MAKING GEOGRAPHY MORE INCLUSIVE

Teaching geography at the university level comes along with the ambitious tasks of giving students the skills to better understand the world we live in and to ability to apply those skills to some of the most contentious issues facing our society today. Perhaps most importantly, geography has the responsibility of encouraging students to become engaged and well-informed citizens within the communities they will build and contribute to throughout their adult lives. From my experience teaching lower and upper division human geography courses, students often walk through the door on the first day of class thinking that throughout the semester they will study political maps, topographic features, and the physical landscape. While these certainly can be important topics covered in any geography class, they merely brush the surface of the subject. I hope that  students in my courses will develop the interests, habits, tools and vocabulary to have productive dialogues about current events, global politics, and their place within society.

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Geography as a discipline is especially amenable to examining how identities such as race, gender, national origin, socioeconomic, veteran, or immigration status influence our perspectives and experiences of the world. By designing activities that encourage students to reflect on their identities and experiences, to learn from students whose perspectives may be different from their own, and to engage with the places and communities they inhabit, students can begin to challenge dominant paradigms and expand their world views. As a result, inclusive pedagogy should be an essential part of a geography curriculum as it provides students with the space and opportunities to become engaged and well-informed citizens and to develop the skills to better understand and thoughtfully participate in the world around them.