Why did I do what I did?

An improvement in geography education is not just about increasing test scores though. A robust geography education, particularly one that builds upon ideas focused upon in academic geography that go beyond a focus on identifying, locating, and reciting facts, is critical in preparing students for civic life and careers in the 21st century (de Blij, 2012; Edelson & Pitts, 2013). Everyday activities are fraught with the requirement that one mobilizes geographic skills and knowledge. Where we live, how we travel, and with whom we interact are decisions that have significant impact on the environment, social welfare, the economy, and culture. Even from a practical sense, as geography-dependent jobs continue to proliferate (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2015), it is necessary that people be prepared to do them. For example, geography skills are integral to processes related to emergency preparedness, public safety, city development, transportation network development, defense, intelligence, diplomacy, and business (Edelson & Pitts, 2013). For people to benefit from the understandings that geography allows civically, socially, and even economically, it is important that teachers can adequately teach the subject.
Geographic theories and forms of inquiry guide the investigations and interventions in spaces of geography teacher education present in this dissertation.

Using geography (theories, methodologies, skills) to make sense of geography education is a research perspective that has gone unused in much of the formal geography teacher education research literature yet provides a unique perspective. Therefore, this dissertation is also significant from a research perspective because it offers an example of what thinking with geography can allow for investigation, and intervening in, and analyzing spaces of geography teacher education.

Recently, there has been a push in the social sciences, especially sociology and geography, to not just consider space, but to also analyze the development, collapse, and sedimentation of spaces that occurs through the movement of people, ideas, objects, and practices (Sheller & Urry, 2006; Urry 2000; Urry, 2007). This work, where both space and movement (or lack of movement) are foregrounded, is often referred to as mobilities theories.

In its broadest sense, mobilities research is not only concerned with physical movement and its connection to spaces, but also “potential movement, blocked movement, immobilization and forms of dwelling and place-making” (Sheller, 2011, p. 6). These forms of (im)mobility are all indicative of the networks present in the composition of spaces and thus require due attention.

spatialization of subjectivity

I created questions in the survey as a way to mobilize a dialogue between question prompts, participants (geography teachers), and their individual understandings and experiences with geography education and teacher preparation practices. As such, the survey results not only report teacher perceptions of (facets of) spaces of geography teacher education, but it also created a space of geography teacher education. It did so by asking teachers to engage with a variety of questions related to the discipline, and to communicate their understandings about geography.

In the analysis of these individual dialogues, I found linkages between the ideas that participants put forth and other participants’ ideas, as well as linkages and borders between their responses and previously established data in geography teacher education research.

I found that a number of responses to certain survey questions are strongly linked with results from other studies in geography teacher education. In particular, the survey confirmed Bednarz and Bednarz’s (2004) account that most geography teachers do set out to become geography teachers. It also confirmed other studies’ (Bednarz & Bednarz, 2004; Theobald, Dixon, Mohan, & Moore, 2013) findings that most geography teacher have little coursework in geography at the post-secondary level and are generally trained in social studies education programs.

The results of the survey differed from other research on geography teacher education in how the discourse of “lack” circulated. Although lack is certainly mentioned in the literature, it is most often used to describe geography teachers’ knowledge. Yet in this survey, lack in geography education was also pinned to other entities generally unmentioned in the literature – students’
knowledge/interest/engagement with the subject, time to teach the subject, up to date resources, and relevant curriculum. In the sections that follow, I go deeper into these findings and describe the individual responses to certain questions as well as how they connect to my original research questions and previously established findings in the field.

Overall, the survey reaffirms findings from other studies cited in my review of literature in terms of geography teachers’ backgrounds and preparation practices. Where the findings from this survey differ from understandings of the field is that there is learning taking place in other places other than formal geography education spaces. Thus, when recommendations are solely being made about increasing exposure to geography (e.g. Schell, Mohan, & Roth, 2013), researchers are not taking into account that geography teachers are also learning geography beyond the formal confines of geography education.

Also, while lack is something that geography teachers talk about, when prompted, it is not clear as to whether or not their own knowledge is lacking as the research literature often suggests. With specific questions, a number of geography teachers have the ability to write complex and engaged definitions and understandings of geography that move beyond a basic understanding. Thus, blaming failing geography test scores solely on teachers seems a bit unfair – the lack may be present elsewhere, or like the idea I presented earlier, the problem might not be a lack of geography (or geography knowledge of teachers) but a lack of being able to recognize geography (education) in its various manifestations. As we move into the next chapter, I will take up questions related to lack theorize the ways in which lack is connected to geography teachers’ mobilities and subjectivities.

Once the survey data had been generated and was put through an initial analysis, I used that data and the respective representations of the data to guide further conversations with four of the initial survey participants. Through these conversations, I aimed learned more about the backgrounds of geography teachers, their challenges in the classroom, and their pedagogical successes. Specifically, I heard personal accounts of the ways that teachers encounter and navigate lack in their teaching of geography. Lack, as described in these interviews, created borders that suppressed teachers’ movement through the curriculum, feelings of self-efficacy, as well as their ability and/or opportunity to mobilize geography teaching that they did not perceive as lacking in itself.

I delve into the ways that the interviewees – Carrie, Sarah, Lillian, and Sadie – individually describe their educational backgrounds and work as geography teachers and how those experiences were influenced by the intertwined nature of lack, movement, and subjectivity.

subjectivity & knowledge & mobility - all intertwined

Lack creates borders. The creation of these borders results in a lack of, a restriction of, or a forced change in movement. This theorization works from the assumption that lack creates boundaries (physical, mental, imagined, etc.) that impede, limit, or coerce types of movement other than those desired. In other words, borders can be understood as entities that regulate mobility.

These obstructions to movement were present in the responses from the survey about the challenges faced in the teaching of geography. I theorize that lack in its various manifestations in geography education served as an impediment to teacher movement. Specifically, lack restricted desired movement and also forced movement in ways that were undesired by the participant – whether that was having to having to enact a curriculum they felt was outdated or incomplete, or taking a job for which they felt unprepared.

What these four teachers certainly claimed to experience and encounter lack in various ways in their teaching of geography – in the curriculum, in their own knowledge, in the interest of students, and in their access to resources. Yet, they had all developed strategies to navigate the lack they faced in the context of their practice – through working with peers, making their own resources, using their knowledge of geography to connect its content into the space of other subject areas, and even avoiding it. In other words, they created strategies to maintain movement even if it was in a different fashion than their initial desire. Lack might have impeded their movement in one sense, but Sadie, Carrie, Sarah, and Lillian had all developed their own ways to free up their movement through geography curricula and in their classrooms. In a sense, lack was also productive in some cases, though not often immediately understood as such.

The literature notes that geography teachers needs to be exposed more to geography more often - but I argue that we're always exposed to geography - our problem isn't with presence, its with recognition. The interventions I developed here focused on recognizing geography in the spaces beyond the classroom.


I taught with geography by having pre-service teachers engage with questions of space, through mapping activities, and other related geography skills. I found that by teaching with and about geography, pre-service teachers had the opportunity to exercise spatial thinking and reasoning, question the composition and construction of spaces and their ties to potential movement, and experience the ways their movement was tied to their subjectivity as well as the construction of spaces

• Use spatial thinking and spatial reasoning
• Recognize the connection between the authorship of spaces and its connection to movement
• Experience the connection between movement, subjectivity, and the authorship of spaces