Summary

'For geographers across the globe this book provides the arguments for a return to the teaching of geography and why they should reject the politicisation of the subject by education policy makers and politicians. Standish's careful critique shows the necessity of a depoliticised geography curriculum the irony of which would be that it would ensure that every child could point to Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan on a map.'

Prof. Dennis Hayes - Oxford Brookes University, UK

'A prescient and critical analysis of the changing face of geography
teaching. This book deserves to be widely read and debated. Alex Standish's book puts current trends in geography teaching in historical and critical context. It comprises a forthright and timely defence of geographical education for its own sake.'

Dr Jim Butcher, FRSA, Department of Sport Science, Tourism and Leisure, Canterbury Christ Church University.

Since the early 1990s, educational policy makers and some subject leaders have been seeking to fundamentally change the teaching of geography in UK and US schools, from a subject which encourages students to explore spatial concepts, ideas and skills, to a more ethics based subject concerned with the promotion of environmentalism, cultural diversity and social justice. In this book the new approach is critically examined, within a historical and ideological context, addressing a number of fundamental questions:

This book advocates a return to liberal models of education, arguing that the new approach to geography currently being promoted for schools fundamentally undermines the educational value of the subject, and the freedom of young people to shape the world in which they live.

A vital resource for teachers and student teachers alike, Global Perspectives in the Geography Curriculum makes a significant contribution to the growing debate about the future direction of the discipline itself.

Choice Review

In his excellent new book, Standish offers a well-researched, timely cry from the heart that geography, like other social sciences, needs to be taught as an academic discipline and not merely as a politically correct addition to the current moral and ethical debate on globalization. Drawing on extensive research of geography curricula from the US and the UK, Standish illustrates the dramatic change in the method and rationale behind geography. Geography, long the study of human spatial interactions with their physical environments, has been bastardized by politically correct educational authorities to reinforce a very specific agenda of "good global citizenship." This is an important, thoughtful book that should be read and taken to heart by all educators who wish to teach their discipline instead of faddish values, and to allow students to use their education to make informed choices. "Why teach geography?" is the question Standish successfully sets out to answer. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduate collections in geographic theory and graduate collections in education. S. M. McDonald Bentley University