
Council (NRC, 2006) suggested,
Given the need for increased scientific and technological literacy in the
workforce and in everyday life, we must equip K-12 graduates with skills
that will enable them to think spatially and to take advantage of tools and
technologies—such as GIS (geographic information systems) for support-
ing spatial thinking.
(p. 13)
A spatial perspective will enable students to extrapolate local issues to an under-

standing of connections to regional, national, and global scales, and promote
spatial citizenship.
Increasingly, geography is being recognized in the scientific community and
in the general public for its contributions to understanding and confronting
pressing human and physical concerns facing the earth in the 21st century. As
emphasized in a report to the National Academies:
Geographical ideas and information have become increasingly central to

science, as well as to planning, environmental management, and policy
making. Dynamic maps and imagery of Earth’s surface are now essen-
tial tools for emergency responders, transportation workers, and urban
planners, and new user-friendly geographical technologies, such as Global
Positioning System (GPS) tools and online maps, are becoming a part of
daily life.
(Murphy et al., 2010, p. 1)
Indeed, the use of geospatial technology has become commonplace among citi-
zens in navigating and understanding the world around them. Moreover, with
the growth in the use of the Internet and the ability of citizens to contribute to
its content, we are seeing the transformation of geospatial technology and the
expansion of its use by average citizens. Sui (2008) described this phenomenon
as “a wikification of GIS” (p. 1). In other words, what was once traditionally
performed by professionals using GIS computer software on desktop computers
can now be completed in a simpler, and perhaps more accessible, form through
volunteered geographic information and the Internet.
Volunteered geographic information (VGI) is defined as “geographic infor-
mation acquired and made available to others through the voluntary activity
of individuals or groups, with the intent of providing information about the
geographic world” (Elwood, Goodchild, & Sui, 2012, p. 575). This type of data
collected by individuals in the context of their communities can be considered as
a form of citizen science, or citizen mapping in the case of spatial data. It is now
possible to use numerous devices and programs for VGI and citizen mapping.
“VGI is often made possible through the use of geographically enabled ‘smart-
phones,’ personal digital assistants or PDAs (i.e., handheld computers), digital
cameras, and vehicle navigation systems” (Murphy et al., 2010, p. 107). This is
an exciting time for teachers and students because there are so many options that
provide opportunities for teaching and learning outside of the classroom. With
citizen mapping, we can empower students with the tools to engage actively
in fieldwork and make contributions in their communities. Goodchild (2007)
suggested,
the most important value of VGI may lie in what it can tell about local
activities in various geographic locations that go unnoticed by the world’s
media, and about life at a local level. It is in that area that VGI may offer the
most interesting, lasting, and compelling value to geographers.
(pp. 220–221)
We contend that introducing students to spatial thinking and geospatial technol-

ogy in the context of their communities through VGI and citizen mapping is an
effective approach to place-based learning.
Citizen, or community, mapping tends to be a localized activity, but it is
linked also to global, universal issues. It is assumed that people who live in these
communities are the most informed about their own neighborhoods. Citizen
mapping can empower people and raise awareness of issues in their communities
and beyond. Furthermore, Parker (2006) suggests “Community authorship can
help make the map more credible or accountable to local community members
as the knowledge is derived from those familiar with and presumably knowl-
edgeable about a place” (pp. 475–476). Flanagin and Metzger (2008) concur that
“individuals are in many cases in the best position to provide information that
requires indigenous experience, esoteric understanding of a particular physical
environment, and current information about local conditions” (p. 139). How-
ever, individuals may have differing perspectives about the same community.
In her research on Chicago, Elwood (2008) notes that contrasting views of the
same neighborhood are offered by the Latino residents who see it “as a vibrant
center of economic activity” and by real estate agents (mostly white) who per-
ceive it “as gang-ridden, dangerous, and dilapidated” (p. 179). Thus, integrating
citizen mapping into the curriculum enables students, who are familiar with
their neighborhoods, to have a sense of contribution in their communities, while
learning important concepts, skills, and technologies.
An Overview of Student Workshops

In our work, students engaged in citizen mapping using geospatial technol-
ogy, fieldwork, and analysis of secondary data to identify challenges and assets,
evaluate and choose among alternatives, and suggest solutions to community
needs over the course of two summer workshops. This approach aligns with
recent research on career aspirations that suggests having an opportunity to give
back and make a difference in their communities was an important consider-
ation in career planning, particularly for traditionally underrepresented students
( Schlemper & Monk, 2011). The primary participants were students in grades
9–12 at Jesup W. Scott High School, a United Way Schools as Community
Hubs center in Toledo, Ohio, where 94 percent of the students are black and 86
percent are considered economically disadvantaged ( Ohio School Report Card,
2016).
We used an inquiry learning process to engage students in their community,
to support skill development using geospatial technologies, and to encourage
critical thinking. Student participants used prior and acquired knowledge of a
bounded geographic area around their high school to identify topics of interest
and formulate their research questions. The process aligned with NRC (2006)
proposed inquiry practices that included opportunities for students developing
questions, acquiring data relevant to these questions, observing and exploring
patterns within the data, analyzing and drawing inferences from observed pat-
terns and relations, and generating possible answers to act upon their new under-
standing (p. 176). To support student-led inquiry as proposed by the NRC, we
employed a four-level inquiry approach (Banchi & Bell, 2008; Bell, Smetana, &
Binns, 2005; Rezba, Auldridge, & Rhea, 1999). The four levels describe the
transfer of responsibility for inquiry from the teacher to the student and include:
(1) confirmation inquiry (confirming a known principle); (2) structured inquiry
(teacher presents a question and students follow a given procedure); (3) guided
inquiry (teacher presents a question, students design/select procedures); and
(4) open inquiry (students formulate questions and design/select procedures)
(Banchi & Bell, 2008, p. 27). In our work we moved between the levels, depend-
ing on the prior knowledge and needs of the students.
As the leaders of the workshops, we facilitated the student research process by
brainstorming with them, using an initial inquiry activity inspired by the KWL
( Ogle, 1986) to identify topics of interest to them. Similar to the traditional
KWL, our approach focused on uncovering students’ prior knowledge by asking
them to reflect on, “K” what do I know, and “W” what do I want to know. In an
effort to scaffold the development of researchable questions and students’ abilities
to support their claims, we moved beyond the traditional K and W by asking
students to identify and communicate questions they had and could ask about
their topic, where they might find answers, and why their ideas were important.
The “L” what I learned in the KWL method was addressed daily through exit
slips, and in the final student projects. Using information from the brainstorm-
ing sessions, students constructed research questions, and later narrowed them
after conducting initial research in the neighborhood. For example, one student
group in summer 2015 began by asking why there seemed to be an increase in
“open space” (abandoned houses and neglected vacant lots) in the neighborhood
surrounding the school. After their initial research and fieldwork, they decided
to narrow their question to “Can the abandoned lots and buildings be made
into youth centers?” They suggested that this question was important to them
because they knew youth in the community needed a safe place to go and to
have fun. Further, they argued, “We believe that if the youth have nothing to do
they will find negative things to do in the street such as joining gangs. This will
increase the crime rates and deaths of young teens.” Other student-generated
topics included crime, community assets and needs, parks and community gar-
dens, youth employment, open space, and housing.
For each topic explored, students collected both primary data (e.g., GPS data,
photos, and observational notes) while conducting fieldwork and secondary data
(e.g., local land bank data, county GIS database, census records, and ArcGIS
online maps). Using a presentation template created by the research team to
scaffold organization of their research process, findings, and recommendations,
students presented their research to key community stakeholders. Specifically, stu-
dents presented their questions (including why this was important to them),
the data they collected (photos, maps, statistics), what they learned, and what
they recommended to the Mayor of the city, community officials, neighborhood
organizations, school administrators, and their families. Figure 7.2 includes two
slides from the presentation created by the students, who proposed using open
space for a new youth center in the neighborhood.
Community Needs - Results Community Needs - Recommendations
• We learned that:
• a lot of sidewalks/streets need to be fixed in the community. • We observed indoor and outdoor potential recreational areas. The
• there are many open spaces not being used or maintained in the open fields that we have shown can be passive recreational areas
community. such as places for lying on the grass, playing football, or even grilling.
• there are not enough safe and convenient places for youth to
gather and feel that they are being protected. • Indoor recreational facilities, for example buildings, can be used for
• there is a relatively high level of crime in the community, active activities such as indoor basketball, ski ball, swimming and
• but at the same time there is a lot of concern about what is going on indoor gaming.
within the neighborhood itself.
• by walking around that there were many vacant lots that could • It is easier to use an open lot for passive recreational use because
be used for a potential youth center. you do not have to apply for a special permit, unlike an active
• there could be a longer process for approval if we propose a recreational use permit where you have to go through all sorts of
indoor recreation facility in a residential area. hoops and mazes just to get the actual permit to build the building.
FIGURE 7.2 What Students Learned and Recommended About Open Space and Youth Centers
As a result of the students’ presentations and an interest in their suggestions,

students were invited to give their presentations two more times outside of the
context of the formal workshops, first by the Mayor who wanted them to pres-
ent to the Department of Neighborhoods, and later by a nonprofit community
organization in their neighborhood.
Ultimately, these students recognized and appreciated the use of spatial think-
ing and technology for not only enhancing their community, but also in the
variety of related career paths they could pursue after high school. The work-
shops provided us with a better understanding of how students learn geospatial
thinking and technologies in the context of being civically engaged in their
community, and how to connect those experiences with further education and
careers. This approach to introducing students to spatial thinking and mapping
neighborhood topics is described in more detail here to provide a curricular
example that can be adapted by teachers in other communities.
Constructing Curriculum for Spatial Approaches

to Citizenship
Curriculum construction began collaboratively among an interdisciplinary team
of researchers, teacher advisors in the physical sciences and social studies, and
an external project evaluator, nine months prior to the first workshop and was
iterative, building on new information for our research and feedback from stake-
holders. We developed design criteria for constructing curriculum based on best
practices in teaching and learning as well as our project goals of integrating geo-
spatial technology, the application of skills to careers, and promoting citizenship
through citizen mapping of community assets and challenges (Table 7.1). The
criteria reflects an inquiry-focused learning cycle related to the objectives of our
research project, which are designed to engage students effectively with technol-
ogy in the context of their neighborhoods and increase their interest in pursuing
careers in geography, geospatial technology, and related fields.
In order to implement these goals, place-based and inquiry learning are uti-
lized to focus teaching and learning activities. These design criteria were used to
guide the planning and implementation of the two summer workshops and subse-
quently in constructing related curriculum for broader dissemination to teachers.
Using our experience and lessons learned from the summer workshops, feed-
back from teacher advisors, and research findings, we have constructed and
piloted a curricular model to be used in teaching and learning in grades 9–12,
integrating “big questions” (ideas), linking to standards, supporting research and
problem-solving skills, connecting to career paths, using technology, and pro-
viding opportunities for civic action ( Figure 7.3). The design criteria (Table 7.1),
and a modified version of the experiential learning approach are integrated into
the model (see, for example, “Experiential Learning Cycles”).
Table 7.1 Curriculum Design Criteria
Criteria Description
Reveal what Pre- and then frequent opportunities for student reflection and
students know and discourse, thinking aloud and writing about what they think
understand they know and how they know it to engage schemata and
address possible misconceptions
Reveal what Regular opportunity to engage in disciplinary reflection and
students want to discourse by students on the value, purpose, or interest in
know and why what they are doing, what questions they have, who might
be interested in their work, and why that work is important
Engage students Through case studies, applications of skills to careers, and
authentically with interactions with professionals to promote connections
careers between skills, content, and careers
Integrate Activities are tied to appropriate disciplinary standards that
disciplinary include target content and skills and are introduced in
standards for key increasingly complex ways
concepts and skills
Employ a multi- Students address real-world content through multi-disciplinary
disciplinary perspectives
approach
Require geospatial The use of geospatial data, tools, and technology are integral to
tools the activities
Support student Student centered inquiry, where they identify, research, and
research and suggest solutions to problems of interest to them
problem solving
Big Learning
Overview Standards Background Engage
Question Targets
Explore Explain Apply Connect Extend Sources
FIGURE 7.3 Experiential Learning Curricular Model
Our model was influenced by the 5E model (Bybee, 2002) as it promotes

active, collaborative inquiry and is common to science education. The 5E model
has been modified over time to address varied needs of a learning environment,
including the inclusion of technology (Chessin & Moore, 2004), extension to
7E (adding Elicitation and Extension; Eisenkraft, 2003), and a 4E by 2 model,
addressing assessment and metacognition (Marshall, Horton, & Smart, 2008),

among others. The core of our curriculum model is highlighted in Figure 7.3,
represented by four E’s: Engage, Explore, and Explain, adding Apply and Con-
nect based on our learning objectives and research as described. The remainder
of the model includes stages that are designed to scaffold the teaching and learn-
ing that occurs in the core by providing a focus question, overview, links to
standards, learning targets, background information, and practical sources for
potential enhancements.
Using topics that emerged from students’ interests at the summer workshops
(and through questionnaires administered in a few of our teacher advisors’ class-
rooms and by teachers at the target school prior to the workshops), we cre-
ated curriculum modules to be disseminated broadly to teachers. Each module
has been developed following an inquiry learning cycle to promote learning
of geographic content and skills to prepare students to actively engage in their
communities, and make connections to career paths. The next section of the
chapter provides a practical example of one module that can be adapted for use
by teachers in a variety of settings. This example, focusing on open/green space,
evolved from interaction with students during the summer workshops and from
suggestions made by our interdisciplinary teacher advisory committee, who also
evaluated and piloted emerging curriculum modules. This module illustrates
the components of the curricular model as well as the ways students can make
a difference in their neighborhoods by thinking spatially and becoming active
citizens in their communities.
Cultivating Our Neighborhoods Through Open/Green Space

Referring back to Voltaire’s quote to cultivate our gardens (as cited in Temple,
1978) and the call to take action in our communities, one of the student groups
in the summer 2015 workshop was interested in blight and abandoned or
neglected properties. The impetus for the module was students’ prior knowl-
edge of the neighborhood and issues relevant to their position as teenagers. In
particular, they had concerns about blight, crime, and the lack of safe, social
spaces for youth. Before conducting research and finalizing their inquiry ques-
tion, the students discussed what they knew about two existing youth cen-
ters in relatively close proximity to their school, noting problems with them
in terms of distance to one and the lack of supervision and overcrowding at
the other. From their observations, the group concluded that there were not
enough safe and convenient places for youth to gather and to feel that they
are protected in the neighborhood. As described earlier, combined with their
fieldwork examining properties and open (sometimes “green”) space in the
neighborhood surrounding their school, the students in this group refined
their research interests by focusing on converting open spaces to parks and
youth centers. They wanted to know if there were abandoned structures and/
or empty lots in the neighborhood that could be used for youth centers or
outdoor recreational sites.
To explore this question, during fieldwork the group used GPS units and
geo-referenced capable cameras to collect data of their observations, identifying
existing parks, neglected infrastructure (damaged sidewalks and potholes), and
abandoned or neglected properties. After collecting their primary data, students
imported the data points into ArcGIS to produce maps of the neighborhood to
make their case for a youth center. To further investigate their question, students
considered demographics, researched median age and crime in the area, and
identified or produced overlay maps using ArcGIS on-line ( Figure 7.4).
This map, produced by students who were using ArcGIS online for the first
time, includes their choice of symbols in the legend to represent the data they
collected with GPS units in the neighborhood, including potential sites for a
youth center (soccer and basketball symbol), damaged sidewalks (orange cones
symbol), potholes (open circle symbol), existing parks (picnic table and tree sym-
bol), and stray animals (deer symbol). Because their original inquiry question
related to community needs in general, they tagged properties that they assumed
were vacant as well as damaged infrastructure (sidewalks and potholes), and stray
animals that they suggested posed a threat to the community. Even after narrow-
ing their question to focus on potential sites for a new youth center, they wanted
to integrate all of their original data into the map.
As a direct result of their fieldwork, students found that while the crime level
in the neighborhood around the school was relatively high in comparison to
other parts of the country (2–4 times higher than the national average as seen in
Figure 7.4), people in the neighborhood seemed to be engaged and concerned.
For example, while students conducted fieldwork in the neighborhood with the
assistance of the project staff, a number of residents stopped to talk to them
about what they were doing and to express their concerns about the community.
Through citizen mapping and integrating images, maps, and statistics into their
findings, they were able to make a convincing case to community officials for
the need for a new youth center and to offer suggestions for potential locations.
What follows is an expanded version of their topic that can be adapted to
other neighborhoods (urban, suburban, or rural) and used by teachers to explore
neighborhood change, population, remote sensing, and land use. This learning
module on open (or green) space was piloted, modified, and used by a teacher
advisor in her classroom during spring 2016 and her version is accessible through
http://spaceinthecity.weebly.com. This example illustrates how the model in
Figure 7.3 and the design criteria in Table 7.1 have been applied to develop
learning experiences for students on the topic of open space (which is sometimes
green but not always). The open space module may be used in its entirety, but it
also includes a variety of options for teacher adaption.
Starting with the Big Question (BQ), which is meant to serve as a guide for
inquiry and learning, students are asked to consider “How do human activities
Community Needs1
vin
St
GTT Scott Community Boston PI Ke Everett St
Needs_New1 Collins St
Lag
Collingw
e Mettler St
Brickhead
Av
ran
Kenilworth
Youth center
Spring St
ge S
t
t
Cracked sidewalk Rockingham S Hausman St Moss St
Pothole Austin St
PI St
nd ble
Elm St
Glenwood Ave
Park Islington St li Palmer St No
sa
Ro
Brentwood Ave
Stray animal
Melrose Ave
Locust St
W Delaware Ave E Delaware Ave
2014 USA Property Crime St
St ck t
a rk d eri eS
Block Group M e or
Fr
Mo
Wa
Machen St
ln
401 and up (More ck
Franklin Ave
ut
than 4X average) Scott Pe
St
High St
Berkwood Ave
201 – 400 (More than School Mercy Health
an
Scottwood Ave
St Vincent
Robinwood Ave
2X average) Medical Ctr erm
Winthrop St Sh
101 – 200 (Above
Hartnam St
average) Acklin Ave t
Batavia St t
51 – 100 (Below Page S tS
t rof
Virginia St S a nc
average) k er Eb
Warren St
0 – 50 (Half of Vermont Ave Ba
Ch
Kent St
average)
A
err
sh
No data eS
la
yS
t
W Bancroft St org
nd
Inez
Ge t
615 ft North St
Av
e
Nash aS
Prescott St 120 eid
Park On St
e ca
n
Fulton St
Floyd St Se
Scott St
Irving St
Horton St
E Woodruff Ave
N 14th St
W Woodruff Ave
W
Ma State St
St
dis
aln
ve
u
on
rd
t
Av
23
e
hA
N 12th St
Southard Ave
51
usc
nton Ave
0.4mi
FIGURE 7.4 A Map From “Community Needs” Group Presentation, Summer 2015
impact the environment and how can we respond to it?” The BQ aligns with
and represents learning standards (see Table 7.3). Additionally, the BQ is struc-
tured as an open-ended, divergent question to support multiple perspectives. In
this example, we address the BQ, explaining that understanding land use and the
impact of human activity is important when learning about the environment
and biodiversity.
The Overview, provides a summary of the module for teachers, describing
content and skills being addressed. Table 7.2 includes the elements of this com-
ponent and its application to the open space example. In short, the overview is
designed to provide the teachers and students with a basic understanding of what
the module is all about and what is needed to make it happen.
Because our model addresses inquiry using a multi-disciplinary approach,
this curriculum module integrates a variety of applicable Standards, including
the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), College, Career, and Civic Life
(C-3; NCSS, 2013) standards, and the Geography for Life National Standards.
Both “Focus Standards” (those that will be addressed in this lesson) and “Prior
Standards” (anticipated prior knowledge) are outlined. For the open space mod-
ule, Table 7.3 provides an overview of the “Focus Standards.”
Table 7.2 Overview Applied to the Green/Open Space Module
Element Application
Learning Goals Students will use inquiry place-based learning to examine their
communities. They will engage in the process of interpreting
and extrapolating information from remotely sensed images
of their neighborhood, including comparing and contrasting
historical and contemporary images, validating the images,
examining secondary data. Students will evaluate land use
decisions to make informed recommendations about land use
in the community for a variety of stakeholders.
Content Focus Earth science, geography, people-environment, urban
planning, demography
Skill Focus Interpretation, remote sensing, fieldwork and observation, data
analysis
Level of Inquiry Guided Inquiry and Open Inquiry
Key Concepts Environmental impact, urbanization, vegetation cover, green
space, remote sensing
Grade Level 9th to 12th grades
Duration 4–7 days (depending on teacher’s choice of activities to include)
Materials Remotely sensed images of the community (historical and
contemporary), Internet access (to search for secondary
data), worksheets for writing prompts, comparing and
contrasting, and others
Table 7.3 Focus Standards for Open/Green Space Module
NGSS HS-LS2–7. Design, evaluate, and refine a solution for reducing the
impacts of human activities on the environment and biodiversity.
C-3 D2.Geo.2.9–12. Use maps, satellite images, photographs, and other
representations to explain relationships between the locations of places
and regions and their political, cultural, and economic dynamics.
Geography Standard 14. Know and understand how human actions modify the
physical environment
Standards were selected based on their connections to the anticipated content,

alignment across disciplines, and curriculum development criteria. In this exam-
ple, each of the standards focuses on how human decisions or interactions impact
place. We further considered how the NGSS disciplinary core ideas emphasized
for this standard more fully illustrate connections between standards. One clear
example is the emphasis on political, cultural, and economic factors seen in both
the C3 above, and this NGSS exemplar: “When evaluating solutions it is impor-
tant to take into account a range of constraints including cost, safety, reliability
and aesthetics and to consider social, cultural and environmental impacts” (HS-
LS2–7: ETS1.B). As for Geography Standard 14, a more specific focus, listed
among the expectations for students in 12th grade, is having students “describe
and evaluate scenarios for mitigating and/or adapting to environmental changes
caused by human modifications” which is most evident in the application stage
of this module (Heffron & Downs, 2012, p. 77).
To support teacher evaluation of the applicability of the module for their
specific students and classroom situations, Prior Standards provide information
regarding anticipated prior knowledge (Table 7.4). In the case of the open space
module, students are expected to have prior knowledge of creating maps and
explaining spatial patterns (C-3, D2.Geo.1.9–12) before they progress to this
lesson using technology to explain “relationships between places and regions
and their political, cultural, and economic dynamics” (C-3 Focus Standard
D2.Geo.2.9–12).
For the national geography standards, prior standards can be gleaned from
those listed in previous grades, such as the eighth-grade learning objective in
Table 7.4 Prior Standards for Open/Green Space Module
NGSS MS-ESS3–3. Apply scientific principles to design a method for

monitoring and minimizing a human impact on the environment.
C-3 D2.Geo.1.9–12. Use geospatial and related technologies to create
maps to display and explain the spatial patterns of cultural and
environmental characteristics.
Geography Standard 14. Know and understand how human actions modify the
physical environment
Standard 14 that suggests students should be able to “analyze the proportion of

built area to vegetation land cover around a community and identify possible
consequences in changes to that proportion” (Heffron & Downs, 2012, p. 77).
Thus, the “Prior Standards” are designed to guide the Learning Targets, what
students will learn by the end of the lesson. For this example, the learning target
suggests students will be able to recommend different uses for open spaces in the
neighborhood that could benefit the community and the environment by the
end of the module. They will do this through identifying locations and mea-
suring sizes of open spaces by comparing current and historical remote sensing
images.
The Background provides content essential to the topic and is intended
to set up the learning segment, providing a brief synopsis of relevant content
and concepts related to the topic. In this example, the background consists of
a discussion of urbanization and population density, with a county level map,
population statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau, and the environmental impact
formula that can be used as a tool for teaching and learning. A summary of
the relevant background is provided here, along with its relationship to people-
environmental interaction at the local scale.
According to the 2015 World Population Data Sheet, 81 percent of people
in the United States live in urban areas (World Population Data Sheet, 2015, p. 12).
However, some counties within the country are more crowded than others
because population density varies by county. In addition to population density,
the physical and human geography of each county is different. For example,
some counties are more urban than others. Figure 7.5 shows population density
by county in the United States in 2010. Maps of population density make it obvi-
ous to students that urban regions have higher densities than rural areas.
Asking students to hypothesize which regions of the country they think are
more urbanized serves as a starting point for thinking about how urban areas
might impact the amount of green/open space in these areas. This activity pro-
motes spatial thinking about the patterns of human settlement and the relation-
ships between people and places. Students will recognize that over time people
have used the land in changing ways and their impact on the environment can
be seen in the landscapes of local communities.
One way to measure the impact of human activities on the environment is to
use the environmental impact formula, developed by Ehrlich and Holdren in the
1970s, but still commonly found in geography textbooks:
I (Impact on the Environment) = P (Population) X A (Affluence) X T

(Technology)
(Ehrlich & Holdren, 1972, p. 20)
Population can be determined by examining population density, while affluence

(or standard of living) could be measured using a variable such as income per
FIGURE 7.5 Population Density by County in 2010
Source: United States Census Bureau
capita. A potential measure for technology is access to the Internet or the avail-
ability of Wi-Fi networks. The impact of technology is more difficult to assess,
however. In many cases, people suggest that the increasing use of technology has
a negative impact on the environment, but this is not always the case. In fact, new
advances in technology, such as alternative energy sources, can improve human’s
impact on the environment. For this lesson, students will focus on urbanization
and land cover. Using remote sensing and spatial thinking, students will examine
the changing landscapes of their communities over time.
Engage includes activities designed to increase student interest and involve-
ment with the content, in the current example, introducing students to the con-
cepts of green vs. open spaces. Using remotely sensed images of the local area
(see Figure 7.6), students in the summer program were asked to make guesses
about the content of each image using prior knowledge of the area, which both
introduces them to the concept (open space) and to one of the technological
tools that will be used throughout the module (remote sensing). At this stage,
we chose nearby places that students were likely to be familiar with, such as
parks, shopping malls, or famous landmarks, and those with recognizable shapes.
For example, Figure 7.6 includes aerial photos from Google Earth of Franklin
Park shopping mall (Image A) and the Mudhen’s Minor League baseball field
(Image B) both in Toledo, Ohio. These are places students have visited or seen,
so they are useful starting points for thinking spatially and interpreting remotely
sensed images.
Students worked individually and then shared their guesses, indicating what
features were important to them when making their deductions. Image A, Frank-
lin Park Mall, was the more difficult of the two for the students to identify. Those
guessing correctly pointed out features such as the parking lot, and the “diagonal”
street near the top of the image. The Fifth Third Field Mudhen’s Stadium (Image B)
was easier due to the unique shape of a baseball diamond. Nevertheless, other
features were described by students as important, including the Maumee River, a
park along the river, and other city landmarks. A follow-up discussion related to
the use of “space” in this urban area reinforced important concepts.
FIGURE 7.6 Franklin Park Mall (A) and Fifth Third Field (B) in Toledo, Ohio
Source: Google Earth, 2014
To replicate this module in the classroom, after engaging students in the

introductory activity with images of the local community, students will work
to draft a definition of green space in this second activity. Individually, students
will write two to three sentences in response to the following writing prompt:
Currently, the word “green” is used to mean more than just a color. In our
case, we are going to consider how the word green is associated with the
environment, and more specifically with land use. Compose a personal
definition for ‘green space’ and be prepared to share your definition with
the class.
Next, students compare and discuss their definitions in small groups and then
compose a class consensus definition. The class definition is compared to the
definition offered by the Environmental Protection Agency (n.d.): “Green space
(land that is partly or completely covered with grass, trees, shrubs, or other veg-
etation. Green space includes parks, community gardens, and cemeteries” (para-
graph 1). Finally, students are asked to refer back to the aerial images used in
Activity 1 and identify green spaces applying the various definitions.
A third Engage activity asks students to compare and contrast definitions of
open vs. green space, and the significance of having green space in the com-
munity. While green spaces are abundant in suburban and rural areas, they are
often spread out in urban areas. At times, especially in shrinking cities that have
been faced with population decline since WWII, open spaces can be a source of
blight in communities. Open spaces could be public parks or playgrounds, but
they could also be abandoned parking lots, neglected and abandoned private
properties, or railroads that are no longer in use. Through this activity, students
will consider the differences and similarities between green and open spaces.
This step could also be in the form of a challenge in which students search for
definitions of “open space” and create Venn diagrams to illustrate the similari-
ties and differences between green and open spaces. As with green space, a class
definition of open space could be created. Finally, students participate in a for-
mative assessment consisting of a list of features (e.g., streets, parking lots, parks,
basketball courts, community gardens, or vacant, grassy lots) and/or RS images
that ask them to indicate whether each is open space, green space, or both.
With an introduction to remotely sensed images and the concepts of green/
open space, students are prepared to examine these ideas in the context of their
neighborhood in the Explore stage. For this example, first provide students
remotely sensed images of a predetermined area surrounding the school, and ask
them to circle three locations they consider to be green space, supporting their
choices with a brief description of each space including its condition and use.
Second, students compare and contrast two RS images of the same neighbor-
hood area at the same scale for two different time periods (historical and cur-
rent).1 Figure 7.7 is an example of two images in the neighborhood near the high
FIGURE 7.7 Images of the Same Area in 2006 and 2014, Google Earth
Source: Google Earth
school where the summer workshops were held, and changes are quite dramatic
between 2006 and 2014. For this activity it is important to select an area that has
clearly changed over time in terms of land use to allow students to apply docu-
ment analysis skills effectively, beginning with a description of what they see in
the images. To scaffold observation skills required for analysis of photographs,
students may be provided analysis guides (see Library of Congress, Primary Doc-
ument Analysis Guides in Sources for an example). Students are then guided
through a series of steps to estimate changes in the amount of area used as open
space and explain their estimates (Appendix A).
Students also describe the changes qualitatively in writing to scaffold use
of disciplinary appropriate language, such as using cardinal direction, location,
and other geographic terms. As a challenge, students will conduct research on
the causes of these changes, and reflect on the positive or negative impacts on
the neighborhood. Once foundational content knowledge and skills have been
introduced, students engage in fieldwork to ground-truth the data in the cur-
rent RS image to see if the image is an accurate reflection of present conditions.
Where possible, teachers may choose to organize students into groups to walk
around the neighborhood with a current map and assign each group a section
(a city block, for example) to check for accuracy of the RS images and to make
updates on the map to reflect any recent changes. This activity engages students
in thinking and visualizing spatially, as they analyze, translate, and evaluate the
2D aerial view, compared to the live 3D perspective (façade) view. As a result,
students are able to explore the human impact on the environment through the
lens of neighborhood change.
Explain, aligns with the conception of traditional instructional content to
scaffold student learning, building on the previous stages. In this case, students
are asked to explain the human activities impacting green and open spaces in the
context of their neighborhood. The initial inquiry is teacher led through the use
of various secondary data sources that serve as proxies for the elements of the
environmental impact equation (e.g., exploring statistics on population density,
median income, and access to the Internet). This stage could be constructed as
another challenge or as an extension to the module, where students are asked to
search for related data in local and county databases, the American Community
Survey, or the Population Reference Bureau (Appendix A). Further, teachers may
have students respond to the following prompts:
1. Compare the datasets and identify changes that would impact community
land use.
2. Determine whether the dataset represents changes related to “population,”
“affluence,” or “technology.” Explain your answer.
3. Assess the impact the changes would have on the neighborhood, using data
to support the assessment.
4. Propose questions that remain or that arose as a result of this activity.
In summary, this stage provides students additional context and data to help
them explain neighborhood changes, particularly in regards to land use.
The Explain stage is followed by students expanding the investigation into
content through guided inquiry, in which students are asked to Apply what they
have discovered about human impact on the environment to potential solutions
and real-world issues. In the Apply stage students are asked to imagine that they
have been asked to serve as liaisons between neighborhood residents and the city’s
planning department. Their task is to determine how the green space in the neigh-
borhood has been used in the past, how it is used currently, and create a proposal
for the future use of one location to present to the class from the perspective
of a community stakeholder (e.g., urban planners, developers, government offi-
cials, school officials, residents, and others). To complete the investigation, students
develop questions to guide their inquiry, identify, analyze, and use information from
remotely sensed images to determine open/green spaces and geographic features,
and conduct secondary research to obtain facts to support their recommendations.
While career connections are integrated throughout the module, they are
more explicit in the Apply and Connect stages. In fact, Connect was concep-
tualized and designed as a method to explicitly illustrate connections between
the content and skills being learned to educational and career pathways, which
may take the form of role-playing activities, videos, discussions, and visits from
community members who are employed in business, government, and nonprofit
sectors. For example, in the open/green space module, students, who assumed
the roles of different community stakeholders in regards to an actual green space
challenge in the neighborhood, might interview professionals in a similar career
in the community. Alternatively, they could create skits to illustrate how differ-
ent stakeholders conceptualize these neighborhood challenges to compare and
contrast land use in the community. In our work, professionals in careers requir-
ing geographic knowledge, spatial thinking, and use of related geospatial tech-
nologies shared their work and how they used geographic knowledge and skills
to address community challenges and opportunities in their jobs. For instance,
city planners visited with students during the summer workshops and discussed
the potential development strategies of a large open space that had been a shop-
ping mall but is now vacant. Students were able to see how the planners used
spatial thinking and geospatial technologies in their careers.
The Extend section was developed to offer suggestions for taking content
and skills to the next level. This stage provides opportunities to broaden student
learning, and offers deeper understanding of content and technology as well
as engagement with the larger community. Again, referring to the example of
open/green spaces, one component of Extend is for students to participate in the
civic process by sharing their findings with community stakeholders. In addi-
tion, students could engage with others beyond the classroom virtually by shar-
ing their research and findings across the Internet.
Finally, Sources offers suggestions for and links to specific resources and
examples that facilitate implementation of this module. These are distinct from
a list of references or bibliography as they are meant to provide inspiration for
additional classroom activities or further insight into relevant topics and skills.
Table 7.5 includes examples related to the open/green space module. These are
a few examples of sources that can be used to not only facilitate teaching and
learning of skills and topics related to open/green spaces, but also in the develop-
ment of adaptations of the module for different community settings.
Table 7.5 Teaching and Learning Sources for Open/Green Space Module
Item Type URL Purpose
Definition www3.epa.gov/region1/eco/ EPA discussion of the differences and

uep/openspace.html similarities of green space and open
space, especially for the “Engage” stage.
Data www.census.gov/ American Community Survey
programs-surveys/acs/ demographic data to facilitate the
“Explain” stage.
Application www.google.com/earth/ Google Earth, a free, downloadable
download/ge/agree.html program, useful in this module for
viewing places remotely.
Skills http://americaview.org/ AmericaView Remote Sensing memory
Game remote-sensing-memory- game uses Landsat satellite images, and
game.html is helpful in introducing RS.
Video www.youtube.com/ Geospatial Revolution video on
watch?v=otpDq8CAano urbanization and geospatial
technologies is one alternative to
support “Connecting” to careers.
Analysis www.loc.gov/teachers/ Library of Congress Analysis Tool student
primary-source-analysis- observations, reflections, and questions
tool/ of primary sources.
Mapping www.arcgis.com/features/ ArcGIS online is a virtual mapping tool
that allows users to customize maps with
primary data and shares secondary data.
Alternatives for Making a Difference in

Your Neighborhood
Examining changing land use patterns and the impact on their communities
integrates spatial thinking with civic engagement to empower students to make
a difference in their neighborhoods. This specific module can be adapted by
teachers depending on their geographic setting, and activities can be modified
based on the amount and type of green/open space as well as land use patterns
in the community. Every community has unique qualities, whether urban, sub-
urban, or rural, but the basic concepts of exploring people-environmental inter-
action and associated impacts can be explored asking geographic questions and
using geospatial tools, such as those described in the module.
The following section provides suggestions for adapting the model for use
in alternative contexts, addressing other academic content and skills (especially
writing) and requiring less reliance on geospatial technologies using the open/
green space example. Consequently, the basic focus of the learning cycle does not
change (e.g., Big Question, Overview, Standards, Learning Targets, and Content
Background). Rather, we focus our examples for possible modifications on the
sections Engage, Explore, Explain, and Apply.
Engage. Students begin by identifying locations in the community with which
they are familiar and feel an attachment, such as their neighborhood. Next, they
draw and label a map (or Google Earth image) of the location as well as write a
descriptive paragraph about the location and the meaning it holds for them. Students
share their maps during a gallery walk or in a small group sharing session during
class. While sharing, student observers make lists of terms used to describe the loca-
tion and their peers’ connectedness to it. As a debriefing of the activity, the class
compares the geographic (e.g., density, proximity, direction, etc.) and affective terms
(e.g., pretty, empty, demolished, etc.), and the teacher directs focus to the importance
of space and understanding of place to individuals followed by a discussion of open/
green space and human interaction with the environment. This activity provides
useful information about the perspective of students in the classroom. For instance,
if the class does not recognize open/green space in their descriptions, this offers an
opportunity for promoting students “re-seeing” of a space. Additionally, it supports
students’ abilities to articulate how “they first characterized the existing sense of
place” (Schmidt, 2011, p. 114) prior to making connections to the place as citizens.
The discussion of open/green space and definitions proceeds as in the original
example, with the exception that students are using examples from their personal
experience to support their definitions. In this case, students are encouraged to
reflect back to the prior activity, and use what they learned to support their state-
ments. Similarly, the formative assessment activity, asking students to identify
various examples of open/green space, relies on student-generated texts, their
descriptive paragraphs and maps rather than teacher-supplied images.
Explore. With the student-centered approach and focus on areas known to
students, the Explore stage takes an open-inquiry approach. Building on the
Engage activity, students begin to more deeply investigate (explore) the con-
tent by first brainstorming to develop questions related to their identified areas,
focusing on human impact and land use with an emphasis on open/green space.
For example, students might compare public versus private land use, or in agri-
cultural communities, arable land versus pastoral or residential land. Next, stu-
dents participate in a peer feedback session to help them narrow their ideas to
a researchable topic and develop questions. The Explore stage might also cross
into the Connect stage to include discussions with community members in an
effort to help students determine if their focus is pragmatic and meaningful.
To investigate the area, students conduct fieldwork, if possible, and secondary
research concentrating on the history of the area, search local county records to
determine land ownership over time to investigate how ownership impacts land
use, or interview community members to learn about other’s perspectives related
to their questions.
Explain. As stated previously, students are asked to explain the human activ-
ities impacting green and open spaces in the context of their neighborhood.
With the change to student-directed open inquiry, they become responsible for
content related to their topic. To begin the inquiry, the teacher may want to
provide a list of appropriate websites, or sample secondary data sources to scaffold
student research skills.
During the Apply stage students discern how to best communicate what they
learned from this information and create appropriate maps, pictures, graphic
organizers, and narratives. In addition, they could devise and defend any recom-
mendations for changes to community open spaces that will benefit the commu-
nity and the environment in a PowerPoint/Keynote proposal. For dissemination
beyond the classroom, students could develop flyers using the style of an info-
graphic, requiring them to present their information concisely and in both nar-
rative and graphic forms.
Conclusion
Understanding the geographic realities of a place, such as the physical environ-
ment, resources, and the impact of the people living there, supports civic praxis.
As such, experience in a place is important in academic settings because it influ-
ences the way students interact with academic content and in academic contexts.
Kirshner, Strobel, and Fernandez (2003) suggested that “Understanding how
young people think about their neighborhoods, schools, and communities is criti-
cal to supporting their capacity to help build, shape or challenge the institutions
in those settings” (p. 2). Through our experience, we recognize the importance
of engaging students in the local community and providing them opportunities
to challenge their perceptions. Agreeing with the impact of experiences across
place and time in the development of civic agency, we argue that the inclusion
of geographic knowledge is essential to the development of civic knowledge and
engagement as it “helps students understand, participate in, and make informed

decisions about the world around them” ( Schultz et al., 2008, p. 33).
While this chapter was designed to provide a practical example of how to use
an experiential learning approach to promote both guided and open inquiry and
to enhance students’ spatial, civic understanding, a sample of our research find-
ings will help bridge the link between theory and practice. More specifically,
we highlight a few examples here of what students learned during the work-
shops about their community and the value of spatial thinking and technologies.
During the second summer workshop in 2016, there were twice the number of
participants (n = 17) as the initial workshop in 2015 (n = 8). It is important to
note, however, that while the two summer workshops enrolled a small number
of students due to challenges of recruiting students, our goal was to utilize these
experiences as a testing ground for effective practices that could later be dissemi-
nated more widely and adapted to other geographic settings. Subsequently, cur-
riculum developed based on these workshops has been piloted in other teachers’
classrooms. With this in mind, interviews with students during summer 2016
indicated changes in both what they learned about the community as well as the
way they viewed it.
We asked the students what they learned about the community that they
didn’t know before the workshop. Their responses were coded by what they
indicated they had learned, which was linked primarily to the student-suggested
topics they explored in their groups during the workshop, including abandoned
properties, blight, parks and community gardens, crime, and community needs.
For example, one student group inquired if abandoned houses impacted the value
of neighboring houses and the overall quality of life in the neighborhood. As a
result of this engagement in the neighborhood investigating the question, one
ninth-grade male student remarked, “I really learned that there are a lot of aban-
doned houses and that this community needs a lot of work but it still has great
potential.” Similarly, a second group wanted to identify and map the community
gardens and parks in the neighborhood. As citizens of the neighborhood, an
important aspect of their investigation illustrated their “critical consciousness”
( Freire, 2000) as they determined what amenities the parks and gardens had
to offer in comparison to parks in other neighborhoods in the city for equity
reasons. They revealed that while their district had more parks than others in
the metropolitan area, there were fewer amenities (e.g., tennis courts, basket-
ball courts, grills, picnic shelters, etc.) afforded them. This group consisted of
older students, a female who had just completed 12th grade, explained, “What
I learned about my community is that all the various parks that are around
Scott High School because I didn’t know none of them or the gardens. I learned
what those parks and gardens had to offer.” Two other topics were addressed by
students during Summer 2016, including crime and community needs (youth
employment more specifically), which are reflected in what students learned
about the community also.
Students also recognized the value of spatial thinking in understanding their

community. A ninth-grade male student highlighted the use of maps in improv-
ing the community. He noted, “I learned that mapping and rating of different
crimes in the community is very important. It’s good to have also when we want
to figure out where they are and how to stop it.” Perhaps most encouraging
was the response a female 11th-grade student made recognizing the connections
among all four groups’ topics when she said, “All of our topics like the parks and
gardens, housing, crime, and community assets and needs, it all runs together
like in our presentations. We will have a piece of each of these topics in our
presentations.” She also suggested, “I will always remember ARCGIS because it
was a new way of mapping instead of just looking up stuffs on Google maps. I
can actually put different buffers or layers on to actually see and compare things
in the community.”
We also asked the students if the experience (the summer workshop) changed
the way they viewed their community, and if so, in what way. Their responses to
this question were thoughtful and sophisticated. An 11th-grade female explained:
Yes the experience did change how I feel because from the different people
we had come and talk, the majority of them said it’s not that the people in
the community don’t care. It’s just that the different aspect of trying to pay
for a house or what’s around the neighborhood makes it hard for people to
take care of a house, a park or a garden.
A female, who had just graduated, added “This experience taught me that I
actually care more about my community. It made me care more about my com-
munity.” A 9th-grade male student said, “Well, I mean it didn’t really change
the way I view the community but it also did. It’s just like it changed my view
a little bit because I didn’t really know that there were so many people interact-
ing with the community trying to change it.” These admissions of increased
amounts of caring, and understanding the complexity of the neighborhood
conditions as well as the fact that there are people trying to make a difference
are indicative of enhanced awareness and preparedness to be engaged and active
citizens.
Geography affords teachers opportunities to engage students with civic edu-
cation authentically through investigation and interaction with real-world prob-
lems. Kahne, Hodgins, and Eidman-Aadahl (2016) described the challenge for
civic educators to “avoid controversy and not push any particular agenda,” while
also offering students opportunities to be active in their communities in ways
that engender civic engagement in a democratic society (p. 23). Using student-
driven inquiry related to their understandings of and interests in their neighbor-
hoods addresses such concerns. By cultivating their local “gardens,” we set the
stage for this group of students to understand and address challenges faced at the
regional, national, and global scales.
Acknowledgments
This project was supported by an Innovative Technology Experiences for Stu-
dents and Teachers (ITEST) grant from the National Science Foundation (DRL-
1433574). We would like to thank the students and teachers, who participated
in this project. Without them, it would not have been possible to explore the
effectiveness of the curriculum design and approach. We especially appreciate
our teacher advisors, who evaluated and piloted curriculum modules in their
classrooms. In addition, we value the help provided by our graduate student
assistants, Brinda Athreya and Owusua Yamoah, in facilitating the study. Two
other co-PIs, Kevin Czajkowski and Sujata Shetty (both in the Department of
Geography and Planning at the University of Toledo), were instrumental to the
project. Finally, our external evaluator, Hilarie Davis, has been a critical friend
to us throughout every stage of the project.
Note
1. Assuming Google Earth is installed on your computer, enter the address of the school.
If not, this is a free program that can be downloaded (See Table 7.5). In the menu
above the map, select the icon with the clock that notes “Show Historical Imagery.”
A timeline will appear in the upper left hand corner of the map that indicates how far
back Google Earth has images. Starting from the far left, click on the right arrow to
proceed through the images. Some considerations in choosing images for your activi-
ties include:
• Are the images in color or black and white? Which do you prefer for your purposes?
• At what time of the year were the images taken? In spring, summer, fall, or winter?
If you are going to compare two images, you might want them to be from the same
season? Or perhaps it would work better to have less tree cover?
• Are the dates and images accurate? In other words, are they labeled accurately in
Google Earth?
References
Adler, R. P., & Goggin, J. (2005). What do we mean by ‘civic engagement?’ Journal of
Transformative Education, 3, 236–253. doi:10.1177/1541344605276792
Atkins, R., & Hart, D. (2003). Neighborhoods, adults, and the development of civic
identity in urban youth. Applied Developmental Science, 7, 156–164. doi:10.1207/
s1532480xads0703_6
Banchi, H., & Bell, R. (2008). The many levels of inquiry. Science and Children, 46 (2),
26–29. Retrieved June 2017 from http://static.nsta.org/files/sc0810_26.pdf
Bell, R. L., Smetana, L., & Binns, I. (2005). Simplifying inquiry instruction: Accessing
the inquiry level of classroom activities. The Science Teacher, 72 (7), 30–33.
Bybee, R. W. (2002). Scientific inquiry, student learning, and the science curriculum.
In R. W. Bybee (Ed.), Learning science and the science of learning: Science educators' essay
collection (pp. 25–35). Arlington, VA: NSTA Press. doi:10.2505/9780873552080.
Chessin, D. A., & Moore, V. J. (2004). The 6-E learning model. Science & Children, 42 (3),
47–49.
Dewey, J. (1897). My pedagogic creed. The School Journal, 54 (3), 77–80.

Ehrlich, P. R., & Holdren, J. P. (1972). A bulletin dialogue on ‘the closing circle’: Cri-
tique. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 28 (5), 16–27.
Eisenkraft, A. (2003). Expanding the 5E model. The Science Teacher, 70 (6), 56–59.
Elwood, S. (2008). Volunteered geographic information: Future research directions
motivated by critical, participatory, and feminist GIS. GeoJournal, 72, 173–183.
Elwood, S., Goodchild, M. F., & Sui, D. Z. (2012). Researching volunteer geographic infor-
mation: Spatial data, geographic research, and new social practice. Annals of the Associa-
tion of American Geographers, 102(3), 571–590. doi:10.1080/00045608.2011.595657
EPA. (n.d.). What is open Space/Green Space ? Retrieved September 2017 from www3.epa.
gov/region1/eco/uep/openspace.html
Experiential Learning Cycles. (n.d.). Retrieved from www.experientiallearning.ucdavis.
edu/module1/el1_40-5step-definitions.pdf
Flanagin, A. J., & Metzger, M. J. (2008). The credibility of volunteered geographic
information. GeoJournal, 72, 137–148. doi:10.1007/s10708-008-9188-y
Freire, P. (2000). Pedagogy of the oppressed (30th ed.). New York, NY: Continuum.
Gibson, C. (2000). From inspiration to participation: A review of perspectives on youth civic
engagement. New York, NY: Carnegie Corporation of New York.
Giroux, H. (1988). Teachers as intellectuals: Toward a critical pedagogy of learning. South Had-
ley, MA: Bergin.
Goodchild, M. F. (2007). Citizens as sensors: The world of volunteered geography. Geo-
Journal, 69, 211–221. doi:10.1002/9780470979587.ch48
Gruenewald, D. A. (2008). The best of both worlds: A critical pedagogy of place. Envi-
ronmental Education Research, 14 (3), 308–324. doi:10.3102/0013189x032004002
Heffron, S. G., & Downs, R. M. (Eds.). (2012). Geography for life: National geography
standards (2nd ed.). Geography Education National Implementation Project (GENIP).
Kahne, J., Hodgins, E., & Eidman-Aadahl, E. (2016). Redesigning civic education for the
digital age: Participatory politics and the pursuit of democratic engagement. Theory &
Research in Social Education, 44 (1), 1–35. doi.10.1080/00933104.2015.1132646
Kirshner, B., Strobel, K., & Fernandez, M. (2003). Critical civic engagement among
urban youth. PennGse Perspectives on Urban Education, 2 (1), 1–20.
Marshall, J. C., Horton, B., & Smart, J. (2008). 4E × 2 instructional model: Uniting three
learning constructs to improve praxis in science and mathematics classrooms. Journal
of Science Teacher Education, 20, 501–516. doi:10.1007/s10972-008-9114-7
McLaren, P. (2003). Life in schools (4th ed.). New York, NY: Allyn and Bacon.
Murphy, A. B., Colleton, N., Downs, R. M., Goodchild, M. F., Hanson, S., Lawson, V., . . .
Yee, T. F. (2010). Understanding the changing planet: Strategic directions for the geographical
sciences. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.
National Council for the Social Studies. (2013). College, career, and civic life (C3) framework
for social studies state standards: Guidance for enhancing the rigor of K-12 civics, economics,
geography, and history. Silver Spring, MD: NCSS.
National Research Council. (2006). Learning to think spatially: GIS as a support system in
the K-12 curriculum. Washington, DC: National Academies Press. doi:10.17226/11019
Ogle, D. M. (1986). K-W-L: A teaching model that develops active reading of expository
text. Reading Teacher, 39, 564–570.
Ohio School Report Card. (2016). Retrieved from http://reportcard.education.ohio.gov/
Pages/School-Report.aspx?SchoolIRN=008262
Parker, B. (2006). Constructing community through maps? Power and praxis in commu-
nity mapping. The Professional Geographer, 58 (4), 470–484. doi:10.1111/j..1467-9272.
2006.00
Rezba, R. J., Auldridge, T., & Rhea, L. (1999). Teaching & learning the basic science skills.
Retrieved June 2017 from www.pen.k12.va.us/VDOE/instruction/TLBSSGuide.doc
as cited online at www.nsta.org/publications/news/story.aspx?id=50983
Rubin, B. (2007). ‘There’s still not justice’: Youth civic identity development amid dis-
tinct school and community contexts. Teachers College Record, 109 (2), 449–481.
Schlemper, M. B., & Monk, J. (2011). Discourses on ‘diversity’: Perspectives from gradu-
ate programs in geography in the United States. Journal of Geography in Higher Educa-
tion, 35(1), 23–46. doi:10.1080/03098265.2010.499564
Schmidt, S. J. (2011). Making space for the citizen in geographic education. Journal of
Geography, 110 (3), 107–119. doi:10.1080/00221341.2011.537671
Schultz, R. B., Kerski, J. J., & Patterson, T. C. (2008). The use of virtual globes as a spatial
teaching tool with suggestions for metadata standards. Journal of Geography, 107(1),
27–34. doi:10.1080/00221340802049844
Smith, G. A. (2007). Place-based education: Breaking through the constraining regulari-
ties of public school. Environmental Education Research, 13(2), 189–207. doi:10.1080/
13504620701285180
Sui, D. Z. (2008). The wikification of GIS and its consequences: Or Angelina Jolie’s
new tattoo and the future of GIS. Computers, Environment and Urban Systems, 32, 1–5.
doi:10.106/j.compenvurbsys.2001.12.001
Temple, T. (1978, April). Think globally, act locally: An interview with Dr. Rene Dubos.
EPA Journal, (4), 4–11.
United States Census Bureau. (2010). Population density by county. Retrieved December
2016 from www2.census.gov/geo/pdfs/maps-data/maps/thematic/us_popdensity_2010
map.pdf
World Population Data Sheet. (2015). Population Reference Bureau. Retrieved September
2017 from www.prb.org/pdf15/2015-world-population-data-sheet_eng.pdf
Youniss, J. (2011). Civic education: What schools can do to encourage civic identity and
action. Applied Developmental Science, 15(2), 98–103. doi:10.1080/10888691.2011.560814
Appendix A
Resources for Teachers to Use in
the Classroom
Instructions for Students in Exploring Historical and Current Images

Estimate the proportion of the image allocated to the following land uses in
remotely sensed image of the current photo (RSI One) and the historical photo
(RSI Two).
Proportion of land Proportion of land Changes

(RSI One) (RSI Two) (RSI 1–2)
Land Use
Green space
Buildings
Roads
Water
Parking Lots
Other ________
Putting Observations into Perspective through Data Analysis
Year of RSI One Year of RSI Two Data Source
Population Density
Housing Values
Median Income
Other Variable
Other Variable
8
GEOTECHNOLOGIES AND THE
SPATIAL CITIZEN
Tom Baker, Mary Curtis, and Lisa Millsaps
Introduction
A spatially literate citizenry must begin with young, spatially literate learners
capable of using technical and non-technical approaches to identify, explore,
and solve real problems in thoughtful, critical ways. A spatially and geographi-
cally literate populace can make a wide range of good decisions that benefit self,
community, and society. This chapter argues that geotechnologies, like Geo-
graphic Information Systems (GIS), GPS, digital globes, and related location-
based technologies, help to expedite and improve critical elements of spatial
decision making.
The Spatial Citizen

The 21st-century citizen is more spatially aware, commonly engaging geotech-
nologies to think spatially about daily practices (e.g., finding a location using a
smartphone) to more complex global issues (e.g., pollution and immigration).
Ideally, this sophistication gives rise to a more engaged public and a realized
notion of spatial citizenship. Gryl and Jekel (2012) describe a competent spatial
citizen as one who uses knowledge and skills to “access and make sense of (geo-)
information in order to participate in democratic processes and to make deci-
sions, taking into account the situations and circumstances encountered daily”
(p. 24). Sbicca and Perdue (2014) assert that spatial citizens are not passive, rather
they are engaged and active members of society pursuing democracy. Citizen-
ship can now be more participatory and justice oriented, fluid rather than static.
Globalization pushes its boundaries beyond the border of the nation-state to
address international issues and interdependency.
118 Tom Baker, Mary Curtis, and Lisa Millsaps
Many great discoveries and careers in modern society are rooted in spa-
tial thinking ( National Research Council [NRC], 2006). Spatial thinking is the
“set of abilities to visualize and interpret location, position, distance, direction,
relationships, movement, and change through space” ( Sinton, 2011, p. 733);
it is crucial to supporting the role and expectations of citizens while simulta-
neously helping to expand the concept of “citizen” beyond national borders
by way of virtual communities and international communities (e.g., “citizen
of the world”). Citizenship education is empowered through spatial awareness
and accessibility to geotechnology as data collection and representation encour-
age community and participatory democracy. In addition, elements of spatial
literacy, spatial knowledge, spatial thinking, and spatial capabilities form the
foundation for authentic problem solving ( NRC, 2006). Recognizing the role
of geotechnologies to support spatial thinking and the development of the spa-
tial citizen is largely dependent upon the well-trained educator and tailored
curriculum.
One of the key functions of the social sciences is citizenship education, the
acquisition of information and skills to positively interact with others, value dif-
ferent perspectives, and contribute to a democratic society (Daas, ten Dam, &
Dijkstra, 2016). Living in a time when information is fast, free, abundant, and
multi-sourced ( Curtis, 2015; De Freitas & Conole, 2010), young people create
and consume information at a rapid rate albeit often shallow. Honing their ten-
dencies, expanding their geotechnology skills, and teaching students to think
critically through a spatial lens is vital for developing responsible, contributing
spatial citizens.
Today, educators must learn what this entails in order to prepare youth for
the future. Yurt and Tünkler (2016) contend that spatial thinking, a core human
skill, can be learned, and, thus, be included in the curricula along with appro-
priate technologies. As such, educator preparation needs to include strategies
for how to connect spatial thinking and the use of geotechnologies to address
real-world circumstances. Schulze, Gryl, and Kanwischer (2015) contend that the
learning constructs of a spatial citizen are
formulated as individual knowledge, skills, and attitudes that are needed

to participate in fluent communities of society and to challenge domi-
nant discourses by producing, communicating, and negotiating alternative
spatial constructions using digital geomedia and web 2.0 applications in a
reflected and reflective manner.
(p. 374)
In other words, cultivating insightful spatial citizens through spatial thinking

and geotechnologies is germane for successful maneuvering in the physical,
social, and political world and to the democratic process.
Geotechnologies and the Spatial Citizen 119
Geotechnologies
Geotechnologies are a suite of location-based tools that may include geographic
information systems (GIS), the global positioning system (GPS), remote sensing,
digital globes, and other location-enabled technologies. Today, geotechnolo-
gies are embedded and miniaturized such that they are often included in many
consumer devices, from smartphones and automobiles to drones and cameras.
In recent years, geospatial technologies have become more accessible through
a host of web and mobile tools—usable by nearly anyone, anywhere, anytime.
The technology landscape able to support learning has grown dramatically.
These tools are more powerful than ever before, largely because they are linked
through common online platforms, where data, analytics, and maps are created
in real time and can change to reflect new information contributed from across a
community. This is one way in which geotechnologies support citizenship edu-
cation through the lens of geography, often engendering community or national
interests and values.
Today, geotechnologies can run in a web browser, require no software
installation, and can be used without logging in to a system. The geotechnol-
ogy platform can run on desktops, tablets, and mobile devices, and empower
the geo-enabled learner and citizen to discover phenomena by exploring oth-
ers’ data or collecting their own. The ability for various community members
to collect and report data to a common web application and map is the techno-
logical essence of community mapping (also known as participatory mapping,
volunteered geographic information, citizen science, or crowd-sourced data).
When linked through a common geographic location, community-reported
data can be viewed and analyzed with other professionally collected data.
Finally, rich narrative, with photos, and videos, can be shared with interactive
maps to tell the story in visually expressive ways that weren’t possible just a
few years ago.
The following sections explore some of the broad categories of geotechnolo-
gies that are commonly used in learning environments to support spatially enabled
citizen education through local projects (Figure 8.1). Mobile apps are often used
to collect and share data, replacing traditional GPS receivers or other data collec-
tion devices in most classrooms. Mobile apps are also used to review completed
maps, data, or analysis by community members. Mobile apps and tablets are
nearly ubiquitous today and most support some form of location services. Desk-
top geotechnologies are used by educators and students to create or reformulate
data. These powerful tools are often used for analyses as well, prior to publishing
data for community use in an online format. Webmapping may include data
collection or analysis or visualization; it may be used in local investigative proj-
ects designed by students (e.g., water quality mapping from nearby streams) or
support pre-built learning activities around some aspect of a community (e.g.,
legislative apportionment). Story mapping builds on Webmapping by adding
FIGURE 8.1 Geotechnology Tools for Geo-Enabled Community Investigation
additional information from photos, video, or extended narrative. Story maps

often present information in a linear format to better organize the content.
Mobile Devices and Apps

Like webmapping, mobile devices (phones or tablets) and apps can allow the
spatial citizen to collect or explore existing data, such as demographic, economic,
scientific, agricultural, environmental, or other data. Moreover, mobile apps
can also allow the spatial citizen to contribute, query, or analyze community-
submitted data in real time based on the mobile device’s current position. This
easy access to the time and place aspects of data make the mobile device ideal
for rapidly screening nearby relevant data from trying to find a restaurant to
proximity-based advertising, now being used in some retail outlets.
Privacy issues aside, the ability to know (and share) a location via mobile
phone opens a world of possibilities to changing the way a spatial citizen lives.
The Uber ride transportation service uses your phone’s GPS to send a driver to
you on request. Numerous social apps can also turn your phone into a virtual
beacon, allowing any friends in your network to discover that you are nearby
and call or text for a quick coffee. The combination of location-based technolo-
gies in mobile devices are now a part of daily lives. How many young people
today could use a paper map to find a destination? Most would call up the map-
ping application on their phone without a pause. In spite of the proliferation of
commercial and social apps available on mobile devices, there is still great poten-
tial for the role of technologies in more serious benefits to the spatial citizen. For
instance, 411 apps allow an informed community member to report data benefi-
cial to the community. Many metropolitan areas have “My street light is out” or
“My sidewalk needs repair” apps that instantly report data to the city. Similarly,
educators can use free apps like ESRI’s Survey123 to create geo-enabled invento-
ries that students can contribute to from their mobile phones.
Desktop Tools
Desktop geotechnology tools assist the spatial citizen in making good deci-
sions through rich data analysis. These tools can be divided into GIS-based
tools or digital globes. Desktop GIS can be ideal for the geo-enabled learner as
the tools are powerful and f lexible, allowing for seemingly limitless combina-
tions of discovery and sharing. Students and teachers engaged in local projects
with authentic questions typically find the power of desktop tools to be an
ideal pairing with their classroom work. While most desktop tools have a
relatively steep learning curve, the capacity to engage in geographic inquiry,
explore geospatial data, perform spatial analyses, and share maps is unparal-
leled. Consider the student teams collecting water quality, in a desktop tools, a
theme-based analysis can tell spatial citizens what zoning commonalities exist
in reported areas of high dissolved oxygen. Similarly, the stream sampling
location could be traced upstream, identifying upstream surface water that
contributes to the reading.
Digital or virtual globes display data on an apparent globe covered in high-
resolution imagery; the globes extrude data from the map surface to create a
three-dimensional effect. These globes have the ability to easily change base maps
and support place markers for indicating instructionally relevant places around
the globe. Digital globes typically have a simple interface and are intended for
general use by the consumer or citizen to find and explore geographic informa-
tion. Aside from using these tools to explore the landscape and historical, natu-
ral, or cultural landmarks, these tools can be used to tell compelling stories about
travel or journals. Many consider digital globes to be the best way for exploring
multi-scale high-resolution imagery. This can be imperative in understanding
numerous community inquiries about landscape, changing urbanization pat-
terns, surface water depletion, or more.
Webmapping
Powerful and versatile webmapping tools are web-based, interactive maps
capable of displaying data or analyses of a geographic area. Typically, Webmap-
ping supports layers of data, identification of features, measurement, and more.
Webmaps are used by consumers, professionals, and learners alike—working in
nearly any discipline. Webmapping has been well received in the education com-
munity for supporting teaching and learning in approachable and powerful ways
(Baker, 2015b; Bodzin & Anastasio, 2006). Webmapping platforms like ArcGIS
Online are often freely available to schools (public, private, and home) across the
United States for instructional use. The trend toward adoption and use has been
growing globally with more countries adding webmapping to their curricula
with each passing year (e.g., Milson, Demirci, & Kerski, 2012).
Webmapping platforms (like ArcGIS Online) allow schools to add hundreds of
teacher and student accounts for data, map, and application creation or publishing.
Students can create a map containing a pre-loaded high-resolution base map of
their community on which they can draw map notes to indicate areas where green
spaces have been built. Students can then add operational data like population
density, school location, or traffic patterns and comment on the relevance of the
green space. These maps can then easily be shared internally to the school or pub-
licly for sharing with the community or town council.
Students can also add their own data that they collect with a mobile phone
GPS—or using a mobile app like Survey123 to indicate locations in town where
additional parks, exercise facilities, or green space can be found. This step is
particularly important for empowering the students to contribute directly to the
research process and potential solutions, which in turn prepares them better to
be active, spatial citizens. When teachers have “administrator” capacities in the
tool, they have complete read and write permissions over student work, allowing
them to see work as it progresses, redirecting the new geo-enabled learner as it
becomes necessary.
The benefits of webmapping to support positive teaching and learning can be
extensive. Research suggests that webmapping can improve data analysis (Baker &
White, 2003, Bodzin & Anastasio, 2006) while increasing cultural awareness
(Milson, 2011). Researchers have also explored the positive effects of webmap-
ping on improved spatial thinking (Manson et al., 2013). It has been argued that
webmapping tools can decrease teacher-training time by using customized data
and map interfaces (Henry & Semple, 2012; Huang, 2011). Finally, when web-
mapping is used within inquiry or project-based learning, the results have also
demonstrated effectiveness (King, 2008; Huang, 2011).
Story Maps
Story maps blend text, photography, video, graphs, and interactive mapping
in organized ways that more extensively communicate a story—analytical or
anecdotal. While a variety of story map forms exist through different layouts
and templates, the basic mechanism is the same. Narrative and imagery linearly
presents information to a learner in the context of place. More than just bounc-
ing from one marker to the next on a globe, story maps weave the story of rela-
tionships between places, synthesizing, comparing, calculating, visualizing, and
communicating. Perhaps the greatest value of story maps lay in the ability of the
author to craft a storyline while simultaneously presenting data and encourag-
ing the geo-enabled learner to explore, to verify the narrative, or perhaps even
create their own.
The ability to understand others’ geo-enabled stories must also be a hallmark
of the spatial citizen. Independent of the software, the geo-enabled learner must
see the value of spatial data and the representation of that data in storytelling.
Early indications suggest that this approach is an effective tool for classroom
instruction ( Strachan, 2014). This approach should be nearly as basic to the spa-
tial citizen as considering the spatiality of data in the first place. As the corner-
stone of a story map is data gathering and representation; sharing story maps is
fundamentally about understanding the value and relevance of location and place
in the relationships told by the story.
One example from the tens of thousands of story maps is “Climate Migrants,”
the story of how climate change and sea level rise are displacing thousands of
people today (Figure 8.2). From Alaskan villages to Bangladesh, Darfur, and
Syria, this story map shows how interactive maps, photography, and powerful
narrative convey the plight of these migrants. (see http://esriurl.com/sCit1).
Curriculum as a Learning Solution

Properly designed classroom instructional materials supporting teaching with or
about geotechnologies are critical. Teaching with geotechnologies, while far more
commonplace, tends to focus on standards-based content delivered efficiently
but effectively. Teaching with geotechnology uses the geotechnologies to support
and sometime drive the learning—but the technology is often lightly used. Con-
versely, teaching about geotechnologies can be valid pedagogically in at least two
situations: (1) Career and Technical Education programs (or similar) or (2) as an
embedded component of project work (e.g., a student needs to learn how to cre-
ate a hot spot analysis to understand data they have collected). Both approaches
(with vs. about) to designing learning materials are appropriate and both have
strengths and challenges, but functionally they represent two different points
along a geo-enabled curricular spectrum.
FIGURE 8.2 An Example Story Map

Geo-Enabled Instructional Materials

Historically, project-based (local investigations) approaches to using geotechnol-
ogies in classrooms have only been marginally adopted. These time and resource
intensive pedagogies have minimized geo-enabled learning for the majority of
U.S. school students. The historical adoption of the technology over the past
20 years reflects this trend. Arguably, materials like Mapping Our World broke
this usage trend, departing from a project-based approach to using a more pedes-
trian (worksheet driven) approach to geo-enabling curriculum and experiencing
one of the highest use rates of GIS instructional materials developed for schools
(Malone, Palmer, & Voigt, 2002).
Thus, a democratization of geotechnologies in schools can be achieved by
identifying known and anticipated barriers and designing instruction that uses tech-
nology to overcomes those barriers. In this way, democratization begins with
accessible software, devices, and instructional materials and includes critical
elements such as ties to standards, textbooks, and pedagogical methods while
leveraging basic existing, in-classroom technologies (Baker, 2015a). The democ-
ratization occurs in the widespread or mainstream use of geotechnologies in
regular classroom instruction, even if that use is initially punctuated. A prime
example of new geo-enabled instructional materials today is GeoInquiries
(www.esri.com/geoinquiries) for ArcGIS Online. These instructional materials
are free, scripted for the teacher, require no software installation or login and are
subject-focused. As a teacher delivers instruction with GeoInquiries, over time
the classroom builds its understanding of GIS specifically.
Guided or Scripted Projects: Crowds to Classrooms

Using pre-built, web-based projects can guide student learning quite effectively.
These scripted projects, unlike simple geo-enabled instructional materials, often
rely on a project structure, asking students to collect and assess geographically
relevant data following a line of inquiry. Elements of a guided or scripted project
are typically online and collaborative—allowing students to work with other
schools across town or the globe. The advantage for the new or time-pressed
educator is that the project, technology, and instructional materials are pre-
constructed and need only be delivered in the classroom. The drawbacks to this
approach include a lack of student voice in determining the project and/or pos-
sible local relevancy.
Today, these guided projects can go by many names including crowd-sourced
projects, citizen science, volunteered geographic information, or participatory
geography. Popular projects in the United States over the last two decades include
the GLOBE program, eBird, Historypin, and Journey North. Guided projects
like these typically require a classroom to register and then begin collecting data,
following the prescribed protocol and reporting procedures.
Teachers can also create guided projects for learners. While there may be
fewer students participating in these scripted activities, the efforts are often more
locally relevant to learners. The challenge is that a teacher must have the techni-
cal expertise and project design savvy to effectively create the guiding questions,
data collection protocol, and a data reporting or analysis method. Toolkits like
Ushahidi, Survey123, or the Open Data Kit can be appropriate for this task.
Unscripted, Local Research Projects

Geotechnologies can be a powerful ally in student-directed projects or research.
When webmapping is used within inquiry-learning models, the results can be
effective (King, 2008; Huang, 2011). To understand how geotechnologies can
enhance student-directed projects, teachers and learners need to know the typi-
cal stages and activities associated with the scientific inquiry model or the geo-
graphic inquiry model. A common first step in student-directed projects, field
studies, or service learning is to frame learning around a question that relates to
a community challenge. Asking a good question that is realistic and answerable
can be difficult, especially the first few times. It often helps to have a mentor.
A variety of pedagogical models can be used to implement a scripted or
unscripted project-based approach to learning, from inquiry instructional mod-
els like the 5E model (Biological Sciences Curriculum Study) or the geographic
inquiry model, or the Howard Burrows’ project-based learning model. A project-
based approach typically includes active student learning that integrates new
knowledge with real-world experiences in a progressive process—leveraging
the student voice in building competence and skill. One such approach, is geo-
graphic inquiry with the following five stages of development (ESRI, 2003).
Ask
In student-directed projects, learners become investigators. Investigators, like
good detectives, need to acquire as much information about a topic as possible
before acting. Good investigators learn about factors that affect the question
or problem. They remain unbiased and good investigators must be willing to
change their mind, as more is learned. This often means investigators change
their question or problem statement—making it better or more aligned to the
needs of a community. In this model, asking a question is central to the inquiry
process.
Acquire
Acquire knowledge or information about the context or background of the
issue. This background must help discern the strategy for answering the ques-
tion posed. What is known or unknown? What can be known? What are other
closely related issues? Is there a geographic or temporal range of interest? At this

stage remotely sensed imagery or demographic data are often used to understand
the context of the problem. Creating maps of what is known almost always helps
to frame the problem and potentially revise the question.
Explore
Explore existing data or collect new data about the question or problem, build-
ing on newly acquired knowledge. It is important to use or design a method for
collecting information in a consistent manner and format, so that data can be
comparable. Without summarizing data, it will be very difficult to make accu-
rate statements about what the data mean.
Analyze
After acquiring and collecting data, students analyze the information. Analysis
of data can be simple or complex. As a starting point, make a map of findings.
Use map markers to show where data were collected. Using an ArcGIS Organi-
zational account, use analysis tools to discover the best approach for understand-
ing the data.
Act
To act on the results of a study, present the findings to stakeholders such as a
town council or parent-teacher association. It may also mean doing something
that mitigates or helps to correct the problem. A teacher, adviser, or GeoMentor
can help determine what the best course of action may be.
Geotechnologies can be used at various stages of a project. Consider making
maps describing the problem statement (study), analyzing or visualizing second-
ary data and maps related to the problem, and making maps to report findings
or actions. Maps can often be used to discover a discrepant event, which leads to
the project’s question.
Teacher Professional Development

For wide-scale changes to learning for a spatial citizenry, supporting educators
with geospatial technologies during their pre-service preparation programs and
in-service professional development experiences must be considered and care-
fully planned with respect to research, best practice, and certification standards.
There has been much investigation, practice, and creation of materials, guide-
lines, and frameworks for extending and sustaining geospatial technologies into
in-service, pre-service, and informal teacher education. In recent years special
volumes specifically about geospatial technology in teacher education have been
produced (Langran & Baker, 2016; MaKinster, Trautmann, & Barnett, 2014);
however, the bulk of the work in this space is still sparse with recommended
methods and relatively isolated studies (Hammond, Langran, & Baker, 2014;
Hohnle, Fogele, Mehren, & Schubert, 2016; Hong & Stonier, 2015; Jo, 2016;
Millsaps & Harrington, 2017; Rubino-Hare et al., 2016). Not surprisingly, the
data seem to show use of geospatial technology and data in teacher education are
not the norm.
Recent research in GIS in teacher professional development has led to a
series of lessons learned in leading successful professional development experi-
ences. These lessons included providing opportunities to network and estab-
lish supportive relationships among educators, making training discipline and
standards relevant, and including post-training support ( Tabor & Harrington,
2014). The idea of being f lexibly adaptive was suggested as a need for profes-
sional development, emphasizing time for teachers to create activities for their
own curriculum and instructors to provide scaffold ( Trautmann & MaKinster,
2014).
Empirical studies have further documented the use of geospatial tools in
teacher preparation and professional development. In an online survey of how
geotechnologies are used in teacher preparation programs, it was found that use
continues to be low (Hammond et al., 2014). A study recognized the need to
determine characteristics of learning experiences for pre-service teachers that
promote a positive disposition toward teaching with geotechnology (Jo, 2016).
The results showed a positive increase in disposition for pre-service teachers
who participated in online web-GIS activities and self-reflection activities, with
the pre-service teachers identifying GIS as helpful for achieving physical and
human geography learning objectives because of the rich information available
from the GIS. Teacher persistence of newly learned geospatial and project-based
learning practices and skills were studied in Rubino-Hare et al. (2016). It was
found that context and technological skill level were factors in the participat-
ing teachers’ continuation of using geotechnology and project-based learning in
their classrooms.
Select methods and procedures lead to successful teacher training, whether it
be by tailoring the content to the specific audience (Tabor & Harrington, 2014),
being flexibly adaptive with teachers (Trautmann & MaKinster, 2014), or using
time as a guide (Hohnle et al., 2016; Millsaps & Harrington, 2017). The identi-
fication of teacher specific factors have also enhanced this knowledge and sug-
gests teacher training take into account dispositions towards geotechnology (Jo,
2016) and technology comfort and skill level (Rubino-Hare et al., 2016). While
these studies provide some guidance about teacher education and training, sig-
nificantly more work is needed to clarify most of the elements of geotechnology
in the professional development process. For a substantive review of the ongoing
needs, see the agenda, A Research Agenda for Geospatial Technologies and Learning
(Baker et al., 2015).
Exemplar: Using Geotechnologies to Teach

Climate Change
Climate change as an exemplar is a contemporary and relevant topic for informed
spatial citizens. However, climate change education is not routine in the class-
room, yet scientists, educators, and societal members want to better integrate
the topic into the curriculum (Leiserowitz, Smith, & Marlon, 2011; Schreiner,
Henriksen, & Kirkeby Hansen, 2005). The instructional purpose of this project
was to provide the students with a basic understanding of weather, climate, and
climate change, and then use regional, state, and local climate change data with
the goal of making local climate change personally relevant to the student, hop-
ing that this would enable them to make better decisions about climate change
throughout their lifetime. The overarching instructional question was: what
does climate change in the Great Plains mean to you as a citizen of the region?
The learning activities promoted spatial citizenship for both the teachers and
students by increasing their know-how on accessing, acquiring, and using spatial
data, using geospatial technology in an applied manner, and putting these skills
together to ask and answer real life questions about climate change.
An exploratory mixed methods research design was used to document the use
of a GIS and the local perspective for teaching climate change (Tabor, 2016). A
two-part intervention was used: (1) teacher training, and (2) classroom imple-
mentation. Student, teacher, and classroom-centered data were collected to
address student knowledge and dispositions, teacher perceptions of GIS use in
teaching climate change, and both students’ and teachers’ perceptions of chal-
lenges and successes of using GIS in the classroom.
Students showed an overall positive growth in knowledge and a positive dispo-
sitional interest in climate change, particularly local climate change as important
to them. Teachers shared a positive perception regarding the use of GIS to teach
climate change. Successes and challenges were observed in classrooms, recognizing
the benefits of enhanced student engagement and learning while using the GIS, as
well as the challenges of using technology and supporting student needs in learn-
ing new content and a new skill simultaneously. The learning activities promoted
spatial citizenship for both the teachers and students by increasing their know-how
on accessing, acquiring, and using spatial data, using geospatial technology in an
applied manner, and putting these skills together to ask and answer real life ques-
tions about climate change. This exploratory research is one exemplar supporting
the premise that using geotechnologies to teach topics related to spatial citizenship
is practical and reproducible for teacher education and effective for student learning.
Conclusion
The development of the spatial learner and citizen can be fostered through the
application of geospatial technologies in a variety of disciplines. The integration
of web, mobile, desktop, or other geotechnology tools and data for learning are
increasingly well documented, but more research is needed. Whether scripted
or project-focused—a continuum of spatially enabled instructional materials can
serve the development of spatial learners.
When place becomes a critical element to a topic of study, it offers a new link-
age to the learner, a connection that allows for a spatial understanding to form—
supporting learners’ growth across subject boundaries and grade levels with a
common frame of reference. The use of geotechnologies to enhance learning
must considered and planned for in the context of teacher education, especially
pre-service teacher education. Given the prominence and seemingly exponential
growth of geotechnologies and data among professionals and citizens, it would
seem that spatial has already become foundational to the role of citizen.
References
Baker, T. R. (2015a). GeoInquiries: Maps and data for everyone. The Geography Teacher,
12 (3), 128–131.
Baker, T. R. (2015b). Web GIS in education. In O. Muñiz Solari, A. Demirci, & J. van der
Schee (Eds.), Geospatial technologies and geography education in a changing world. Tokyo,
Japan: Springer.
Baker, T. R., Battersby, S., Bednarz, S. W., Bodzin, A. M., Kolvoord, B., Moore, S., . . .
Uttal, D. (2015). A research agenda for geospatial technologies and learning. Journal
of Geography, 114 (3), 118–130.
Baker, T. R., & White, S. H. (2003). The effects of Geographic Information System (GIS)
technologies on students’ attitudes, self-efficacy, and achievement in middle school
science classrooms. The Journal of Geography, 102 (6), 243–254.
Bodzin, A. M., & Anastasio, D. (2006). Using web-based GIS for earth and environmen-
tal systems education. Journal of Geoscience Education, 54 (3), 295–295.
Curtis, M. D. (2015). Analyzing the diffusion of geospatial technologies as instructional tools
in high school geography education. Doctoral Dissertation, Texas State University, San
Marcos, TX.
Daas, R., ten Dam, G., & Dijkstra, A. B. (2016). Contemplating modes of assessing citi-
zenship competences. Studies in Educational Evaluation, 51, 88–95.
De Freitas, S., & Conole, G. (2010). The inf luence of pervasive and integrative tools
on learners’ experiences and expectations of study. In Rethinking learning for a digi-
tal age: How learners are shaping their own experiences (pp. 15–30). New York, NY:
Routledge.
Esri, Inc. (2003). Geographic inquiry: Thinking geographically. Retrieved June 2017 from
www.esri.com/industries/k-12/education/~/media/files/pdfs/industries/k-12/pdfs/
geoginquiry.pdf
a spatial citizenship approach. Cartographica, 47, 18–28.
Hammond, T. C., Langran, E., & Baker, T. R. (2014). Survey of geospatial information
technologies in teacher education. In Proceedings of society for information technology &
teacher education international conference 2014 (pp. 873–881). Chesapeake, VA: Associa-
tion for the Advancement of Computing in Education.
Henry, P., & Semple, H. (2012). Integrating online GIS into the K—12 curricula: Lessons
from the development of a collaborative GIS in Michigan. The Journal of Geography,
111(1), 3–14.
Hohnle, S., Fogele, J., Mehren, R., & Schubert, J. C. (2016). GIS teacher training:
Empirically-based indicators of effectiveness. Journal of Geography, 115(1), 12–23.
Hong, J. E., & Stonier, F. (2015). GIS in-service teacher training based on TPACK. Journal
of Geography, 114 (3), 108–117.
Huang, K. H. (2011). A GIS-interface web site: Exploratory learning for geography cur-
riculum. The Journal of Geography, 110 (4), 158–165.
Jo, I. (2016). Future teachers’ dispositions toward teaching with geospatial technolo-
gies. The CITE Journal, 16 (3). Retrieved 1 January 2016 from www.citejournal.org/
publication/volume-16/issue-3-16/
King, E. (2008). Can PBL-GIS work online? The Journal of Geography, 107(2), 43–51.
Langran, E., & Baker, T. R. (2016). Special issue: Geospatial technologies in teacher edu-
cation: A brief overview. Contemporary Issues in Technology & Teacher Education, 16 (3).
Retrieved 1 January 2017 from www.citejournal.org/volume-16/issue-3-16/editorial/
geospatial-technologies-in-teacher-education-a-brief-overview
Leiserowitz, A., Smith, N., & Marlon, J. R. (2011). American teens’ knowledge of cli-
mate change. In Yale project on climate change communication. New Haven, CT: Yale
University Press. Retrieved 1 April 2015 from http://environment.yale.edu/uploads/
american-teens-knowledge-of-climate-change.pdf
Rubino-Hare, L. A., Whitworth, B. A., Bloom, N. E., Claesgens, J. M., Fredrickson,
K. M., Henderson-Dahms, C., & Sample, J. C. (2016). Persistent teaching prac-
tices after geospatial technology professional development. Contemporary Issues
in Technology & Teacher Education, 16 (3). Retrieved 1 January 2016 from www.cite
journal.org/volume-16/issue-3-16/science/persistent-teaching-practices-after-
geospatial-technology-professional-development/
Malone, L., Palmer, A., & Voigt, C. (2002). Mapping our world: GIS lessons for educators.
Redlands, CA: ESRI Press.
MaKinster, J. G., Trautmann, N., & Barnett, M. (2014). Teaching science and investigating
environmental issues with geospatial technology: Designing effective professional development
for teachers. Dordrecht, Netherlands: Springer.
Manson, S., Shannon, J., Eria, S., Kne, L., Dyke, K., Nelson, S., Batra, L., Bonsal, D.,
Kernik, M., Immich, J., & Matson, L. (2014). Resource needs and pedagogical value
of web mapping for spatial thinking. Journal of Geography, 113(3), 107–117. doi:
10.1080/00221341.2013.790915
Millsaps, L. T., & Harrington, J. A. (2017). A time-sensitive framework for including
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in professional development activities for class-
room teachers. Journal of Geography, 116 (4), 152–164.
Milson, A. J. (2011). The cultivation of spatial-civic decision-making through web GIS.
In T. Jekel, A. Koller, K. Donert, & R. Vogler (Eds.), Learning with geoinformation:
Implementing digital earth in education (pp. 12–18). Berlin: Wichmann.
Milson, A., Demirci, A., & Kerski, J. J. (Eds.). (2012). International perspectives on teaching
and learning with GIS in secondary schools. Dordrecht, Netherlands: Springer.
National Research Council (NRC). (2006). Learning to think spatially. Washington, DC:
National Academies Press.
Schreiner, C., Henriksen, E. K., & Kirkeby Hansen, P. J. (2005). Climate education:
Empowering today’s youth to meet tomorrow’s challenges. Studies in Science Educa-
tion, 41, 3–50.
Sinton, D. S. (2011). Spatial thinking. In J. Stoltman (Ed.), 21st century geography: A refer-
ence handbook (pp. 733–744). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Strachan, C. (2014). Teacher’s perceptions of Esri story maps as effective teaching tools. Master’s
Thesis, University of South Carolina.
Sbicca, J., & Perdue, R. T. (2014). Protest through presence: Spatial citizenship and iden-
tity formation in contestations of neoliberal crises. Social Movement Studies, 13(3),
309–327.
Geography in Higher Education, 39 (3), 369–385.
Tabor, L. (2016). Using a GIS-based framework to teach climate change in Kansas. Doctoral
Dissertation. Available from K-Rex (2016-04-22T14:03:45Z), Retrieved 24 January
2017 from http://hdl.handle.net/2097/32602
Tabor, L. K., & Harrington, J. A. (2014). Lessons learned from professional development
workshops on using GIS to teach geography and history in the K-12 classroom. The
Geography Teacher, 11(2), 47–54.
Trautmann, N., & MaKinster, J. (2014). Meeting teachers where they are and helping
them achieve their goals. In J. MaKinster, N. Trautmann, & M. Barnett (Eds.), Teach-
ing science and investigating environmental issues with geospatial technology: Designing effec-
tive professional development for teachers. New York, NY: Springer.
Yurt, E., & Tünkler, V. (2016). A study on the spatial abilities of prospective social studies
teachers: A Mixed Method Research. Educational Sciences: Theory and Practice, 16 (3),
965–986.
9
INFORMED CITIZENRY STARTS
IN THE PRESCHOOL AND
ELEMENTARY GRADES—AND
WITH GEOGRAPHY
Elizabeth R. Hinde
Parker (2012) notes, “Without historical understanding, there can be no wisdom.

Without geographical understanding there can be no social or environmental
intelligence. Without civic understanding, there can be no democratic citizens,
and, therefore, no democracy” (p. 3). That is, history, geography, and civics are
integrally tied together in the education of an informed citizenry. Although, as
de Blij (2012) acknowledged, there is no “single, snappy answer” (p. 6) to the
question of what is geography like to other content areas, it is clear that geo-
graphic knowledge and perspective are vital features of an informed citizenry
in any country. Geographic knowledge and perspective help interpret the past,
understand current events, and provide a framework for forecasting some future
events. (For instance, the flooding of New Orleans that occurred as a result of
Hurricane Katrina was predicted well before the event. See www.pbs.org/wgbh/
nova/earth/predicting-katrina.html.) Importantly, geographic thinking is essen-
tial for a range of decisions including personal decisions, such as where to live;
to matters of global importance, like where and how to dispose of toxic waste,
for instance. As noted in the Roadmap for 21st Century Geography Education, the
dismal state of K-12 geography education in America is “a threat to our country’s
well-being, and by extension, the well-being of the global community” (Edel-
son, Shavelson, & Wertheim, 2013, p. 17). This chapter argues that geography
education is vital for not only providing accurate answers on a test or finding
places on a map; geography is vital in the development of informed citizens—
and that geography education must start in the early years.
There is a mistaken assumption that young children are unable to learn geo-
graphical and historical concepts because they do not yet have the intellectual
capacity to learn such things (Hinde & Perry, 2007). Some even argue that chil-
dren cannot learn geography (and other subjects) until they learn how to read
Informed Citizenry Starts in the Preschool 133
and write. Both assertions are mistaken. Young children certainly can learn geo-
graphic concepts, and, indeed, already come to school with some geographic
knowledge (Barton, 2009; Blaut, 1997; Ekiss, Trapido-Lurie, Phillips, & Hinde,
2007). Young children may not yet have the linguistic skills to articulate their
knowledge to others, but they have a fund of knowledge of the world that can
provide the basis for the development of fundamental geographic concepts. From
the landscapes and other physical features outside their windows, to the cultures
at home and in the media to which they have been exposed, children come to
school with a large fund of knowledge of geography on which teachers can
build. Indeed, early childhood and elementary classrooms are places where rich
and engaging geography lessons can and should be taught.
Importance of Geography in the Curriculum

One of the most difficult challenges of teaching (of any ages) is to motivate stu-
dents to learn the content that the teacher deems important. When the curricu-
lum reflects or revolves around children’s lived experience, and the teacher is a
proficient instructor, the motivation for children to continue to learn is inherent.
When the curriculum, enacted through a skilled teacher, provides clarity to stu-
dents’ curiosities, or inspires more questions about the world around them, moti-
vation for future learning is no longer a challenge. When taught well, geography
provides such motivation, and it could—and should—begin at a very young age.
Since the earliest days of American schooling, geography was considered a
vital part of the curriculum and was intended to hold a prominent place in it,
since it is through geography that children first experience the world around
them (Parker, 1894). The early American curriculum was influenced by Euro-
pean thinkers, notably Rousseau and Pestalozzi, who recommended that the
teaching of geography begin in the town and home in which children live (Bar-
ton, 2009). Rousseau and Pestalozzi both emphasized the importance of placing
the child at the center of the curriculum and that all curricula should revolve
around the child’s experiences. Importantly, both regarded geography as a natu-
ral starting point for learning in young children. Their ideas of centering the
curriculum around the child were adopted by such influencers of American
educational thought as F. W. Parker (1837–1902), John Dewey (1859–1952), Lucy
Sprague Mitchell (1878–1967), and others whose influence still reverberates in
American curricula. They understood that children come to school with a rudi-
mentary understanding of the world that should be developed through geogra-
phy education.
Setting geography aside briefly, throughout history a commonly stated pur-
pose of schooling has been to prepare youth for informed citizenry. Although
education for effective citizenship is not uniquely American, early American
educators and leaders embraced this purpose for schooling as ardently as educa-
tors and philosophers from around the world had for centuries. Indeed, Thomas
134 Elizabeth R. Hinde
Jefferson, John Adams, and James Madison noted early in America’s history that
a free society relies on the “knowledge, skills, and virtues of its citizens and those
they elect to public office” (Campaign to Promote Civic Education, n.d., para.
1). Although it is vital that Americans possess the knowledge, skills, and virtues
needed to sustain democratic principles, it is equally vital that they possess these
characteristics as citizens of a global society. Understanding the roles of citizens
in a national and global society is the point at which geography and citizenship
education intersect.
Along the way, though, geography lost its prominence in the American cur-
riculum, and with it, a vital facet of citizenship education. Although Americans’
lack of geographic knowledge has been a subject of many jokes and criticisms
(Hinde, 2014a), it is becoming an increasingly serious concern to the future of
the country. With the proliferation of information systems and growing global
interdependence, the ability to think geographically and perform geographic
skills are becoming an increasingly important aspect of effective citizenship in
a democratic society and interdependent world (Bednarz, Heffron, & Huynh,
2013; de Blij, 2012; Hinde, 2014b). Schools must play a significant role in edu-
cating students in geography in order to fulfill their undisputed mission, which
is to prepare students for civic life. As Macedo (2000) points out, it is the civic
purpose of public schools to ensure that, “Children must at the very least be
provided with the intellectual tools necessary to understand the world around
them, formulate their own convictions, and make their way in life” (p. 238).
Geographic education provides many of the vital intellectual tools that children
need in order to make their ways in life and become the types of citizens that
parents, teachers, and other members of society aspire them to become.
Geography in Preschool through Grade 12 involves coming to understand the
world from a spatial perspective. A spatial perspective provides learners with a
distinct advantage that is found in no other curricular source and is vital to the
development of effective citizens (Heffron & Downs, 2012). As Hanson (2004)
describes, this “geographic advantage” (p. 720) provides an understanding of:
1. the relationships between people and the environment. Geography is the

only field that focuses on the interactions between the social and physical
sciences;
2. the importance of spatial variability. That is, only in geography can one learn
the unique methodologies and practices for gaining an understanding of the
ways phenomena vary according to place;
3. processes operating at multiple and interlocking geographic scales. Geogra-
phy is the only curricular means by which one learns techniques that help
gain an understanding of phenomena at multiple scales, and
4. the integration of spatial and temporal analysis. Geography’s spatial perspec-
tive adds another vital dimension to temporal variability (how things change
over time). Geography offers techniques for analyzing variations over time
and space. How places change over time is a significant aspect of understand-
ing the world, and falls squarely in the domain of geography.
These unique advantages that geography offer allow people to intelligently

address issues that have global implications (such as immigration and environ-
mental policies), or simply involve their local communities (such as where or if
to place a traffic light in the neighborhood), and even personal decisions (such as
where to go on vacation). In addition, the advantages of geography also provide
a perspective of past events, such as why major battles took place where they did,
from where and why people migrated from one place to another, and the lasting
impact of major geologic events on the land and the cultures that were affected.
As Kaplan (2012) points out, “[t]he more we remain preoccupied with current
events, the more that individuals and their choices matter: but the more we look
out over the span of the centuries, the more that geography plays a role” (p. xx).
The importance of geography in helping prepare citizens for life is clear, and
it must begin in the early grades, preschool even, as the next section describes.
Geography for Young Learners

Since the 17th and 18th centuries, during the lifetimes of Pestalozzi and Rous-
seau, through the earliest years of American schooling, geography held a con-
sistent place in the schooling of young children. When reviewing the history of
the development of elementary curricula, two things appear to have been tacitly
understood in the early days: the purpose of schooling was for the preparation
of citizens, and children’s observations of the world can best be explained by
geography. That is, children experience the content of geography first, and the
curriculum can start there.
As an example of the long-standing history of geography in the curriculum
for young children, Home Geography was an integral part of the curriculum
through the early 20th century (Barton, 2009). The fundamental principles
of Home Geography were the observation of the local environment and build
geographic concepts around those observations. That is, students were to “use
observable elements of the local vicinity to develop geographic concepts” (Bar-
ton, 2009, p. 496). The idea behind Home Geography was to build knowledge
around children’s lived experiences.1
Geography was and still is the means by which teachers can build a bridge
between children’s world and the knowledge they want the children to attain
about the world. Although young children might not have the vocabulary of
geography yet, they do have—or could have—an elementary understanding of
the geographical concepts behind the vocabulary.
Clearly, today’s children have a broader range of experiences than the children
of the early 20th century when Home Geography was a part of the curriculum.
Today’s children experience a much bigger world than any prior generation.
They see a world beyond their neighborhoods and families at a much younger
age, thanks to the ubiquity of the Internet and media, and modern transportation
with its advanced geographic tools. One thing that has not changed, though, is
children’s curiosity about the world around them. Today’s children are as curi-
ous as were children in past generations, and they can understand the geography
behind their observations when it is taught appropriately.
There is a mistaken notion that geography is best taught in later grades; that
young children do not have the capacity to learn geography or they should rel-
egate their intellectual energies to learning how to read and write. The idea that
geography is not for young children is not only unsupported by evidence, it is
harmful to future learning. There is ample evidence of children’s capabilities of
learning geography at an early age. For instance, although understanding maps
is only one aspect of geographic learning, Wiegand (2006) reports that there is
more research evidence relating to preschool and primary age children’s thinking
with maps than there is for secondary school children, and that young children
are very proficient users of maps when taught appropriately. In fact, young chil-
dren are capable of being very good creators of rudimentary maps. Furthermore,
it has been found that children as young as three years old can read a map aligned
to a room (Bluestein & Acredolo, 1979 as cited in Ekiss et al., 2007). That is,
young children are able to discern that symbols on a map or other graph repre-
sent something in real life. The ability to picture or imagine what places are like
is a vital skill in geographic understanding, and very young children are capable
of doing just that.
Perhaps one of the most common misconceptions concerning young chil-
dren’s learning of geography is that much of geography is not developmentally
appropriate for young learners. In a study of teachers’ objections to proposed new
state standards in Arizona, Hinde and Perry (2007) uncovered a number of mis-
conceptions that teachers held about children’s capabilities to learn history and
other social studies content. The root of their erroneous conclusions was their
misunderstanding of Piaget’s developmental theories (Piaget, 1965, 1972). While
there is ample evidence of young children’s capabilities to learn even the most
abstract concepts when teachers use developmentally appropriate practices in
their teaching, teachers and other education advocates still argue against teaching
historic and geographic content to young children based on erroneous under-
standing of children’s cognitive development. In their article, Hinde and Perry
(2007) conclude “the art of applying Piaget’s theories to any social studies con-
tent depends on the teacher’s ability to make students’ experiences both active
and social” (p. 71). In other words, there is no evidence to suggest that children
are incapable of learning geographic concepts when teachers use appropriate
methods and tie students’ learning to their lived experiences.
Teachers often bemoan the fact that they do not have time to teach geogra-
phy, and their complaints are justified. That elementary teachers are pressured to
teach only those areas that are tested, particularly reading, is well documented
at this point. However, less well known is the positive affect geography knowl-
edge has on reading comprehension. As early as 1917, E. L. Thorndike (Moore,
Readence, & Rickelman, 1983; Thorndike, 2005/1917) noted that, “perhaps it is
in their outside reading of stories and in their study of geography, history, and
the like that many school children really learn to read” (Thorndike, 2005, p. 97).
In the decades since Thorndike, others have found that social studies, science,
and the arts enhance reading comprehension, and reducing the teaching of these
areas negatively impacts reading achievement. Duffy et al. (2003) noted:
If the goal is to improve students’ reading achievement, not teaching these

subjects will limit students’ background knowledge of many topics about
which they may read. Because having adequate background knowledge
is necessary if one is to comprehend or understand what one is reading,
lack of instruction in these subjects may ultimately affect students’ reading
achievement negatively.
(p. 685)
Knowledge of content areas enhances reading comprehension, and indeed,

without knowledge of content areas (like geography) reading comprehension
suffers. As a discipline, geography helps students understand the world from a
spatial perspective. Learners are able to make sense of the world around them
and make connections among the areas taught in schools and in their experiences
from the lens of place and time that geography offers. This lens not only helps
them understand the world, when integrated effectively with language arts, it
can also improve students’ reading comprehension (Hinde et al., 2007; Hinde,
Osborn Popp, Jimenez-Silva, & Dorn, 2011). Therefore, despite the lack of time
early childhood and elementary teachers have to teach geography in order to
teach reading and other tested subjects, the preponderance of evidence indicates
that teaching geography actually enhances reading comprehension.
Geography in the early grades helps children make sense of the world they
see, and lays a strong foundation for future learning. The geographic advan-
tage (Hanson, 2004) mentioned earlier is as true for children as it is for adults,
and geography can enhance young children’s reading comprehension, as studies
have shown. Simply put, there is no sound argument for excluding geography
from elementary curriculum, and children need the perspective and content that
geography offers in order for them to become the effective citizens all schools
want their students to become.
Early Childhood Geography: A Primer

Geography for young learners should help them build the lens for interpreting the
world spatially. That is, help children interpret what they see and experience in
terms of place—where are things and why they are there. For instance, help children
understand where buildings, rivers, fences, cultures, animals (etc.) are, and why they
are there. Learning the “why” in geography is as important as the “where” and is
the foundation for powerful geographic understanding. Teaching the “why” also
differentiates great geography teaching from mediocre or poor teaching.
As this chapter purports, geography education in the early grades not only
builds the foundation for future learning; it is also essential for civic efficacy.
Geography helps children interpret the world and navigate through it. As a prac-
tical example, a common lesson that is taught by primary teachers worldwide
involves children creating a map of a particular route. For example, teachers teach
lessons that involve the children planning a route around their own classrooms,
or between their classroom and the playground, or between home and school, or
between home and a friend’s house, or between school and their nanny. In order
to plan a route, children must form a mental image. (Of course, an actual excur-
sion would be most helpful as well.) Mental imagery is an essential geographic
skill. At some point, the child’s mental imagery can then be translated into a map
that they make themselves.
This type of lesson requires that children become careful observers of their
world—observation is another key fundamental aspect of geography. They need
to remember important features of their route and know when to turn and
for what to watch. The directions children provide can simply be “right” or
“left” and not necessarily the cardinal directions of North, South, East, and
West. (Children should be taught left and right before the cardinal directions.)
As children observe then remember their route, they will need to demonstrate
(write, draw, or say) what they see and where to turn, for instance, “turn right
at the yellow house but then cross the street because of the big dog in the yard.”
Children will often describe things that adults do not notice, but are equally
valid. Children should express their observations, what is prominent in their
minds about their world. Their observations provide opportunities for teachers
to not only learn about the world from the student’s perspective, but also to clear
up misconceptions or inappropriate ideas they might have, giving the teacher
an opportunity to teach them appropriate information. The mental images and
planned routes children create are the basis for future geographic learning and
help them understand the community around them.
Another practical example concerns cultural geography. Cultural geography
begins at home and in children’s communities. Focusing the curriculum around
such things as where students’ families came from and how they ended up in
their town or community is rich geographic learning, and engenders a deeper
understanding of their own place in the community. However, it is important
to keep in mind, though, that today’s children are exposed to many cultures and
ideas that are not directly related to their own families or communities. The
point is that young children’s exposure to cultures, from wherever they experi-
ence them, are effective starting points for teaching the fundamentals of cultural
geography.
Even young children can understand the interaction between humans and the
environment, another key aspect of geography. Children can learn, for instance,
about the best places to plant a tree, where to put their trash and why there, their
own addresses and features of their street and other immediate surroundings, and
many other things that connect their lives to the curriculum. The upshot is that
children need to be provided with experiences to interpret their world from a
spatial perspective so that they can move around safely and responsibly, as well as
make informed decisions—a key facet of effective citizenship.
There is no shortage of lesson ideas and other resources for teachers of primary
grades for teaching geography, similar to those already described. (See Appendix
for examples of resources available on the Internet.) A number of professional
organizations exist for teachers and teacher educators to promote and support
geography education. The National Council for the Social Studies, The National
Council for Geographic Education, and the National Geographic Education
Foundation are three such organizations. In addition, the National Geographic
Society’s networks of state geographic alliances provide resources and training
to teachers and teacher educators in geography education. Their conferences and
websites provide materials and ideas that enrich geography teaching for every
grade level and throughout the curriculum. In addition, geographic Internet
applications, such as Google Earth, along with the GPS systems that are easily
accessible today, literally put geography at students’ fingertips inside and outside
of classrooms. Teachers can utilize these media and technologies to enhance any
content area, especially geography.
Despite the importance of geography in the early years and the vast array of
resources available to teachers, effective geography education in the early grades
faces a number of obstacles.
Obstacles in Teaching Elementary Geography

Perhaps the biggest obstacle to teaching geography in elementary schools is teach-
ers’ lack of knowledge of geography. American education has created a vicious
cycle of poor geographic teaching. Students do not learn geography in schools,
many of whom then become teachers who do not teach geography. The result
is that Americans are renowned for their lack of geographic knowledge, and
American students continue to perform poorly on tests measuring geographic
knowledge (National Center for Education Statistics, 2011).
Throughout this chapter, references are made to the importance of teach-
ers’ ability to teach geography (i.e., “skilled teachers” and “when taught appro-
priately”). Therein lies the main problem in teaching elementary geography.
Teachers generally do not possess the geographic content knowledge needed to
help children understand the geographic concepts underlying their observations
of the world. In its report to the U.S. Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on
Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies, the U. S.
Government Accountability Office (2015) reported that “many teachers who

teach geography do not have any educational background in the subject and take
few, if any, geography courses in college” (p. 17). Although this report specifi-
cally concerned eighth graders’ knowledge of geography, the report makes clear
that geographic education is limited in the years leading up to eighth grade in
the U.S., partially due to teachers’ lack of geographic knowledge. Bolstering the
assertion that elementary teachers are not prepared to teach geography, Womac
(2014) found that approximately 87 percent of the 1078 teacher education pro-
grams that were included in his study do not require undergraduate elementary
education students to take a geography course. Teachers who do not know geo-
graphic content, do not teach it. It is as simple as that.
Teachers who lack geographic understanding rely heavily on textbooks when
they do teach geography. Reliance on textbooks to provide the geographic con-
tent blurs the connection between students’ observations of the world and geo-
graphic concepts. Children’s observations and experiences are uniquely theirs,
and the geographic concepts should be uniquely applied to create the most pow-
erful learning experiences. In addition, textbooks are of no use to children who
cannot yet read. It is clear that children do not need to read in order to start
understanding their worlds, but teachers’ reliance on textbooks to teach impor-
tant content lends credibility to the mistaken belief that children need to learn to
read before they can learn geography (and other geographic and civics concepts).
Another major obstacle in the teaching of geography is that elementary
teachers are pressured to spend the majority of their time on the teaching of
literacy and mathematics, especially reading, as described earlier. The false
idea that children must learn to read before they can learn geography or his-
tory has gained a foothold in American education. It is true that reading is
vital for effective citizenship, and that reading is necessary for future success in
school. However, denying children the opportunity to understand the world
around them as explained through geography and history until they can read is
unnecessary. In fact, as many studies have shown, and literacy as well as social
studies researchers have decried, children who have rich experiences in the con-
tent areas, such as history and geography, become better readers ( Duffy et al.,
2003; McKenna & Robinson, 2005; Thorndike, 2005/1917). In fact, there is
no research-justified reason to cut geography and other social studies from the
elementary curriculum in order to spend more time on reading to increase test
scores (cf. Hinde et al., 2007).
The combination of teachers’ lack of geographic knowledge and pressures
to teach only subjects that are tested (that typically exclude geography) continues
to marginalize geography in the elementary curriculum. However, the obstacles to
geography education are not insurmountable. In a recent study gauging teach-
ers’ thoughts on geography, Hinde (2014b) found that preschool through 12th-
grade teachers are generally dismayed about their own and their students’ lack
of geographic understanding. But, they also passionately expressed the need for
students and themselves to know more geography, and that it should be a bigger
part of the curriculum. The fact that teachers agree on the importance of geog-
raphy education and that there are plenty of resources for teachers to learn and
teach it, suggest that there is hope for geography in American schools.
Conclusion
The mission of schools has always been to prepare students for citizenship, and
understanding even the fundamentals of geography is a vital part of that mis-
sion. Without the information, perspective, and spatial awareness that geog-
raphy provides, civic efficacy cannot be fully attained. Learning to interpret
the world through a geographic lens starts early, in the years prior to formal
schooling even. The skills of observation, forming mental images of places, and
starting to understand how humans and the environment interact are the fun-
damentals of elementary geography. The teacher’s role is to connect the child’s
images and experiences with geographic concepts, then build knowledge from
there.
A curriculum that involves connecting geographic concepts to children’s lived
experiences dates back centuries and was adopted by early American educators.
Although through the centuries people have acknowledged the importance of
geographic understanding in developing citizens, geography has struggled to
gain a foothold in the curriculum of American schools. Thanks to the Internet
and media, as well as advancements in transportation, children today have a
broader range of experiences from which to draw than ever before. The Internet
and various media provide opportunities for exposure to a variety of cultures,
landscapes, languages, information, and much more than ever before in his-
tory. Providing children with a geographical framework from which they can
interpret their experiences is not only appropriate, but it is also a key to effective
citizenship, and even our youngest learners can learn this perspective.
There is hope for geography education in early childhood and elementary
classrooms, though. The ubiquity of social media and internet applications are
connecting people, including children, all over the globe. Children are coming
to school with a broader understanding (or misunderstanding) of the world than
ever before. Geography is the means through which teachers can connect the
experiences of children to the content they are learning in schools like never
before. As the title of de Blij’s book (2012) points out, “Geography Matters—
More Than Ever” and young children need it now more than ever.
Note
1. Readers may note the similarities between Home Geography and the widely adopted
elementary social studies curriculum framework known as Expanding Communities
or Expanding Horizons. Although both paradigms focus on the child as the starting
point for the curriculum, Home Geography predated Expanding Communities, and
both have their roots in the philosophies of 17th- and 18th-century European think-
ers, such as Rousseau and Pestalozzi.
References
Barton, K. C. (2009). Home geography and the development of elementary social educa-
tion, 1890–1930. Theory & Research in Social Education, 37(4), 484–514.
Bednarz, S. W., Heffron, S., & Huynh, N. T. (2013). A road map for 21st century geography
education: Geography education research. Washington, DC: National Geographic Society.
Blaut, J. M. (1997). The mapping abilities of young children: Children can. Annals of the
Association of American Geographers, 87(1), 152–158.
Bluestein, N., & Acredolo, L. (1979). Developmental changes in map-reading skills. Child
Development, 79 (50), 691–697.
Campaign to Promote Civic Education. (n.d.). Rationale. Retrieved from www.civiced.
org/promote-rationale
de Blij, H. (2012). Why geography matters: More than ever. New York, NY: Oxford Uni-
versity Press.
Duffy, A. M., Anderson, J., Durham, C. M., Erickson, A., Guion, C., Ingram, M. H., . . .
Sink, W. (2003). Responding to the rhetoric: Perspectives on reading instruction. The
Reading Teacher, 56 (7), 684–686.
Edelson, D. C., Shavelson, R. J., & Wertheim, J. A. (2013). A road map for 21st century
geography education: Assessment. Washington, DC: National Geographic Society.
Ekiss, G., Trapido-Lurie, B., Phillips, J., & Hinde, E. (2007). The world in spatial terms:
Mapmaking and map reading. Social Studies and the Young Learner, 20 (2), 7–9.
Hanson, S. (2004). Who are ‘we’? An important question for geography’s future. Annals
of the Association of American Geographers, 94 (4), 720.
Heffron, S. G., & Downs, R. M. (Eds.). (2012). Geography for life: National geography stan-
dards (2nd ed.). Washington, DC: National Council for Geographic Education.
Hinde, E. R. (2014a). Geography and the common core: Teaching mathematics and lan-
guage arts from a spatial perspective. Social Studies Review, 53, 47–51.
Hinde, E. R. (2014b). Geography matters: Teacher beliefs about geography in today’s schools.
The Journal of Social Studies Research, 39(2015), 55–62. doi:10.1016/j.jssr.2014.07.003
Hinde, E. R., Osborn Popp, S. E., Dorn, R. I., Ekiss, G. O., Mater, M., Smith, C. B., &
Libbee, M. (2007). The integration of literacy and geography: The Arizona GeoLit-
eracy program’s effect on reading comprehension. Theory and Research in Social Educa-
tion, 35(3), 343–365.
Hinde, E. R., Osborn Popp, S. E., Jimenez-Silva, M., & Dorn, R. I. (2011). Linking
geography to reading and English language learners’ achievement in U.S. elementary
and middle school classrooms. International Research in Geographical & Environmental
Education, 20 (1), 47–63.
Hinde, E. R., & Perry, N. (2007). Elementary teachers’ application of Jean Piaget’s theo-
ries of cognitive development during social studies curriculum debates in Arizona.
The Elementary School Journal, 108 (1), 63–79.
Kaplan, R. D. (2012). The revenge of geography. New York, NY: Random House.
Macedo, S. (2000). Diversity and distrust: Civic education in a multicultural democracy. Cam-
bridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
McKenna, M. C., & Robinson, R. D. (2005). Content literacy: A definition and impli-
cations. In R. D. Robinson (Ed.), Readings in reading instruction: Its history, theory, and
development. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.
Moore, D. W., Readence, J. E., & Rickelman, R. J. (1983). An historical exploration of

content area reading instruction. Reading Research Quarterly, 18 (4), 419–438.
National Center for Education Statistics. (2011). The nation’s report card: Geography 2010.
Washington, DC: Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education.
Parker, F. W. (1894). Talks on pedagogics. New York, NY: Robert Drummond.
Parker, W. (2012). Social studies in elementary education (14th ed.). Columbus, OH: Prentice
Hall.
Piaget, J. (1965). The child’s conception of the world. Totowa, NJ: Littlefield, Adams.
Piaget, J. (1972). The psychology of intelligence (M. Perry & D. E. Berltyne, Trans.). Totowa,
NJ: Littlefield, Adams (Original work published 1947).
Thorndike, E. L. (2005/1917). Reading as reasoning: A study of mistakes in paragraph
reading. In R. D. Robinson (Ed.), Readings in reading instruction: Its history, theory, and
development. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.
U.S. Government Accountability Office. (2015). Most eight grade students are not proficient
in geography. Retrieved from www.gao.gov/products/GAO-16-7
Wiegand, P. (2006). Learning and teaching with maps. London: Routledge.
Womac, P. (2014). The unfortunate status of geography in elementary teacher education:
A call for discourse. Research in Geographic Education, 16 (2), 46–60.
APPENDIX
A simple Internet search will reveal countless geography lesson plans and
resources for preschool and elementary students. Although this is not an exhaus-
tive list, below is a sampling of such sites. This list includes only those sites that
offer free materials and do not require membership.
• The Arizona Geographic Alliance website provides hundreds of lessons for

grades PreK-12 written primarily by teachers at https://geoalliance.asu.edu/.
• The Michigan Geographic Alliance website also offers ideas and lessons
created mostly by teachers: www.cmich.edu/colleges/cst/MGA/Pages/
resources.aspx
• The National Geographic Society offers a number of lessons and other resources
for teachers, such as the activities found here: http://nationalgeographic.org/
education/map-skills-elementary-students/ and http://kids.nationalgeographic.
com/.
• The National Education Association provides links to numerous lesson plans
and other activities at www.nea.org/tools/lessons/teaching-with-maps.html.
10
SPATIAL CITIZENSHIP IN
SECONDARY GEOGRAPHY
CURRICULUM
Injeong Jo
Introduction
Spatial citizenship is defined as the ability of a citizen “to access and make sense
of geo-information in order to participate in democratic processes and make
decisions, taking into account the situations and circumstances [an individual]
encounters on a daily basis” ( Gryl & Jekel, 2012, p. 8). What characterizes spatial
citizenship, as compared to the other types of citizenships, is the ability to use
various geo-media, such as digital maps, GPS-based mobile devices, Geographic
Information Systems (GIS), and other spatial representations in a reflective and
reflexive way in order to participate in society ( Carlos & Gryl, 2013; Schulze,
Gryl, & Kanwischer, 2014). The increased use and influence of geo-media, com-
bined with the rise of the Web 2.0 applications as a widely used instruments for
the production and communication of information as well as for the participa-
tion in civic decision-making processes, strongly support the argument for the
importance of spatial citizenship education in contemporary society.
Research on spatial citizenship identifies specific sets of core competences,
with which a spatial citizen should be equipped, and which provide focus for
spatial citizenship education. Competence can be defined as “a complex com-
bination of knowledge, skills, understanding, values, attitudes and desire which
lead to effective, embodied human action in the world in a particular domain”
( Print, 2013, p. 154). Competences have become an important prerequisite for
one’s life-long education, employability, as well as citizenship. Developing the
students’ competences is not merely about enabling them to acquire knowl-
edge and skills but is also about helping the students develop integrated and
performance-oriented abilities that are necessary to deal with various problems
in a particular context (Biemans et al., 2009). Spatial citizenship involves three
146 Injeong Jo
complementary competence areas: (1) Technology and methodology, (2) Reflec-

tion and ref lexivity, and (3) Communication, participation, and negotiation
( Gryl & Jekel, 2012 ; Gryl, Schulze, & Kanwischer, 2013; Jekel, Gryl, & Schulze,
2015; Kanwischer, Schulze, & Gryl, 2012 ; Schulze, Gryl, & Kanwischer, 2015).
Becoming a spatial citizen requires the students to acquire technical compe-
tences to use geo-media and handle spatial information, including map reading
and interpretation skills, and the ability to analyze various types of spatial repre-
sentations and visualize the data. The second set of competences, reflection, and
ref lexivity, concerns the awareness of and critical attitude towards spatial rep-
resentations. Students should understand that spatial representations are socially
constructed and develop strategies to critically evaluate them. Students should
also be capable of identifying the intentions of the use of spatial representa-
tions in discourses by deconstructing the meanings of the representations and
ref lecting on them from multiple perspectives. Lastly, the students need to learn
how to communicate spatial information and use the spatial representations for
effectively conveying ideas and meanings with others. Students should be able
to formulate and negotiate alternative spatial scenarios and should also be able to
use geo-media to communicate those scenarios. In other words, the ability to use
geo-media to engage and participate in democratic negotiation and decision-
making processes at the local, national, and/or global levels is the key aspect of
these competences.
Little attention has been paid to spatial citizenship in secondary geography
education, although the role of geography in the development of citizenship,
in a general sense is well stated in the National Geography Standards (Downs &
Heffron, 2012) as in the following:
The overarching goal of these National Geography Standards is to ensure

that students become geographically informed citizens. Becoming an
informed citizen requires going beyond only knowing the disciplinary
content of geography. Students must also be able to use geographic reason-
ing and do geography. . . . Geographic education enables students to use
geographic perspectives, knowledge, and skills to engage in ethical action
with regard to self, other people, other species, and Earth’s diverse cultures
and natural environments.
(Downs & Heffron, 2012, p. 13)
Knowing geography is a key to nations, peoples, and individuals being able

to develop a coherent understanding of the causes, meanings, and effects
of the physical and human events that occur—and are likely to occur in
the future—on Earth. Consequently, the practical application of geogra-
phy empowers students to participate as responsible citizens and leaders of
tomorrow.
Spatial Citizenship in Secondary Geography 147
The Standards also recognize the power of geospatial technologies to help solve
a variety of problems encountered by individuals and societies. They suggest that
the students effectively and critically use geospatial technologies to make deci-
sions and take actions as an informed citizen. The Standards state:
As a consequence of the increasing availability of high-quality data, geo-

spatial technologies are changing our capacity to understand the world,
enhancing geography’s role as practical problem-solving tool for individu-
als and societies.
Nevertheless, the extent to which citizenship and spatial citizenship, in particu-

lar, is addressed in the curriculum of school geography is unclear. Despite the
recognition of the importance of geographic knowledge, skills, and perspectives
in citizenship required in the 21st century, very little is known about whether
and how the three core competences of spatial citizenship are implemented in
secondary geography education. Through a review of the literature, this chapter
examines the current status of spatial citizenship education in secondary geogra-
phy, particularly as it appears in the curriculum. Considering the rapid expansion
of GIS in secondary schools around the world during the last decade (Kerski,
Demirci, & Milson, 2013), a special focus has been given to the degree to which
spatial citizenship is incorporated into the teaching and learning about, and with
GIS. This review does not intend to conduct a meta-analysis or systematic review
synthesizing prior research findings about GIS education, but rather aims to find
case studies or examples that describe the current practice and which can model
future curriculum implementation of spatial citizenship in secondary geography
classrooms.
Finding and Selecting Studies for Review

To begin the review, an initial search using the keywords of “GIS education”
through EBSCO host research database returned 286 peer-reviewed journal arti-
cles published between 1983 and September 2016. Articles published in the 1980s
focus mainly on the introduction of GIS as an innovative technology and curric-
ulum development for teaching GIS in higher education. The first article about
GIS in K-12 settings, including teacher preparation, appeared in the late 1990s;
many of the articles in these days focus on instructional strategies and pedagogical
considerations related to GIS education. A rapid proliferation of research studies
on the use of GIS as an instructional tool to facilitate the students’ critical think-
ing, problem solving, and spatial thinking skills in geography as well as other
subject areas happened in the last two decades, accounting for about 86 percent
(245 out of 286) of the search results. All abstracts of these articles were carefully
read and studies on teaching with GIS at secondary schools were selected. In the
148 Injeong Jo
review of the selected studies, the words “citizenship,” “reflection,” “participa-

tion,” and similar terms were targeted to find the cases where each of the three
core competences of spatial citizenship (i.e., Technology/methodology, Reflec-
tion and reflexivity, and Communication, participation, and negotiation) are
addressed in the curriculum for GIS education in secondary geography. This
search returned a very few connections to the core competences. Many studies
report the current status of GIS implementation in secondary classrooms and are
generally based on the surveys of teachers or curriculum analyses in the context
of a specific country (e.g., Lam, Lai, & Wong, 2009; Schubert & Uphues, 2009;
Wang & Chen, 2013; Wheeler, Gordon-Brown, Peterson, & Ward, 2010 ; Yap,
Chin, Tan, Zhu, & Wettasinghe, 2008).
The lack of prior research related to spatial citizenship education with GIS
at the secondary level is somewhat expected. According to Gryl and Jekel (2012),
the contributions of recent studies on secondary level GIS education have con-
centrated on how the students learn GIS or how the uses of GIS support spatial
thinking, geographic inquiry, and other geographic learning and thinking skills.
Few studies focused on the uses of GIS for everyday civic life. Kerski et al. (2013)
identified the benefits of using GIS in education for “scholarship (developing
skills in thinking and communicating), artisanship (gaining key skills), and citi-
zenship (becoming thoughtful citizens)” (p. 237). Most of the studies on GIS in
secondary education deal with “scholarship” aspect, where GIS is used mainly
for learning critical thinking and problem solving, or “artisanship” aspect, where
the focus is on developing key workforce skills. Few studies have explored the
“citizenship” aspect of GIS education, which requires the students to develop
reflective and critical attitudes toward GIS as well as the ability to use GIS and
other geospatial technologies for active participation in the society.
From the perspective of spatial citizenship, however, scholarship and artisan-
ship, which concern the cognitive and technical aspects of learning and using
GIS, are not necessarily exclusive from citizenship. A certain level of understand-
ing of this type of technology will help the students actively engage in a variety
of GIS-enhanced decision making. As Hoskins (2013) points out, knowledge,
skills, attitudes, and values are complexly tied together in the concept of citizen-
ship. It is “not really possible to extract knowledge and skills from the values
and attitudes contained within them” (Hoskins, 2013, p. 31). Therefore, in this
review, all the studies about GIS education in secondary schools that focus on
the scholarship and artisanship aspects were included as they are considered to be
informative for spatial citizenship education, particularly for the component of
technology and methodology competences.
Relatively fewer research studies on spatial citizenship education with GIS
exist in the secondary level, and there are a very few peer-reviewed articles that
can be reviewed to make cases for education regarding two competence areas
of spatial citizenship—Reflection and Participation. Therefore, all the studies
that acknowledge the importance of reflective and critical perspectives in GIS
education were included for this review even though they focus on other grade
levels (i.e., middle school or college students). For the same reason, all articles
examining the potential and pedagogical strategies in GIS education to enhance
civic engagement and participation were included, regardless of the targeted
grade level in an effort to glean information in order to inform of the implemen-
tation of spatial citizenship into secondary geography.
With these new parameters, a total of 48 articles were selected and catego-
rized by its focus into Technology and methodology (26 articles), Reflection and reflex-
ivity (6 articles), and Communication and participation (16 articles). The following
sections discuss the selected case studies that can inform the future development
and implementation of spatial citizenship components into the secondary geog-
raphy curriculum.
Technology and Methodology Competences to

Handle Spatial Information
According to Jekel et al. (2015), technology and methodology competences are
concerned with: (1) the consumption of spatial information, such as reading
maps and being able to navigate using maps; (2) the analysis of spatial infor-
mation using basic analytical tools; (3) the prosumption of spatial information,
which refers to producing spatial information while consuming the information
that already exists (e.g., manipulating and visualizing data using the labeling,
marking, and commenting tools); (4) the contribution of own ideas and data by
producing spatial representations and spatial data; and (5) the ability to use social
network to make and negotiate a decision.
The existing research about classroom implementation of GIS in secondary
geography provides a great deal of information regarding how these compe-
tences have been taught in a variety of contexts. However, the breadth and depth
of competences required for students in each case varies depending on the pur-
pose in using GIS in the classroom, that is, whether it is to teach about GIS or to
teach with GIS.
Several cases exemplify the teaching about GIS approach, which concentrates
on GIS technology itself with an instructional focus on training ( Sui, 1995). In
these cases, GIS is part of the official curriculum for high school students to
learn knowledge and skills needed for the future geospatial workforce. In China,
for example, GIS is one of the National Geography Standards for senior students
with a specific focus on its applications for urban management (Ministry of
Education, 2003). In an elective course on GIS, which is available at the senior
level, students are expected to acquire knowledge of general GIS functionality
with examples of application and the skills to digitize maps, create attribute
tables, change symbols on map layers, and to fulfill basic queries (Dong & Lin,
2012). In Serbia, geography is a compulsory subject for several areas of concen-
tration in vocational schools, and GIS and cartography are taught in geography
150 Injeong Jo
with a specific focus on: (1) the concept and characteristics of geographic infor-
mation, (2) geospatial technologies including global positioning systems (GPS)
and remote sensing, and (3) the uses of information on the Web. Students are
expected to know what GIS is and how to use it (Komlenović, Manić, & Malinić,
2013). In both cases, however, most GIS knowledge and skills are taught through
lectures and teacher demonstrations with limited hands-on exercises for students
to practice the knowledge and skills. The major reason behind this is the lack of
available resources and qualified teachers.
More hands-on activities and student practices are found in the implementa-
tion of GIS in the Finnish curriculum. The acquisition of basic GIS skills has
recently been included in the renewal of the Finnish curriculum for basic com-
pulsory education (Ministry of Education and Culture, 2010). In Finland, all stu-
dents are expected to have an introductory level of knowledge of GIS. In the new
curriculum, all the upper secondary schools are obligated to offer elective GIS
courses (Riihelä & Mäki, 2015). The PaikkaOppi Project is an exemplary effort to
minimize the technical learning curve of GIS so as to promote its use in schools.
The project aimed to provide an online GIS learning environment, an online
mapping application, as well as appropriate pedagogical models of teaching and
learning GIS for all the Finnish schools. Targeted GIS skills for students to learn
in the model courses include finding locations, mapping physical and human fea-
tures, creating paths with GPS devices, attaching images and other information
to the map, map overlaying, performing the basic queries, and presentation of
the findings (Riihelä & Mäki, 2015). As shown in the preceding examples, cur-
riculum implementation of teaching about GIS in secondary geography education
focuses on some of the basic GIS functions at an introductory level. The purpose
is mainly to respond to the needs of students developing workforce skills. Little
connection has been made to spatial citizenship education.
The idea of teaching with GIS is grounded on the perceived benefits of GIS to
support various types of educational goals, such as spatial thinking, higher-order
thinking, inquiry-based learning, and problem-based learning. The main focus
is being given to applications of GIS with an instructional tool for education ( Sui,
1995). Placing GIS education in the framework of teaching with GIS has been
the dominant picture in secondary-school classrooms around the world (Kerski
et al., 2013; Riihelä & Mäki, 2015). GIS is perceived as an instructional tool that
both the teachers and students may opt to use in order to enhance their learning.
Often, if not all the studies included this review, GIS is not part of the required
curriculum content. In most of the case studies, the use of GIS techniques and
functions are minimized, and the focus is given to the disciplinary thinking and
inquiry processes that the students are expected to practice while using GIS as
a tool to support the thinking processes. Therefore, there is no ubiquitous GIS
technique or function that students must learn in this approach.
Nevertheless, several technology and methodology competences, which are
required for the students to complete the given tasks, can be identified within the
existing research; however, the types and the level of technical competences vary
widely, depending on the knowledge, skills, and practices that GIS is expected
to support. For example, in Favier and Van der Schee’s (2009, 2012) studies, the
students conducted research projects that combined fieldwork with GIS. They
entered field data using GIS, visualized the data by loading them onto the GIS
software, changed the symbology, and applied a data analysis tool to create new
map layers. In Liu, Bui, Chang, and Lossman (2010) study of problem-based
activities designed to promote higher-level thinking skills, the students gener-
ated population distribution and density maps, conducted data-based queries,
and produced spatially interactive charts and graphs using geographic datasets
given to them as the basic resources. Overlaying data layers to examine spatial
relationships, viewing and visualizing data via GIS to evaluate the reliability of
the data, and conducting basic spatial analysis to investigate “what-if” ques-
tions are also a few examples of the GIS techniques and competences featured in
an urban environmental education program for high school students (Barnett,
Vaughn, Strauss, & Cotter, 2011). In addition, increasing interests in the applica-
tions of online mapping and Web-based GIS technologies are observed in recent
studies on GIS education in schools.
Reflection and Reflexivity of Spatial Representations

The Reflection and reflectivity component of spatial citizenship is associated
more with the “consumption aspect” of spatial representations (Jekel et al., 2015,
p. 42). It is required for the students to be able to not only read and interpret
maps, which are the classical consumption skills, but also to understand maps
and other geo-media as socially constructed representations and be aware of
the influences that they can have on the actions of people ( Jekel et al., 2015;
Schulze et al., 2015). Competences of reflection include: (1) knowing about the
naturalization of spaces in spatial representations; (2) comparing spatial informa-
tion with own prior knowledge and other information sources; (3) identifying
the hidden and missing information in the spatial representation; and (4) con-
sidering alternative attachment of meanings and spatial scenarios. Reflexivity
competences refer to the students’ knowledge about and awareness of their own
interest, hypothesis, consumption process, and spatial scenarios that affect under-
standing and using spatial representations.
National Geography Standard 1: How to use maps and other geographic rep-
resentations, geospatial technologies, and spatial thinking to understand and
communicate information (Downs & Heffron, 2012) implies the aspects of the
reflection and reflexivity component of spatial citizenship. It expects students, by
the 12th grade, to understand the “appropriate and ethical uses of geospatial data
and geospatial technologies in constructing geographic representations,” and to
be able to “evaluate the appropriate and ethical uses of different geospatial tech-
nologies and methods for acquiring, producing, and displaying geospatial data”
152 Injeong Jo
(Downs & Heffron, 2012, p. 24). However, little research in the United States
and around the world puts an explicit and strong focus on the reflective and criti-
cal thinking regarding GIS in secondary geography.
The examples found in higher education might inform the future develop-
ment and implementation of aspects of reflection and reflexivity into secondary
geography education. The GIS Body of Knowledge (DiBiase et al., 2006), a refer-
ence for GIS curriculum developers at all levels of higher and continuing educa-
tion, defines a set of the key knowledge domains in GIS and provides detailed
descriptions of the knowledge that characterizes the educated and experienced
GIS professionals. Some of the design aspects identified in the book, such as “faith
of representation,” “justifying the mission,” and “constraints or opportunities of
the social or cultural context,” are closely related to the reflection and reflexivity
competences of using GIS. There are several studies that focus on developing the
undergraduate students’ critical attitudes and perspectives while they are tak-
ing GIS courses. For example, Kim and Bednarz (2013) show that GIS learning
supports critical spatial thinking, which is characterized by the “ability to assess
data reliability, use sound spatial reasoning, and evaluate problem-solving valid-
ity” (p. 362). The authors argue that the nature of GIS and the current format
of most of the undergraduate GIS courses promote critical spatial thinking by
requiring the students to think about the reliability of the data that they use, in
order to engage in activities using spatial reasoning skills, and to apply the GIS
skills acquired to a wider range of contexts. Laboratory assignments also help the
students to develop abilities that can help them critically evaluate the spatial rep-
resentations and the results of spatial analyses. It is because when the students cre-
ate maps, they have to appraise whether the selected data categories, unit areas,
or the spatial analysis tools they applied to the data for the maps are appropriate
to achieve the purpose (Kim & Bednarz, 2013).
Other studies focus specifically on the issues of ethics in GIS and the ways to
teach it in the classrooms. Huff (2014) stresses the importance of ethics education
in GIS and tries to conceptualize the ethical expertise and characterize moral
skills that the students need to acquire in the domain of GIS. The ultimate goal
is to provide insights into the development of an ethics curriculum for profes-
sionals working with geospatial information. Based on a review of literature
on moral psychology, critical GIS, and other related fields, Huff (2014) suggests
that practice with case studies should help future GIS professionals to develop
domain-specific moral knowledge and skills. Students should have opportuni-
ties to practice the ethical sensitivity, creative problem solving, planning, and
implementation strategies through case practice and simply making the students
become aware of the ethical issues in the case can never be sufficient. The incor-
poration of ethical issues (e.g., informed consent, locational privacy, etc.) across
a broader array of skills taught in the course curriculum and other program ele-
ments is also recommended as a way to help the students enhance expertise in
the ethics in GIS.
Meanwhile, Davis (2014) offers a framework to develop a detailed curriculum

for teaching GIS ethics by identifying the three major objectives—“ethical sensi-
tivity, ethical knowledge, and ethical judgment” (473)—and the relevant peda-
gogical strategies to promote each of them. The ultimate purpose is to enhance
the students’ “ethical commitment” (p. 478) in learning and using GIS. In gen-
eral, however, not much time is devoted to the issues of privacy and ethics in GIS
classrooms in higher education even if most of the instructors believe that it is
important to teach about those issues ( Scull, Burnett, Dolfi, Goldfarb, & Baum,
2016). This is because the focus of GIS courses in undergraduate geography
programs are mostly on learning “a new set of vocabulary, technical skills and
analyses frameworks” (Barcus & Muehlenhaus, 2010, p. 363) with little emphasis
on critical perspectives on spatial representations and geospatial technologies.
Viewing from a spatial citizenship education perspective, the issues of ethics in
GIS can be a relevant topic to the production aspects of spatial representations.
Communication, Participation, and Negotiation With

Spatial Information
The last competency area of spatial citizenship refers to the active communica-
tion and participation strategies regarding the uses of spatial information and
representations (Jekel et al., 2015). Students should be able to: (1) use and cre-
ate spatial representations to express ideas and meanings; (2) share ideas and
persuade others using various communication paths, especially using Web 2.0
technology; and (3) engage in discussions to reach compatible meanings in dem-
ocratic negotiation that can be acceptable for all the communication partners
(Jekel et al., 2015).
How is this component featured in the curriculum of secondary geography?
The importance of active engagement in problem-solving and decision-making
processes using GIS has been already recognized and emphasized in the GIS edu-
cation literature. Synthesis reports on spatial thinking education, such as Learning
to Think Spatially (National Research Council, 2006) and People’s Guide to Spatial
Thinking ( Sinton, Bednarz, Gersmehl, Kolvoord, & Uttal, 2013), make the case
that one’s ability to use spatial representations and technologies, like GIS, to share
and communicate ideas with others is critical to the society in the 21st century.
Community-based learning, place-based learning, service learning, participatory
GIS (PGIS), and public participation GIS (PPGIS) are approaches often used to
incorporate citizenship education into teaching and learning GIS. There are few
examples of this work in secondary education; most of the found studies were
conducted in the context of higher education with a few examples in middle-
school geography classrooms.
Many of the community-based and service-learning examples in higher
education focus on the real-world problem-solving skills that students need as
part of the future workforce and do not necessarily focus on the students as
154 Injeong Jo
thoughtful citizens of the future. For example, Barcus and Muehlenhaus (2010)
point out a challenge of the undergraduate GIS programs “to meet an increasing
demand by students for skills that can be immediately marketable upon gradua-
tion, particularly real-world project management skills and strong GIS technical
and cartographic communication skills” (Barcus & Muehlenhaus, 2010, p. 363).
Incorporating university-community partnerships and aspects of service learn-
ing are to facilitate the “development of additional GIS skills and mastery of
conceptual issues, while engaging students in real-world decision making and
report-writing consistent with the types of tasks they will potentially face in
future employment” (Barcus & Muehlenhaus, 2010, p. 377).
Middle-school examples focus more on citizenship education. For instance,
Mitchell and Elwood (2012) worked with middle-school students to enhance
their critical spatial awareness and interests in the geography and history of own
community. A Web-based mapping project was developed and implemented in
a seventh grade classroom in six one- or two-hour, sessions over two weeks. The
students were engaged in a counter mapping project where they created maps
with understanding of “the fundamental premise that maps are never neutral or
objective but rather reflect existing and or previous power relations in society”
(Mitchell & Elwood, 2012, p. 136). Students collaborated to produce cultural
history maps of their own city that included the key historical sites, photographs,
sketches, comments, and general reflections. The authors found that the map-
ping exercises that adopted a participatory action research helped the students to:
(1) inform themselves about both the geography and history of their own city
and neighborhoods; (2) see the relationships between places and understand the
“socially contextualized” nature of spaces and places; and finally (3) develop
shared concerns and a sense of collective responsibility for the spaces and people
in their neighborhoods. According to the authors, collectively visualizing and
mapping information of their own community using Web-based GIS is pow-
erful. Students learned about “new spatial narratives of the city” and became
“political actors in their own right” ((Mitchell & Elwood, 2012, p. 158).
Another example in the middle-school context is Andersen’s (2011) study
using the Community Mapping Program for community-based projects with
a service-learning approach. The teachers and students asked questions, such
as: what are some social, economic, or ecological issues in my local area? What
individuals or organizations may help investigate and address those issues? How
will geospatial technologies help investigate the issues? Using GIS and other geo-
spatial technologies, the students not only responded to community’s needs but
were also “empowered with the knowledge, skills, and desire to make a differ-
ence in their community” (Andersen, 2011, p. 9).
Conclusion
As shown in this review, the concept and core competences of spatial citizenship
have not become an explicit part of the secondary geography curriculum in most
of the countries where GIS education is taking place. This is especially true in
the case of the United States. Research on spatial citizenship education has rarely
examined how geospatial technologies like GIS can contribute to its develop-
ment in secondary schools.
However, the importance of spatial thinking and ability to use spatial repre-
sentations and geospatial technologies for learning, problem solving, and deci-
sion making has been widely accepted in the secondary geography around the
world, thus providing ample opportunity to the study spatial citizenship more
extensively. As a result, the environment for students to learn about, and with,
geospatial technologies has greatly improved over the last decade. It is observed
that the various aspects of technical competences of spatial citizenship have been
implemented in a number of secondary classrooms, and these cases will form a
solid knowledge base for the future development and implementation of tech-
nical competences of spatial citizenship into the curriculum. In addition, the
increasing awareness among the public, educators, and government officials
about the importance of spatial information and representations in problem solv-
ing, as well as about the potential that interactive mapping technologies and
volunteered geographic information (VGI) have for them to participate in the
decision-making process, are an important opportunity for geography to con-
tribute to the spatial citizenship education.
Despite the important role that geography has played and will play for citizen-
ship education (Bednarz & Bednarz, 2015), there are challenges that should not
and cannot be overlooked. The lack of understanding about spatial citizenship
and its relationship to geography education is definitely an obstacle to the imple-
mentation of the idea into classrooms. Insufficient research on appropriate peda-
gogies for spatial citizenship education is another challenge. Few research studies
exist at the secondary level regarding how to embrace the second and third com-
ponents of spatial citizenship—the reflection and participation competences—in
the curriculum.
The Spatial Citizenship (SPACIT) project provides insights into addressing
some of these challenges, providing a sound model for the development of cur-
riculum for spatial citizenship in secondary education. First, the project puts an
explicit emphasis on the development of the students’ competences in the areas of
the reflection, communication, and participation using geo-media, going beyond
the education of technical competences. The ultimate goal is to enable the stu-
dents to successfully participate in the geo-information society by targeting to
promote reflection and communication skills in using geo-media. Under the
wide partnership among institutions and organizations across various European
countries, SPACIT developed four teacher training modules to help the teachers,
and eventually the students, to become “aware of the power of spatial thinking,
geo-information and the use of the web as a communicative and participatory
tool for citizens to engage with” ( Strobl, 2013, p. 7). Each module covers one
of the four topical areas—concepts of space, geo-media technology and meth-
odology, concepts of citizenship education, and geo-media communication and
156 Injeong Jo
reflection—carefully designed for the teachers to build their spatial citizenship

competences throughout the training (www.spatialcitizenship.org/course-en/).
The module activities offer explicit opportunities to learn about geo-media as
powerful communication instruments, the consequences of geo-information
technology applications in everyday life, ways to express construction of mean-
ings and alternative spatial scenarios, and strategies to question and critically
reflect on the use of geo-media. Although the general audience of the SPACIT
project is teachers and students in Europe, its spatial citizenship curriculum,
which is based on the competence model, should be informative at a global level.
Opportunities are also seen in the increased adoption of College, Career, and
Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards (National Council
for the Social Studies, 2013) in the United States, in which explicit citizenship
education is to be included not only in the subjects of civics but also in eco-
nomics, history, and geography. Explicit emphasis on the importance of helping
students develop capability of evaluating information sources and using evidence
in disciplinary ways can be linked to the education of the competences in reflec-
tion on the uses of geo-media. In the framework, the importance of promoting
students skills in communication and informed decision making has also been
stressed. This can certainly serve as a basis for incorporating the communication
competences of spatial citizenship.
References
Andersen, D. (2011). Community mapping: Putting the pieces together. The Geography
Teacher, 8 (1), 4–9.
Barcus, H. R., & Muehlenhaus, B. (2010). Bridging the academic—public divide in GIS
and cartography: A framework for integrating community partnerships in the class-
room. Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 34 (3), 363–378.
Barnett, M., Vaughn, M. H., Strauss, E., & Cotter, L. (2011). Urban environmental educa-
tion: Leveraging technology and ecology to engage students in studying the environ-
ment. International Research in Geographical and Environmental Education, 20(3), 199–214.
Bednarz, S. W., & Bednarz, R. S. (2015). Brave new world: Citizenship in geospatially
enriched environments. In T. Jekel, A. Car, J. Strobl, & G. Griesebner (Eds.), GI_
Forum 2015 (pp. 230–240). Berlin: Wichmann.
Biemans, H., Wesselink, R., Gulikers, J., Schaafsma, S., Verstegen, J., & Mulder, M.
(2009). Towards competence-based VET: Dealing with the pitfalls. Journal of Voca-
tional Education & Training, 61(3), 267–286.
Carlos, V., & Gryl, I. (2013). Where do critical thinking and spatial citizenship meet?
Proposing a framework of intersections. In T. Jekel, A. Car, J. Strobl, & G. Griesebner
(Eds.), GI_Forum 2013 (pp. 306–316). Berlin: Wichmann.
Davis, D. (2014). What to consider when preparing a model core curriculum for GIS
ethics: Objectives, methods, and a sketch of content. Journal of Geography in Higher
Education, 38 (4), 471–480.
DiBiase, D., DeMers, M., Johnson, A., Kemp, K., Luck, A. T., Plewe, B., & Elizabeth, W.
(2006). Geographic information science and technology body of knowledge. Washington, DC:
University Consortium for Geographic Information Science.
Dong, P., & Lin, P. (2012). China: Teacher preparation for GIS in the National Geography
Curriculum. In A. J. Milson, A. Demirci, & J. J. Kerski (Eds.), International perspec-
tives on teaching and learning with GIS in secondary schools (pp. 59–64). New York, NY:
Springer.
Downs, R. M., & Heffron, S. G. (2012). National geography standards: Geography for life
(2nd ed.). Washington, DC: National Council for Geographic Education.
Favier, T. T., & Van der Schee, J. A. (2009). Learning geography by combining fieldwork
with GIS. International Research in Geographical and Environmental Education, 18 (4),
261–274.
Favier, T. T., & Van der Schee, J. A. (2012). Exploring the characteristics of an optimal
design for inquiry-based geography education with Geographic Information Systems.
Computers & Education, 58 (1), 666–677.
Gryl, I., & Jekel, T. (2012). Re-centering geoinformation in secondary education: Toward
Gryl, I., Schulze, U., & Kanwischer, D. (2013). Spatial citizenship: The concept of com-
petence. In T. Jekel, A. Car, J. Strobl, & G. Griesebner (Eds.), GI_Forum 2013 (pp.
282–293). Berlin: Wichmann.
Hoskins, B. (2013). What does democracy need from its citizens? Identifying the quali-
ties needed for active citizenship and making the values explicit. In D. Lange &
M. Print (Eds.), Civic education and competences for engaging citizens in democracies (pp.
23–35). Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.
Huff, C. (2014). From meaning well to doing well: Ethical expertise in the GIS domain.
Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 38 (4), 455–470.
Jekel, T., Gryl, I., & Schulze, U. (2015). Education for spatial citizenship. In O. Muñiz-
Solari, A. Demirci, & J. van der Schee (Eds.), Geospatial technologies and geography
education in a changing world (pp. 35–49). Tokyo: Springer.
Kanwischer, D., Schulze, U., & Gryl, I. (2012). Spatial citizenship: Dimensions of a cur-
riculum. In T. Jekel, A. Car, J. Strobl, & G. Griesebner (Eds.), GI_Forum 2012 (pp.
172–181). Berlin: Wichmann.
Kerski, J. J., Demirci, A., & Milson, A. J. (2013). The global landscape of GIS in second-
ary education. Journal of Geography, 112 (6), 232–247.
Kim, M., & Bednarz, R. (2013). Development of critical spatial thinking through GIS
learning. Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 37(3), 350–366.
Komlenović, D., Manić, E., & Malinić, D. (2013). The Geographic Information System
(GIS) in secondary education in Serbia. Perspectives in Education, 31(1), 96–104.
Lam, C.-C., Lai, E., & Wong, J. (2009). Implementation of Geographic Information
System (GIS) in secondary geography curriculum in Hong Kong: Current situations
and future directions. International Research in Geographical and Environmental Educa-
tion, 18 (1), 57–74.
Liu, Y., Bui, E. N., Chang, C.-H., & Lossman, H. G. (2010). PBL-GIS in secondary
geography education: Does it result in higher-order learning outcomes? Journal of
Geography, 109 (4), 150–158.
Ministry of Education. (2003). The People's Republic of China. Geography curriculum stan-
dards for full-time compulsory education (experimental) (in Chinese). Beijing: Beijing Nor-
mal University Press.
Ministry of Education and Culture. (2010). Basic education 2020: The national general objec-
tives and distribution of lesson hours. Helsinki: Ministry of Education and Culture.
Mitchell, K., & Elwood, S. (2012). From redlining to benevolent societies: The emanci-
patory power of spatial thinking. Theory & Research in Social Education, 40 (2), 134–163.
158 Injeong Jo
work for social studies state standards: Guidance for enhancing the rigor of K-12 civics, econom-
ics, geography, and history. Silver Spring, MD: NCSS.
National Research Council. (2006). Learning to think spatially. Washington, DC: National
Academies Press.
Print, M. (2013). Conceptualizing competences for democratic citizenship: A Delphi
approach. In D. Lange & M. Print (Eds.), Civic education and competences for engaging
citizens in democracies (pp. 149–162). Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.
Riihelä, J., & Mäki, S. (2015). Designing and implementing an online GIS tool for schools:
The Finnish case of the PaikkaOppi Project. Journal of Geography, 114 (1), 15–25.
Schubert, J. C., & Uphues, R. (2009). Learning with geoinformation in German schools:
Systematic integration with a GIS competency model. International Research in Geo-
graphical and Environmental Education, 18 (4), 275–286.
Schulze, U., Gryl, I., & Kanwischer, D. (2014). Spatial citizenship: Creating a curricu-
lum for teacher education. In R. Vogler, A. Car, J. Strobl, & G. Griesebner (Eds.),
GI_Forum 2014 (pp. 230–241). Berlin: Wichmann.
Geography in Higher Education, 39 (3), 369–385.
Scull, P., Burnett, A., Dolfi, E., Goldfarb, A., & Baum, P. (2016). Privacy and ethics in
undergraduate GIS curricula. Journal of Geography, 115, 24–34.
Sinton, D., Bednarz, S., Gersmehl, P., Kolvoord, R., & Uttal, D. (2013). The people’s guide
to spatial thinking. Washington, DC: National Council for Geographic Education.
Strobl, J. (2013). SPACIT: Spatial citizenship (Project NO. 517908-LLP-1-2011-1-AT-
COMENIUS-CMP), Education, Audiovisual & Culture Executive Agency, Brussels.
Sui, D. Z. (1995). A pedagogic framework to link GIS to the intellectual core of geogra-
phy. Journal of Geography, 94 (6), 578–591.
Wang, Y.-H., & Chen, C.-M. (2013). GIS education in Taiwanese senior high schools: A
national survey among geography teachers. Journal of Geography, 112 (2), 75–84.
Wheeler, P., Gordon-Brown, L., Peterson, J., & Ward, M. (2010). Geographical informa-
tion systems in Victorian secondary schools: Current constraints and opportunities.
International Research in Geographical and Environmental Education, 19 (2), 155–170.
Yap, L. Y., Chin, G., Tan, I., Zhu, X., & Wettasinghe, M. C. (2008). An Assessment of the
use of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) in teaching geography in Singapore
schools. Journal of Geography, 107(2), 52–60.
11
SPATIAL CITIZENSHIP IN
GEOGRAPHY/SOCIAL STUDIES
TEACHER EDUCATION
Euikyung E. Shin
Introduction
Teachers are agents for changes ( Fullan, 1993). What teachers do or do not do in
their classrooms has a significant bearing since teachers are the most impactful
factor on students’ learning (Bransford, Darling-Hammond, & LePage, 2005;
Ferguson, 1991; Rockoff, 2004). Considering the importance of teacher effec-
tiveness for students’ learning, a meaningful discussion of spatial citizenship can-
not be deliberated without reviewing how educators are being prepared for a
teaching career and their overall professional development.
Therefore, this chapter focuses on the conceptual understanding of spatial
citizenship education in conjunction with teacher education, especially geogra-
phy and/or social studies teacher preparation and professional development. This
chapter includes discussions on what is needed to assist pre-service and in-service
teachers in learning about spatial citizenship education. More specifically, this
chapter attempts to make the case for the importance of teachers’ professional
commitment to advocate for spatial citizenship in their day-to-day practices.
Since “geography is primarily taught by teachers with history, social studies,
or elementary generalist certification,” ( Schell, Roth, & Mohan, 2013, p. 31),
discussions included in this chapter apply to both geography and social studies
teacher preparation.
Spatial Citizenship Education

As Tyler in his book Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction (1949) confirmed,
the primary purpose of American education has been to inspire students on the
road to becoming independent and critical thinking citizens. Thus, citizenship
160 Euikyung E. Shin
education has always been a primary goal of America’s schools (Thornton, 2004).
It has often been exemplified as participating in democratic practices and implant-
ing democratic values (see Savage & Armstrong, 2004; Parker, 1997; Parker &
Beck, 2017). When citizenship education is operationalized in school curricu-
lum, particularly social studies curriculum, much emphasis has been given to the
notion of citizens’ rights and responsibilities in the context of patriotism rather
than the nature and conceptual understanding of citizenship (Thornton, 2005).
In geography, there has been a thin thread of discussion of that discipline’s con-
tribution to citizenship education and the topic has never been a center of atten-
tion in the field ( Segall & Helfenbein, 2008; William, 2001).
Nonetheless, the goal of geography education as well as social studies edu-
cation is to help students become informed citizens who can make important
decisions about our well-being (Heffron & Downs, 2012 ; National Council
for Social Studies, 2013). Because geography studies the world from a spatial
perspective (Heffron & Downs, 2012), development of a geographic perspec-
tive contributes to the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that determine students’
views of the physical and social world (Anderson, 1983; Wade, 2001; Williams,
2001). Recently, increased accessibility and usability of geospatial technology
has altered the landscape of teachers’ use of spatial (geographic) data in their
classrooms (Baker, 2005; Shin, 2008). This development has introduced a new
domain of discussion that focuses on the use of spatial information for citizenry
participation, which has been termed spatial citizenship (Gryl & Jekel, 2018; Gryl &
Jekel, 2012).
While Gryl and Jekel (2012) defined spatial citizenship centered around the
use of spatial information with geospatial technologies, the concept of spatial
citizenship as used in this chapter has been widened to all deliberations that
engage spatial and geographic perspectives in fostering citizenship regardless of
the use of spatial technology. For instance, spatial inquiries that do not neces-
sarily utilize geospatial technologies may contribute to spatial citizenship with
the understanding that such inquiries promote discourse about citizenship. From
this standpoint, I argue that geography education and related fields have contrib-
uted to spatial citizenship education by conducting research, developing curricu-
lum, and creating instructional materials to improve students’ knowledge, skills,
and attitudes so that students can become geographically informed (Heffron &
Downs, 2012). Thus, this chapter aims to provide a reflection of and vision for
spatial citizenship education by connecting geography and social studies teacher
education with the acknowledgment that teachers play a vital role in helping
students develop the practices of spatial citizenship.
Understanding Teacher Education

How teachers are being prepared for the teaching profession is important because
teachers are gate keepers of students’ learning (Thornton, 1991). Hence, what
Spatial Citizenship in Geography 161
teachers think is worth teaching and what they believe students should be able
to do matters a great deal (Thornton, 2005). Although the importance of teacher
quality is generally agreed upon, there is a range of perspectives related to what
teacher quality means and which teacher characteristics are connected to desir-
able results (Darling-Hammond & Bransford, 2005). Despite the array of per-
spectives, research confirms that teachers are a critical influence on how, what,
and how much students learn; the evidence for this suggests that teachers’ abili-
ties are especially crucial contributors to students’ learning (Darling-Hammond,
2016; Bransford, Darling-Hammond, & LePage, 2005)
In understanding teacher education, it should be noted that teachers are life-
long learners. While teachers enter the classroom having mastered a set of prede-
termined knowledge and skills for initial certification, they continue to develop
their teaching skills and to update their knowledge as they go through years of
experience working with students (Bransford, Darling-Hammond, & LePage,
2005). During their careers, teachers encounter strong demands to continuously
update their knowledge, skills, and practices to respond to changes in curricula,
educational technology, the learning needs of students, and in the light of new
research on teaching and learning processes. Professional development provides
opportunities for geography teachers to enhance their skills and increase their
conﬁdence to adapt to new situations when necessary (Kolnik, 2010). Conse-
quently, professional development is an important part of teacher education, and
the goals for teacher education are to help teachers construct their own knowl-
edge and thinking so that they can maximize their learning throughout their
careers ( Schell et al., 2013).
In our rapidly changing contemporary society, the importance of preparing
teachers to make instructional decisions based on strong disciplinary knowledge
is increasingly important. Learning standards are now higher than they have ever
been as it is perceived that citizens need greater knowledge and skills to be pre-
pared for and successful in their post-secondary and career experiences. In current
geography and social studies standards, much emphasis has been on developing
students’ critical thinking through inquiry (Heffron & Downs, 2012; National
Council for the Social Studies, 2013). Therefore, teachers need to be prepared to
go beyond “covering the curriculum” (Bransford, Darling-Hammond, & LeP-
age, 2005, p. 2) and to be enabled to help their students become well-informed
decision makers.
In summarizing the goals for preparing teachers, Bransford, Darling-Hammond,
and LePage (2005) proposed three important questions:
1. What kinds of knowledge do effective teachers need to have about their

subject matter and about the learning processes and development of their
students?
2. What skills do teachers need in order to provide productive learning experi-
ences for a diverse set of students, to offer informative feedback on students’
ideas, and to critically evaluate their own teaching practices and improve
them?
3. What professional commitments do teachers need to help every child succeed
and to continue to develop their own knowledge and skills, both as indi-
vidual and as members of a collective profession?
(pp. 2–3)
Accordingly, this chapter is organized around the three essential traits of teacher
education: teachers’ knowledge, skills, and professional commitments. Tradition-
ally, the emphasis has been given to what teachers need to know about the nature
of curriculum decision making and the curricular planning process as these are
informed by social contexts and purposes for education. A social perspective on
curriculum questions is important because of the broad social purposes of public
education, that is, the preparation of a citizenry for life in a democracy, which
should be considered as the foundation for teachers’ decision making about what
is taught and how it is taught (Darling-Hammond et al., 2005).
What Geography and Social Studies Should Teachers

Know and Be Able to Do?
Historically, the discipline of geography education has been perceived as a stale,
fact-based subject that focuses on rote memorization of place names, loca-
tions, and geography terminologies. This notion of geography has hindered the
advancement of the discipline that is fundamentally lively and inquiry-based
( Schell et al., 2013). Consequently, recent geography education reform projects
such as the revision of the National Standards For Geography Education (Hef-
fron & Downs, 2012) and the Road Map Project ( Schell et al., 2013) have advo-
cated three pillars to advance geography education: (1) student development of a
geographic perspective referred to as the “geographic lens” in Geography for Life
(Heffron & Downs, 2012, p. 13); (2) an emphasis on core geographic concepts
and principles; and (3) increased focus on geographic practices, defined as the
complex processes of inquiry geographers use in problem solving and decision
making ( Schell et al., 2013).
Geographic Perspective
A perspective is a framework of mind that can be used to process the mean-
ings of experiences, affairs, habitations, individuals, society, and environments.
Having a perspective means looking at our world through a lens shaped by per-
sonal experience, selective information, and subjective evaluation. In geography,
a perspective provides a frame of reference for asking and answering geographic
questions, identifying and solving geographic problems, and evaluating the con-
sequences of alternative actions in geographic context. Although the field of
geography can include many different disciplinary perspectives, the National

Geography Standards Geography for life highlights two fundamental perspectives
in geography—the spatial perspective and the ecological (or environmental) per-
spective (Heffron & Downs, 2012).
Geography for life explains the spatial perspective and the ecological perspec-
tive in detail. The spatial perspective asks, “Where is it? Why is it there?” and
is concerned with spatial patterns of both human and physical phenomena. The
ecological perspective views the world as a web of relationships between living
and non-living features and is concerned with these connections and relation-
ships among and between complex systems such as human societies and ecosys-
tems (Heffron & Downs, 2012; National Geographic, n.d.).
Developing geographic perspectives helps students to enhance their ability
to “acquire and use spatial and ecological perspectives to develop an informed
world-views” (Heffron & Downs, 2012, p. 13). Geographic perspectives are the
foundation for building geographic knowledge and skills and the essence of the
discipline. In order to become an informed citizen, people not only need to
know some geographic content and to use geographic skills such as the ability to
read and interpret maps, but also they should be able to reason geographically,
that is, spatially and ecologically. Teachers need to be familiar with the perspec-
tives of geography so that they can teach their students; if they do not know what
it means to think geographically, neither will their students.
Big Ideas: Core Geography Principles and Concepts

The subject matter knowledge and/or pedagogical content knowledge for teach-
ing is different from subject knowledge itself. Teachers learn and develop their
subject matter knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge in their teacher
preparation and professional development programs ( Grossman, Schoenfeld, &
Lee, 2005). Teachers, however, need to understand that subject matter knowl-
edge as presented in curriculum evolves and changes to reflect to changes in dis-
ciplinary knowledge as well as progressive transformations in our society which
influence the curriculum (Darling-Hammond & Bransford, 2005; Darling-
Hammond et al., 2005).
Teacher’s geographic subject matter knowledge should focus on the funda-
mental principles and concepts of geography, which is captured in the term
“big ideas” not on factual information. The term “big idea” was used by the
Instructional Materials and Professional Development Committee of a Road Map
Project to represent the “broader explanatory power” of geography ( Schell et al.,
2013, p. 39); this idea was explained symbolically by an illustration, “not to lose
the forest for all trees” (p. 38). The big ideas were organized around six elements
in the National Geography Standards: (1) the world in spatial terms, (2) places
and regions, (3) physical systems, (4) human systems, (5) environments and soci-
ety, and (6) the uses of geography (Heffron & Downs, 2012). Unfortunately in
most teacher preparation programs, if (many social studies pre-service programs

do not offer the opportunity) students are exposed to formal geography course-
work, it rarely will emphasize “big ideas” but instead be a specialized topical class
such as physical or human geography or a regional study.
For spatial citizenship education, Kanwischer, Schulze, and Gryl (2012) pro-
posed three areas for building competences, which include (1) technology/
methodology to handle spatial information, (2) ref lection/ref lexivity regard-
ing geo-media, and (3) communication, participation, and negotiation with
spatial representations. I, however, argue that all three competences are critical
in building spatial citizenship and that they could be learned without the use
of geospatial technologies, although it is true that geospatial technologies have
made access to spatial data much easier than ever before. Reflection, communica-
tion, participation, and negotiation with spatial information especially are value-
added components that have not been extensively emphasized in geography/social
studies teacher education. At the same time, I acknowledge that understanding
and properly using geospatial technologies is important in developing spatial citi-
zenship in a sense that expectations and uses of new technology play a significant
role to support curriculum (Darling-Hammond et al., 2005).
Geographic Practices: Doing Geography

Teacher preparation and professional development programs should be grounded
in content-specific strategies that can enhance teachers’ effectiveness. As geo-
graphic subject matter has changed with the introduction of geospatial tech-
nologies and with the advent of a focus on spatial citizenship, modifications in
learning goals and assessment methods must follow, while adjustments in cur-
ricular goals require alterations in teaching and learning strategies (Bransford,
Darling-Hammond, & LePage, 2005).
For geography and social studies teachers, knowing geography’s big ideas
and spatial citizenship competencies is not enough. Teachers need to learn how
students best learn about the big ideas and spatial citizenship competencies;
that is, they need to develop their pedagogical content knowledge. Geography
for Life (Heffron & Downs, 2012) suggested five geographic skills that can be
used by students to perform systematic geographic investigations. These five
stills are: (1) asking geographic questions; (2) acquiring geographic information;
(3) organizing geographic information; (4) analyzing geographic information; and
(5) answering geographic questions.
Furthermore, the Instructional Materials and Professional Development Com-
mittee of the Road Map Project proposed “geographic practices” as a repre-
sentation of geographic skills or processes. They use the term “practices” to
capture the comprehensiveness of doing geography ( Schell et al., 2013, p. 39).
This committee’s report listed six geographic practices, which are similar to the
five geographic skills suggested in Geography for Life (Heffron & Downs, 2012).
They advanced the conceptualization of geographic skills by adding two prac-

tices: designing solutions to problems and communicating geographic informa-
tion. These are critical attributes to developing spatial citizens. Without a doubt,
Geography for Life and the Road Map Project both promote “doing geography” as
the best geographic practice.
One of the most powerful instructional tools is a curriculum organized
around the big ideas in geography and best geographic practices. Teachers need
to know how to develop such curriculum and how to use them to plan their own
instruction. Only then will teachers be able to understand the vision and purpose
for teaching the subject matter embedded within the curriculum.
What Professional Commitment Do Teachers Need?

A Vision for Spatial Citizenship
How teachers define subject matter and its central concepts and processes relates
to epistemological issues ( Grossman et al., 2005). For instance, how teachers
define a discipline influences how they organize their curriculum and instruc-
tion. Personal epistemologies are complex in nature and develop over a life-
time through a range of processes. As Schommer-Aikins (2004) emphasized in
evaluating the impact of epistemic beliefs that teachers frequently negotiate and
personally interpret the views of learning that are influential in education. In
defining the role of personal epistemology in teaching, Feucht (2010) explained
that a teacher’s personal epistemology affects the climate of a classroom and that
delineates the norm for students’ learning as well as students’ personal epistemol-
ogy (De Corte, Eynde, Depaepe, & Verschaffel, 2010). According to Brownlee,
Schraw, and Berthelsen (2011), “teachers with sophisticated personal epistemolo-
gies are more likely to be able to engage in ill-structured problem solving and
argue based on evidence for a ‘best’ solution” (p. 7).
Like other professions, the teaching profession has key criteria that define
what it means to be a teacher, starting with an ethical commitment to help
enhance all students’ well-being and success. Moreover, teachers need to think
about the subject matter they teach in a broader context that includes an under-
standing of the social purpose of education. In a democratic society, teachers
must also evaluate their teaching decisions against the goals of preparing students
to be civic participants in a society that relies on interdependence (Bransford,
Darling-Hammond, & LePage, 2005).
Members of the geography education community consider that their mis-
sion is to educate youngsters in meeting their personal needs and fulfilling civic
responsibilities (Bednarz, Heffron, & Huynh, 2013). Despite many challenges
the discipline faces such as its lower status as a discipline in the United States,
a lack of resources, and limited presence in social studies curricula, geography
education has continuously worked to reform its role in schools, so that all learn-
ers can benefit from knowing its perspectives with the belief that this knowledge
will enable students to make import contributions to society at a range of scales,

from their local community to global communities ( Schell et al., 2013).
While there are commonly shared desirable teachers’ epistemologies in geog-
raphy and/or social studies education, the effort to operationalize them in teacher
education has not been evident. Thus, research on geography and/or social stud-
ies teachers’ epistemologies in their discipline is limited. If the goal for geography
education is to help students become geographically informed decision makers,
teachers need to view the discipline as such. Teachers’ recognition of the goal of
geography education can have a long-term effect on students’ perception of the
geography as well. Teacher preparation and professional development programs
have a great potential for serving as thresholds to acquire these understandings.
Geography/social studies teachers should be able to answer when they are
asked why students need to learn about geography/social studies. Teacher edu-
cation programs for geography and social studies, especially in methodology
courses, should be able to provide opportunities for teachers (or pre-service
teachers) to think about what they are trying to accomplish in geography/social
studies. I suggest that geography/social studies methodology courses start with
a reflection on the nature of geography/social studies, why geography/social
studies are taught, and what it means to teach geography/social studies. This
discourse will lead pre-service students to think about what is worth knowing
in geography for students. According to Darling-Hammond et al. (2005), these
kinds of iterative questions and reflection teach a habit of mind that focuses
teachers on their goals for their own and their students’ learning.
Hammerness et al. (2005) asserted that there are three principles for facili-
tating teacher development in general. I believe that these can also be applied
to hone teachers’ awareness of their epistemologies. These three principles are:
(1) engage teachers’ preconceptions that were formed by an “apprenticeship
of observation” (Lortie, 1975); (2) acquire a deep foundation of knowledge
to enable teachers to “enact” what they know; and (3) foster “metacognitive”
approaches to instruction. Through these three principles, teacher education
programs, pre-service and in-service teachers will be able to build in educators
the habit of mediating “why I am teaching what I am teaching.” This should
assist them to build a personal epistemology centered around the goal for teach-
ing geography/social studies, which may facilitate a disposition to enact spatial
citizenship education.
Conclusion: Moving Forward

The Road Map Project, which is the most notable recent reform movement in
geography education, made an effort to establish a “destination” (Bednarz et. al.,
2013, p. 22) for geography education: to help all learners become geographically
informed persons through understanding the big ideas in geography and by con-
ducting geographic practices applying a geographic lens.
In order to foster spatial citizenship, teachers, both pre-service and in-service,

need to understand the shared vision of spatial citizenship and learn how that
vision can guide their efforts by being clear and purposeful about what and how
they teach. Thus, considering that teachers’ epistemologies have a significant
impact on students’ understanding of a disciple, teacher preparation and profes-
sional development efforts should provide opportunities to adopt this vision and
instill desirable epistemological beliefs regarding goals for geography education.
I acknowledge that the concept of citizenship is complex and fluent. Accord-
ingly, spatial citizenship can be translated into many different shapes and forms
while theorizing and operationalizing it in educational settings. Spatial citizen-
ship is, in essence, about being active and engaging with the lively, dynamic field
of geography (Yarwood, 2014).
References
Anderson, R. C. (1983). Geography’s role in promoting global citizenship. NASSA Bul-
letin, 67, 80–83.
Baker, T. R. (2005). Internet-based GIS mapping in support of K-12 education. The Profes-
sional Geographer, 57(1), 44–50.
Bednarz, S. W., Heffron, S., & Huynh, N. T. (Eds.). (2013). A road map for 21st century
geography education: Geography education research (A report from the Geography Educa-
tion Research Committee of the Road Map for 21st Century Geography Education
Project). Washington, DC: Association of American Geographers.
Bransford, J., Darling-Hammond, L., & LePage, P. (2005). Introduction. In L. Darling-
Hammond & J. Bransford (Eds.), Preparing teachers for a changing world: What teachers
should learn and be able to do (pp. 1–39). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, A Wiley
Imprint.
Brownlee, J., Schraw, G., & Berthelsen, D. (2011). Personal epistemology and teacher
education: An emerging field of research. In J. Brownlee, G. Schraw, & D. Berthelsen
(Eds.), Personal epistemology and teacher education (pp. 3–21). New York, NY: Routledge.
Darling-Hammond, L. (2016). Research on teaching and teacher education and its influ-
ences on policy and practice. Educational Researcher, 45(2), 83–91.
Darling-Hammond, L., Banks, J., Zuwalt, K., Gomez, L., Sherin, M. G., Griesdorn, J., &
Finn, L. (2005). Educational goals and purposes: Developing a curricular vision for
teaching. In L. Darling-Hammond & J. Bransford (Eds.), Preparing teachers for a chang-
ing world: What teachers should learn and be able to do (pp. 169–200). San Francisco, CA:
Jossey-Bass, A Wiley Imprint.
Darling-Hammond, L., & Bransford, J. (2005). Preparing teachers for a changing world: What
teachers should learn and be able to do. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, A Wiley Imprint.
Darling-Hammond, L., Bransford, J., & LePage, P. (2005). Introduction. In L. Darling-
Imprint.
De Corte, E., Eynde, P., Depaepe, F., & Verschaffel, L. (2010). The reflexive relation
between students’ mathematics-related beliefs and the mathematics classroom culture.
In L. Bendixen & F. Feucht (Eds.), Personal epistemology in the classroom (pp. 292–327).
New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Ferguson, R. F. (1991). Paying for public education: New evidence on how and why
money matters. Harvard Journal on Legislation, 28 (2), 465–498.
Feucht, F. (2010). Epistemic climate in elementary classrooms. In L. Bendixen & F. Feucht
(Eds.), Personal epistemology in the classroom (pp. 55–93). New York, NY: Cambridge
University Press.
Fullan, M. G. (1993). Why teachers must become change agents. Educational Leadership,
50 (6), 12.
Grossman, P., Schoenfeld, A., & Lee, C. (2005). Teaching subject matter. In L. Darling-
Imprint.
Gryl, I., & Jekel, T. (2018). Spatially informed citizenship education as an approach for
global understanding. In A. Demiri, R. deMiguel, & S. Bednarz (Eds.), Geography
education for global understanding (pp. 43–56). Cham: Springer.
Hammerness, K., Darling-Hammond, L., Bransford, J., Berliner, D., Cochran-Smith,
M., McDonard, M., & Zeichner, K. (2005). How teachers learn and develop. In L.
Darling-Hammond & J. Bransford (Eds.), Preparing teachers for a changing world: What
teachers should learn and be able to do (pp. 201–231). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, A
Wiley Imprint.
Kanwischer, D., Schulze, U., & Gryl, I. (2012). Spatial citizenship—Dimensions of a
curriculum. In T. Jaker, A. Car, J. Strobl, & G. Griesebner (Eds.), GI _Forum 2012:
Geovizualisation, society and learning. Berlin: Herbert Wichmann Verlag.
Kolnik, K. K. (2010). Lifelong learning and the professional development of geography
teachers: A view from Slovenia. Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 34 (1), 53–58.
Lortie, D. C. (1975). Schoolteacher: A sociological study. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago
Press.
work for social studies state standards: Guidance for enhancing the rigor of K-12 civics, econom-
ics, geography, and history. Silver Spring, MD: NCSS.
National Geographic. (n.d.). Looking at the world in multiple ways. Retrieved from www.
nationalgeographic.org/education/national-geography-standards/geographic-
perspectives/
Parker, W. C. (1997). The art of deliberation. Educational Leadership, 54 (1), 18–21.
Parker, W. C., & Beck, T. A. (2017). Social studies in elementary education (15th ed.). New
York, NY: Pearson Education, Inc.
Rockoff, J. E. (2004). The impact of individual teachers on student achievement: Evi-
dence from panel data. American Economic Review, 94 (2), 247–252.
Savage, V. T., & Armstrong, G. D. (2004). Effective teaching in elementary social studies.
Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.
Schell, E. M., Roth, K. J., & Mohan, A. (2013). A road map for 21st century geography
education: Instructional materials and professional development (A report from the Instruc-
tional Materials and Professional Development Committee of the Road Map for 21st
Century Geography Education Project). Washington, DC: National Council for Geo-
graphic Education.
Schommer-Aikins, M. (2004). Explaining the epistemological belief system: Introduc-

ing the embedded systemic model and coordinated research approach. Educational
Psychologist, 39 (1), 19–29.
Segall, A., & Helfenbein, R. J. (2008). Research on K-12 geography education. In L. S.
Levstik & C. A. Tyson (Eds.), Handbook of research in social studies education (pp. 259–283).
New York, NY: Routledge.
Shin, E. (2008). Examining the teacher’s role when teaching with Geographic Informa-
tion System (GIS). In A. J. Milson & M. Alibrandi (Eds.), Digital geography: Geo-spatial
technology in the social studies classroom. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Press.
Thornton, S. J. (1991). Teacher as curricular-instructional gatekeeper in social studies.
In J. P. Shaver (Ed.), Handbook of research on social studies teaching and learning (pp.
237–248). New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.Thornton, S. J. (2004). Citizenship
education and social studies curriculum change after 9/11. In C. Woyshner, J. Watras, &
M. S. Crocco (Eds.), Social education in the twentieth century: Curriculum and context for
citizenship (pp. 210–220). New York, NY: Peter Lang Inc.
Thornton, S. J. (2005). Teaching social studies that matters: Curriculum for active learning. New
York, NY: Teachers College Press.
Tyler, R. W. (1949). Basic principles of curriculum and instruction. Chicago, IL: University of
Chicago Press.
Wade, R. (2001). Global citizenship: Choices and change. In D. Lambert & P. Machon
(Eds.), Citizenship through secondary geography (pp. 161–181). London: Routledge Falmer.
Williams, M. (2001). Citizenship and democracy education: Geography’s place, an inter-
national perspective. In D. Lambert & P. Machon (Eds.), Citizenship through secondary
geography (pp. 31–41). London: Routledge Falmer.
Yarwood, R. (2014). Citizenship. New York, NY: Routledge.
CONTRIBUTORS
Tom Baker serves on the Education Outreach at ESRI, where he specializes in

curriculum design, teacher education, and educational research. His areas of
interest include computational thinking, inquiry-based learning processes, and
instructional change. His current work can be found at http://tbaker.com.
Robert S. Bednarz is Professor Emeritus of Geography at Texas A&M Univer-

sity. At present, he serves as North American Commissioning Editor of the Jour-
nal of Geography in Higher Education. He is a past president of the National Council
for Geographic Education and past editor of the Journal of Geography.
Sarah Witham Bednarz is Professor Emerita of Geography at Texas A&M Uni-

versity. Bednarz co-authored the national geography standards, Geography for Life
(1994 and 2012), served on the Committee on Spatial Thinking (2004–2006),
and co-chaired the Geography Education Research Committee (GERC) of the
21st Century Road Map for 21st Century Geography Education Project.
Mary Curtis is an Assistant Professor of Curriculum and Instruction at the Uni-

versity of Texas at Arlington, teaching social studies pedagogy, diversity, and
research. She leads the Social Studies/History and Middle Level teacher prepa-
ration programs. Her research focuses on geography education, technological
pedagogical content knowledge, and K-12 geospatial technology integration.
Elizabeth R. Hinde is Professor and Dean of the School of Education at Met-

ropolitan State University of Denver. Previously, she was Director of Teacher
Preparation at Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College at Arizona State University.
Contributors 171
An elementary teacher for 20 years, she has also authored numerous publications
concerning social studies.
Injeong Jo is Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography at Texas State

University. Her research focuses on geography education, development of spatial
thinking, and teacher preparation and curriculum development in these areas.
She is also interested in ways geospatial technologies, such as GIS, support teach-
ing and learning geography.
Todd W. Kenreich is Professor of Secondary and Middle School Education at

Towson University where he co-directs the Maryland Geographic Alliance. His
research interests focus on geography education, global education, and teacher
learning.
David Lambert is Professor of Geography Education in the Department of Cur-

riculum, Pedagogy and Assessment at the UCL Institute of Education (IOE). He
is a former secondary-school teacher, teacher educator, and chief executive of the
Geographical Association (GA).
Lisa Millsaps’ research interests focus on geography and GIS education, climate
change education, social science and STEM teacher education, and Latin Ameri-
can studies.
M. Beth Schlemper’s teaching is in the area of human geography, research

methods, and geography education. Her research focus is in geography education
and historical geography.
Sandra J. Schmidt is an Associate Professor in the Program in Social Studies at

Teachers College, Columbia University. Her scholarship brings spatiality into
K-12 social studies education and research. She explores how school geography
and everyday spatial practices deal with social unevenness. Her research utilizes
feminist and visual methodologies.
Euikyung E. Shin is a professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction

at Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois where she teaches curriculum
studies and social studies education. Her research interests include incorporation
of spatial perspectives for global citizenship education and integration of geospa-
tial technology to social studies curriculum.
Victoria C. Stewart is Associate Professor of Curriculum and Instruction at

the University of Toledo. Her research interests include: Teaching and research
focuses on promoting interest, meaningfulness, and authentic connections to
172 Contributors
academic content; developing methods to advance learning, relevance, and civic

action across student’s lives, in communities, and beyond.
Stephen J. Thornton is Professor of Social Studies Education at the Univer-

sity of South Florida, Tampa. He has published over 100 scholarly articles and
books, including Teaching Social Studies That Matters which received the Ameri-
can Library Association’s Choice Award for published scholarship. His current
writing focuses on the integration of geography and history in social studies
programs.
INDEX
Page numbers in italic indicate figures; those in bold indicate tables.
actualizing citizen 63, 64 Center for Understanding the Built

Adams, John 134 Environment 81–82
Advanced Placement Human Geography 12 character education 64
“America First” 23, 37n3 child friendly spaces 82
American Association of Geographers children: geographical understanding
(AAG) 22 132–133; geography for young learners
American Indian Movement 49 135–137; geography in Preschool
American Revolution 12 through Grade 12 134–135; importance
American West 16 of geography in curriculum 133–135
apps 119, 120 Children’s Environments Resource
Arab Spring 23 Group 82
ArcGIS 98, 99, 112, 121, 124, 126 citizen(s): accessing places of engagement
Arizona Geographic Alliance 144 47–49; experience of citizenship 51–53;
Athreya, Brinda 113 justice-oriented 63, 64; participatory
Atlantic Magazine’s CityLab 68 62, 64; personally responsible 62, 64;
reclaiming spatial symbols 49–51; spatial
Baker, Tom 6, 117 117–118; stories of vulnerable 44–53;
Baltimore Green Map 81 story of coerced migrants 45–47; voting
Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction rights of 47–49
(Tyler) 159 Citizen Science projects 69
Bednarz, Robert S. 5, 59 citizenship 2–3; in 21st century 60–61;
Bednarz, Sarah Witham 1, 5, 59 access to 55–56; activity of 44; civic
Bernstein, Basil 27, 37 opportunity of 42–44; curriculum
Biesta, Gert 25 for spatial approaches to 95–97;
Bonus Army 49 definition of 25; experience of 41–42,
Bowman, Isaiah 11 51–53; meaning of 41–42; paradigms
Brexit vote 23 of 63; patriotism and 2, 61; relationship
Broek, Jan O. M. 10 between space and 53–55; spatial
dimensions of 42–44; stories of
Center for Information and Research vulnerable citizens 44–53; symbols of
on Civic Learning and Engagement 54–55; teaching geography for 14–15;
(CIRCLE) 61 women in Myanmar 45–47, 55
174 Index
citizenship education: Citizen Science importance of geography in 133–135;

projects 69; connecting geography knowledge in 28–29; as learning
to 11–14; emphasis on deficits 66– 67; solution 123–127; spatial approaches to
focus on assets 67; geography and citizenship 95–97; teaching GIS ethics
65– 66; interactive mapping sites 153; unscripted, local research projects
67– 68; language in 44; middle-school 125–126
examples 154; preparing young people Curtis, Mary 6, 117
for civic engagement 66– 69; social CyberGIS 66, 68
sciences 118; spatial 159–160; of spatial Czajkowski, Kevin 113
citizen 118; in United States 61– 65;
voluntary geographic information Dag Hammarskjold Plaza 52
(VGI) 66, 68 Davis, Hilarie 113
City University of New York 82 democracy, education for 72–73
civic engagement: definitions for Designing Better Maps (Brewer) 80
90; model of assets promoting 67; desktop tools 120 –121
preparing young people for 66– 69 developmental psychology 67
class consensus, definition 105 Dewey, John 10, 12, 15, 16, 72, 73, 133
climate change, geotechnologies for digital globes 117
teaching 128 digital revolution 59
College, Career and Civil Life (C3) Dreamers 3
Framework for Social Studies 6, 100–101, Dubos, René 88
101, 156 Dutch liberalism, concept 23
Community Mapping Program 154 dutiful citizen 63, 64
community mapping project: analyzing
map 81; Baltimore Green Map 81; eBird 124
brainstorming with students 80; education: language of 25; social
collaborating with geographers 79–80; justice and democracy 72–73; see also
digital geography 74–75; gathering data citizenship education
80; getting started with 79–82; “My Enlightenment 37
Neighborhood, Our Baltimore” 75–79, environmental impact formula 102
83–84; selecting mapping tool 80; Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
sequence 76; sharing map 81; teacher 105
resources 81–82; uploading data 80 –81 EPA Journal (journal) 88
community service, integration into European Union (EU) 24, 29
curricula 66
compliant citizenship 63 Facebook 3, 60
consumer citizens 63 fake news 26, 38n4
consumer citizenship 63 FieldScope 69
Counts, George 73 Fifth Third Field, aerial photograph 104
creative democracy 72 Finnish curriculum, GIS implementation
critical pedagogy 5; concepts of 90; 150
curriculum design criteria 96; Firth, Roger 28
curriculum for spatial approaches to Four Square 60
citizenship 95–97; experiential learning Franklin Park Mall, aerial photograph 104
curricular model 95, 96 ; place-based “Freedom Party” 23
education 99; preparing students for
local challenges 90 General Motors sit-down strike 49
critical spatial thinking 3 GeoCapabilities 4; capabilities approach
Cuban Missile Crisis 16 33–35; framing geography curriculum
cultural citizenship 43 26–28; geographical knowledge and
curriculum: early childhood geography teacher 29–33; powerful knowledge
137–139; geo-enabled instructional in geography 35–36; procedural
materials 124; GIS in the Finnish 150; knowledge 35; project 22–23, 34–36
guided or scripted projects 124–125; Geographical Association 29, 34
Index 175
Geographical Information (GI) Great Plains 16, 128

technologies 22, 25 Green Map System 81
geographically informed people 2 green/open space module for
geographic knowledge, questions about communities: aerial photos 104 ;
7–8 alternatives for making a difference
geography: citizenship education and 65–66; 109–110; apply stage 107; big question
connecting to citizenship education (BQ) guiding inquiry and learning
11–14; core principles and concepts 98, 100; connect stage 107–108; crime
163–164; cultural 138; definition of 12; level 98; cultivating neighborhoods
early childhood 137–139; importance 97–108; engage stage in 104–105;
in curriculum 133–135; obstacles in environmental impact formula 102;
teaching elementary 139–141; perspective explain stage 106–107; explore stage
of teachers 162–163; practices 164–165; 105–106; extend section 108; focus
Preschool through Grade 12 134–135; standards for 101; learning module
space in 1–2; teacher education 17–18; design 98; map of needs 99; overview
teaching 10; teaching for citizenship 100 ; population density by county 103;
14–15; in U.S. History courses 15–17; for prior standards for 101; sources 106,
young learners 135–137 108; teaching and learning sources 108
geography curriculum: GeoCapabilities Gregg, Madeleine 13
project 26–28; local geography in
73–75 Hanson, Susan 27
Geography for Life (Heffron & Downs) 2, Hinde, Elizabeth R. 6, 132
163, 164–165 Historypin 124
Geography for Life National Standards Hitler, Adolf 38n4
100 –101, 101 home, women and 43
geospatial technologies 3–4, 59– 60 Home Geography 135, 141–142n1
geospatial thinking 59 Hurricane Katrina 132
geotechnologies: desktop tools 120–121;
geo-enabled instructional materials 124; Industrial Revolution 16
guided or scripted projects 124–125; Innovation Technology Experiences for
handling spatial information 149–151; Students and Teachers (ITEST) 113
mobile devices and apps 119, 120; spatial Instagram 3, 60
citizen 119–123; spatial thinking and interactive mapping sites 67– 68
ability 155; story maps 122–123; teacher International Monetary Fund (IMF) 24
professional development for 126–127;
teaching climate change 128; tools 120 ; Jacob France Institute 75
unscripted, local research projects Jefferson, Thomas 133–134
125–126; webmapping 119, 121–122 Jekel, Thomas 22
GIS (geographic information systems) Jesup W. Scott High School 92
3, 35, 59, 66, 91, 93, 117, 119; Jo, Injeong 6, 145
handling spatial information 149–151; Journey North 124
PaikkaOppi Project 150; participatory justice-oriented citizen 63, 64
GIS (PGIS) 153; public participation
GIS (PPGIS) 153; secondary geography Kennedy, John 16
education 147–149; Web-based GIS 154 Kenreich, Todd W. 5, 72
GIS Body of Knowledge (DiBiase et al) knowledge: core 28; curriculum “scenarios”
152 28–29; geographical, and teacher 29–33;
Global Financial Crisis of 2008 23 powerful 28, 29; powerful disciplinary
GLOBE program 124 30; procedural 35
Google Earth 104, 104, 106, 113n1, 139
Google Maps 76, 80 Lambert, David 4, 22
GPS (global positioning systems) 3, 25, 59, learning, language of 25
91, 93, 117, 119, 139, 150 Learning to Thank Spatially (National
Gray, Freddie 5, 72, 75 Research Council) 153
176 Index
Leinhardt, Gaea 13 Next Generation Science Standards

liberation psychology 67 (NGSS) 100 –101, 101
Noddings, Nel 14, 18
Maastricht Treaty (1992) 24 North Atlantic Treaty Organization
Madison, James 134 (NATO) 24
Makiguchi, Tsunesaburo 73 Nussbaum, Martha 34
MapMe 80
mapping, student workshops 92–95 Occupy Wall Street (OWS) 49–51, 54, 55
Mapping Our World (Malone et al) 124 OpenStreetMap 68
Maryland Geographic Alliance 75 Organization of Economic Cooperation
Massey, Doreen 25, 30, 31–32, 34, 51 and Development (OECD) 27, 29, 33, 63
Maude, Alaric 28
mentors 67 PaikkaOppi Project 150
Michigan Geographic Alliance 144 Parker, F. W. 133
Millsaps, Lisa 6, 117 participatory citizen 62, 64
Mitchell, Lucy Sprague 4, 14, 18, 133 patriotism, citizenship and 2, 61, 160
mobile devices 120 People’s Guide to Spatial Thinking
Monroe Doctrine 16 (Sinton et al.) 153
Morgan, John 26 personally responsible citizen 62, 64
Mudhen’s Stadium (Toledo), aerial place, perception of 16
photograph 104 powerful disciplinary knowledge (PDK) 30
multiculturalism 62 powerful knowledge 5; concept of 27
My Community, Our Earth: Geographic practice, term 2
Learning for Sustainable Development 82 productive citizenship 63
“My Neighborhood, Our Baltimore” Program for International Student
Community Mapping project 75–79, Assessment (PISA) 27, 63
83–84 Puerto Rico, population density by
county 103
National Academies 90 Putin, Vladimir 24
National Assessment of Education Putnam, Robert 61
Progress (NAEP) 61
National Council for Geographic Remote Sensing 3, 59, 119, 150
Education 139 Research Agenda for Geospatial
National Council for the Social Studies 6, Technologies and Learning (Baker et al)
10, 139 127
National Education Association 144 Road Map for 21st Century Geography
National Geographic Education Education (Bednarz, Heffron & Huynh)
Foundation 139 7, 65, 132
National Geographic Society 69, 139, 144 Road Map Project 7, 162, 163, 164, 166
National Geography Standards 146–147, Roberts, Margaret 35
149, 151 Roosevelt, Franklin 16
National Geography Standards, The Rosen, Harold 37
(Heffron and Downs) 2, 65 Royal Society for the Arts (RSA) 38n6
National Research Council (NRC) 90, 92 Rugg, Harold 11
National Science Foundation 7, 113
National Standards for Geography Schleicher, Andreas 27
Education 162 Schlemper M. Beth 5– 6, 88
Nazi genocide 37 Schmidt, Sandra J. 5, 41
neighborhoods: alternatives for making a Scribble Maps 80
difference 109–110; see also green/open secondary geography education: spatial
space module for communities citizenship in 146–147; studies for
Network of Alliances for Geographic review 147–149
Education 79 SeeClickFix 68
New York Times (newspaper) 68 September 11, 2001 attacks 60, 62
Index 177
service learning 64 for citizenship 17–18; goals for

Shelby County v Holder (2013) 48 161–162; moving forward 166–167;
Shetty, Sujata 113 professional commitment of 165–166;
Shin, Euikyung E. 1, 6, 159 understanding 160 –162
social education geographic approaches terror attacks of 9/11 60, 62
to 10 –11 “think globally, act locally” 88–89;
social justice, education for 72–73 bumper sticker 89
social media 3, 60 Thorndike, E. L. 137
social production space as 42 Thornton, Stephen J. 4, 10
social studies, term 13 trafficked women, story of coerced
Society Must be Defended (Foucault) 42 migrants 45–47
space: citizenship and 53–55; in Trump, Donald 24, 37n3, 62
geography 1–2; perception of 16; as Tuan, Yi–Fu 82
social production 42; women and Twitter 3, 60
home 43
SPACIT (Spatial Citizenship) project 66, Uber ride transportation service 120
155–156 UCL Institute of Education 22
spatial citizen 117–118; curriculum United Nations (UN) 24, 47
as learning solution 123–127; United States: citizenship 2–3; citizenship
geotechnologies and 119–123; teacher education in 61– 65; history in
professional development for 126–127 social studies 10; political life in 5;
spatial citizenship: communication population density by county 103
participation and negotiation 153–154; University of Baltimore 75
concept and core competences 154–155; U.S. Census Bureau 102, 103
definition 145; education 159–160; U.S. History: geography in courses 15–17;
guide to 4–6; phrase 1; reflection and social studies course 15
reflexivity of representations 151–153;
research on 145–146; in secondary Voltaire 88, 97
geography education 146–147; term 160 volunteered geographic information
spatial thinking 59 (VGI) 66, 68, 91, 155
Standish, Alex 24 voting rights, accessing 47–49
Stewart, Victoria C. 5– 6, 88
Story Map 5, 30, 80; example of 123; Wall Street, symbol of 49
geotechnologies 122–123; “My Washington Post (newspaper) 68
Neighborhood, Our Baltimore” weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) 24
project 75–79 webmapping 119, 121–122
student citizens: curriculum design women: Myanmar treatment of 45–47, 55;
criteria 95, 96; curriculum for spatial place for 43; story of trafficked women
approaches to citizenship 95–97; 45–47
experiential learning curricular model Women’s March (2017) 5, 41, 51–52, 54
95, 96 ; geography for 90 –91; geospatial workshops: community needs 94 ;
technology 91; global issues 88–89; geospatial technology 93, 95; KWL
mapping 91–92; overview of student approach 93; mapping in student 92–95
workshops 92–95; preparing for local World Bank 24
challenges 90; workshop learning of World Population Data Sheet 102
community 110 –112; see also critical World Trade Organization (WTO) 24
pedagogy; green/open space module Wridt, Pamela 82
for communities; neighborhoods
student engagement 6 Yamoah, Owusua 113
Yelp 3
teacher education: core geography Young, Michael 4, 27
principles and concepts 163–164; youth activism 67
doing geography 164–165; geographic
perspective of 162–163; geography Zuccotti Park 50

Euikyung E. Shin, Sarah Witham Bednarz - Spatial Citizenship Education - Citizenship Through Geography-Routledge (2018)

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Euikyung E. Shin, Sarah Witham Bednarz - Spatial Citizenship Education - Citizenship Through Geography-Routledge (2018)

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

SPATIAL CITIZENSHIP EDUCATION

Spatial Citizenship Education is an innovative exploration of ways to engage and

Euikyung E. Shin is a professor in the Department of Curriculum and

Sarah Witham Bednarz is Professor Emerita of Geography at Texas A&M

Edited by Euikyung E. Shin and

1 Conceptualizing Spatial Citizenship 1

2 Geography as a Social Study: Its Significance for

3 Geography, Capabilities, and the Educated Person 22

4 The Spatial Production and Navigation of Vulnerable Citizens 41

5 Citizenship Education in a Spatially Enhanced World 59

6 Rediscovering the Local: Collaborative, Community Maps

7 Cultivating Student Citizens: Using Critical Pedagogy of Place

8 Geotechnologies and the Spatial Citizen 117

9 Informed Citizenry Starts in the Preschool and Elementary

10 Spatial Citizenship in Secondary Geography Curriculum 145

11 Spatial Citizenship in Geography/Social Studies

List of Contributors 170

Citizenship and geography education share a common goal: the preparation of

order to assist in the attainment of priorities and objectives regarding citizenship

education from 1970 to 1990 that the inclusion of citizenship applications by

current book has focused the spotlight on geography as a component of citizen-

conceptual core for participation in making those connections meaningful expe-

Developing an understanding of space and taking a spatial perspective as a

A Guide to Spatial Citizenship

of powerful knowledge. Powerful knowledge is that disciplinary knowledge that

developed a summer program to prepare students to understand their commu-

The Road Forward

Question 1: How Do Geographic Knowledge, Skills, and Practices

Question 2: How Do Geographic Knowledge, Skills, and Practices

cognitive processes to learn. Developing a concern about the presence of liquor

Question 3: What Supports or Promotes the Development of

Question 4: What Is Necessary to Support the Effective and

Over a century ago John Dewey (1966) recommended teaching “geographi-

knowledge and understanding” contributes to “insight into human problems”

The Idea of Connecting Geography to Citizenship Education

Consequently, consideration of advanced secondary-school courses intended to

for satisfactory answers to this question as well as to finding consensus among

Geography Taught for Citizenship

Geography in U.S. History Courses

Rather, consider in the context of U.S. history the concept of “boundary”

A Needed Step in Teacher Education

Kohn, C. F. (1948b). Foreword. In C. F. Kohn (Ed.), Geographic approaches to social educa-

Thornton, S. J. (2008). Continuity and change in social studies curriculum. In L. S.

We Live in Interesting Times

The success of Donald Trump and his fellow populists . . . is not a

Among the populations of democratic states, including those completing their

represents a denial of the political system through which citizens currently

forces of economics and technological change have undermined belief in tradi-

GeoCapabilities: Framing the Geography Curriculum

usefully discussed by Roger Firth in the context of the geography curriculum in

The Place of Knowledge in Three Alternative

F2 Skills, competences, and “learning to learn”: this curriculum,

Geographical Knowledge and the Teacher

Powerful Disciplinary Knowledge: What It Enables

powerful knowledge refers to what the knowledge can do or what

knowledge is powerful because it provides the best understand-

knowledge is “powerful ” if it predicts, if it explains, if it enables

Source: summary based on Maude’s analysis of Young’s writings (Maude, 2016)

Powerful disciplinary knowledge (PDK) is thus specialized knowledge and exists

If a F3 geography curriculum as advocated here has any single metaphorical

Illustrating A Global Sense of Place

• “the UK’s contribution to global emissions of greenhouse gas is only

Now, I might have found that a comforting argument. But it seems it is a