There is limited research pertaining to primary teachers' practices in geography education in the Republic of Ireland (RoI). Geography is one of only primary curriculum subjects which has never been reviewed since its enactment in 1999. This study addresses this research gap, establishing clarity on current teaching practices by presenting a…

Drawing on conceptualisations of teacher agency through the ecological approach, and in the context of recent policy activity, we explored primary and secondary school teachers' experiences of agency in relation to climate change education in England. Data collection occurred over two distinct but related phases. Firstly, we completed a series of…

The article offers a critique of the Knowledge and Understanding sub-strand of the revised Australian Curriculum: Geography for Years F-6, due to be implemented in Australian schools in 2024. As a foundation for this critique, the article first discusses what should be the aims of geography in primary schools, in order to provide some criteria for…

Geography emerged as an academic discipline in British universities in response to demands for trained teachers of the subject in the country's burgeoning secondary schools and their curricula formed a seamless transition from one to the other. In the 1960s a major shift in the nature of the academic discipline -- often termed the 'quantitative…

Social studies instructional time in elementary schools has declined substantially. Responding to this, the National Geographic Society (NGS) developed a professional learning program called the Elementary Social Studies Community of Practice (ESSCoP). This article describes this program's design and content, as well as evaluates its…

In 2019, the State of South Carolina (USA) adopted new social studies standards with an emphasis on disciplinary skills in addition to content throughout the social studies areas of history, geography, civics, and economics. These skills were introduced for all grades, kindergarten through grade 12. Geography courses were added in grades 3 and 7.…

While a clear rationale for the need to decolonise school geography curricula has been proposed, there are few examples of what this looks like in practice. Drawing on our professional practice in both a secondary school and a university setting, we outline two case studies of decolonising the curriculum that centre on promoting student agency.…

The process of curriculum making and educational policy development is contentious, and, as such, is emblematic of societal values as a whole, and, more significantly, the power relations and economic trends within that. Recent education developments in the Republic of Ireland pertaining to primary level have seen a marked shift away from a broad…

The aim of this article is to explore the worth of a materialist/posthumanist approach to ethics, specifically affirmative ethics (Braidotti, 2018, 2019a), within the field of education. I work empirical material that 'does' this ethics in classrooms and draw on Deleuze's (1988) ethically guided materialism as taken up by Braidotti (2019b), to…

The research aims to determine which alternative literacy types should be included in the Social Studies curriculum used in Turkey since 2018 The data sources of the research, in which the document analysis method from the qualitative research methods was used, are the 2018 Turkish Social Studies Curriculum (for primary school and middle school…

There is a dearth of research on primary school Geography in South Africa. With no Annual National Assessments (ANAs) being done in the subject, little is known about the quality of geographical learning and teaching in South African primary schools. This article begins to address this shortcoming. More specifically, it responds to the need for…

The word "humanities" does not appear in the current Northern Ireland Curriculum (NIC). Geography and history are taught within an Area of Learning called "The World Around Us" which also contains science and technology. The curriculum has a strong emphasis on an integrated, "connected learning" way of teaching and…

A revision of the Northern Ireland Primary Curriculum took place in 2007. It promotes strongly a cross-curricular or thematic approach to planning and teaching and has an "Area of Learning" structure which includes geography alongside history and science and technology in an area called "The World Around Us". Responses from…

There have been remarkable changes in the Omani educational system since the implementation of the Basic Education Reform in 1998. The current study was an attempt to offer insights into the state of geography in the current reform. Particularly, the study examined teachers' preferred reasons for teaching geography, teachers' views on important…

?he aim of this paper is to present the design and the results of the In-service Elementary Teacher (IET) training seminars, in Geography for primary education, during the pilot of the New Geography Curriculum (NGC) in Greek schools, the school year 2011-2012. The design of this training was based on the documented needs of teachers for training…