Target groups

GeoCapabilties 3 aims to extend the work completed in GeoCapabilities 2 by focusing on public (state-funded) schools serving young people living in less privileged social and economic circumstances, often the most challenging learning environments. Therefore the target group for Geocapabilities 3 is geography teachers working in schools in challenging socio-economic circumstances.

Frequently situated in areas of socio-economic deprivation where traditional industries have declined, sources of employment are limited and aspirations seem impossible to fulfill, schools in such areas experience high levels of external pressures to ‘improve’ (Chapman and Harris , 2004) and are often subject to state/private intervention. Levin argues that in what he describes as ‘high-need’ communities, schools tend to emphasise the pastoral needs of students, often at the expense of their academic achievement (2006).

A Europe-wide network of geography teachers and geography teacher educators will be established who understand, can use these pedagogies and who can take forward these practices into their own communities of practice and share them with other European networks.