About Me

My photo
Leicester, United Kingdom
Thank you for viewing this blog. My name is Joshua, a recent BSc Geography graduate from Coventry University, now starting on a Geography PGCE at the University of Leicester. My main area of expertise is within the domain of physical geography, with particular interests in Geomorphology, Quaternary Climates and Environments, and weather, climate and climate change. An area that I am not so familiar to is biogeography, but this is an additional area I am keen to develop and engage with.

Purpose of this Blog

The purpose of this blog is to aid mine as well as others (teachers, students and the public) understanding and knowledge in the subject field of Geography, with particular emphasis on the human domain; specifically cultural geography. This is an area I know limited about, in comparison to my specialism, and an area that I have come to find neglected in school education (*explained below). Firstly, this blog will introduce the concepts of GEOGRAPHY, to give details to those with limited understanding and experience; to outline the complexity of this ever changing subject and field. Secondly, and introduction to cultural geography and its branches will be outlined, with some sub-division examine in more detail than others. This is based on what I feel is lacked in education and the curriculum. Finally, a list of resources and references will be presented, which can be used for KS3 and used for all exam boards at GCSE level.

It needs to be noted that cultural geography is multidisciplinary and multifaceted within the geographical field, so overlaps into other geographical disciplines. I have tried to keep it purely separated for the sake of this blog, but it can be used for addition disciplines.

*This statement is based on my interpretation of the National Curriculum (NC) and GCSE specifications, where some of the branches within cultural geography e.g. sexuality and space, children's geography, music and behavioural geography are not fully acknowledged or identified within the NC for geography or in GCSE/A-Level specifications. In all honesty, cultural geography seems to be side-lined and/or integrated within economic, development and population geography. I feel for people (teachers, students and the public) to fully understand the scale and magnitude of geography, they need to be informed of the different branches and sub division within geography/cultural geography; highlighting individual branches of geography, whilst at the same time, explain and identifying how the different branches connection and are in relation to one another. For example, a number of schools in Leicestershire in year 9 look at music festivals and there locations, but they fail to highlight the key concepts of geography within that topic. For example, that topic would include cultural geography in the form of musical, behavioural, sexuality and tourism geography, but these are not identified and explained, leading to narrow-minded approaches within society. No wonder people assume geography is just colouring in, volcanoes and rocks.

The different branches and sub-branches of cultural geography will be explain in due course.

Wednesday 14 August 2013

Part 2: Origin and Critic of Sexuality and Space.

The origins of the term "Sexuality and Space" can be traced back to the early 1990s. Two publications that where key to this research area becoming globalised were:
  1. Larry Knopp published 'Gay Geography' in the Geographical Magazine to some controversy in 1990.
  2. In 1992 Beatriz Colomina's Sexuality and Space was released in 1992.

The study of ‘sexuality and space’ in contemporary geography are primarily within social and cultural geography, though there is also notable engagement with political and economic geography, particular in work on the rise of queer spaces, economies and alternative capitalisms. Much work is informed by a politics intended to oppose homophobia and heterosexism, inform sexual health, and promote more inclusive forms of sexual citizenship. Methods using GIS have been utilized to good effects, to map areas of sexuality. Most work is based on urban environments, with emerging work in rural communities globally (Brown et al. 2007).

Criticisms of work and teachings in educations:
  • There have been several critiques of the field, as well as conflicts within the discipline. These are:
  • Taking a western-centric position that has minimal relevance beyond the urbanized Western world.
  • Discriminative against transgender people, the lower class, and people of colour.
  • Gender differences are also erased in adopting a “queer” identity.
  • The reinforcing of other forms of marginalization e.g. lesbians neglected as women.

In Education:
  • School minorities, are not included in the classroom, as they do not learn about themselves e.g. alternative relationships (Sujak, 2012) ------ This links to why this material is covered in this blog, to educate and expand emerging areas that are neglected in teaching, in life and in the national curriculum.
  • Why should why children learn about that kind of ‘stuff’
  • Why should children of religion be educated in a school that teaches about sins?


The following links, provide details on why teaching about sexuality is important at all ages:

Reference:
  • Brown, G., Lim, J and Browne, K. (2007) ‘Introduction, or Why Have a Book on Geographies of Sexualities?’ Geographies of Sexualities. K. Browne, Lim, J. and Brown, G. London Ashgate.
  • Sujak, M (2012) "Why Can't We Learn About This?" Sexual Minority Students Navigate the Official and Hidden Curricular Spaces of High School. Education and Urban Society. 


Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)