Access to GEES* education for working class students, and decolonising curricula

*Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences

By Dr Jacqueline Dohaney (she/her)

In a recent meeting of ScotGEESE (a community for Scottish geography, earth, and environmental sciences educators), I learned about the current challenges and opportunities that many geoscience students are encountering in school and university education. Our topic for the meeting was ‘GEES education in a changing world’, and we invited speakers from across secondary and tertiary GEES education to share their vision of where we are going as a community of educators. Two important themes emerged on the day that are relevant to DiG-UK:

1. Access and subject choice for working class students
2. Decolonising the curriculum

Though neither of these two themes are ‘new’ to those concerned with improving equity and diversity in the geosciences, it was really striking to see what specific barriers students and teachers are encountering in the Scotland context. In this blog, I will share what I learned and some reflections on my experiences with both themes.

1. Working class students’ access to and choice for GEES subjects

I grew up in Nova Scotia (Canada) with six brothers and sisters and, though mostly middle class, our family had one source of income and struggled financially. When I reached university in the early 2000s, I had to rely on scholarships and two part-time jobs to pay for my undergraduate course. I was lucky and motivated, but it was very obvious to me that other students had much more time for studying, flashy fieldwork equipment, and had uncles who could introduce them to mining professionals at the national conference! The social and economic capital that middle- and upper-class students have puts them at a potential advantage in their career, and that is before we even considering how students make choices about which subject(s) to study.

At the ScotGEESE meeting, we heard from Professor John McKendrick (Glasgow Caledonian University) who talked about his work with the Scottish Poverty and Inequality Research Unit and his role as the Commissioner for Fair Access. He shared some shocking figures on where GEES subjects sit (i.e. entry to university in Scotland, under the given degree) for students from Scotland’s most deprived areas. GEES ranked at the very bottom of all subjects in 2020/21 (6.4%; compared to medicine at 20.5% or computing at 19.6%) and second to last in 2021/22. John described the numerous reasons for this, the high incidental costs of studying (notably fieldwork), potential lack of career prospects, and/or career advisors not being aware of or promoting this subject area. He said our subject areas are ‘socially selected for’ and that we need to better understand and improve university degree selection processes and articulation from further education institutes if we want to have equal representation across the class landscape.

The second talk from Angela Curley (University of Glasgow) was concerned with ‘options forms’ and how and why students make and don’t make selections of geography during their Senior phase. Angela drew upon her expertise as a school teacher, namely with pastoral care experiences in the secondary sector, to explain that there are many factors that influence how and why students choose geography. Firstly, schools are using different approaches to provide course options to students (Angela says, ‘every options form tells a unique story’), one being that geography in the Broad General Education system (BGE) could be offered as its own course, or in combination with other adjacent subjects (e.g. history and modern studies). Some schools are teaching geography in the Senior phase through tourism, as that may be more appealing to young people. Inherent to this is that geography may be seen as not career orientated. One of the attendees in our session asked about the links with climate change – how do students not see geography as a pathway to working on the climate crisis? How does this relate to working class students? If the options that students have in secondary school are limited, confusing, irrelevant, or unappealing – why would students choose and progress in this subject area? Angela says, think about it from the student or parent perspective – the career options seem ‘distant’ and unfamiliar in today’s society. What does a surveyor or cartographer do? What is a geographic information system officer? For more information on geography and the BGE in Scotland, please see the recent (2024) publication ‘Geography in the Broad General Education in Scotland: Tensions, opportunities and suggestions for the future‘ by Lauren Hammond, Will Quirke, Angela Curley, and John Milne.

2. Decolonising the curriculum

Since moving to the UK from Australia, I have been adjusting emotionally and intellectually in how colonialism is discussed and addressed within the university setting. My former places of residence – Canada, New Zealand, and Australia – all have different ways of making sense of and working towards reconciliation and truth telling. My experiences in Scotland so far are that sometimes the conversations feel good-willed but obligatory, and somewhat detached from the reality of teaching sciences. Colleagues are asking me, but ‘what do I do, exactly’ and ‘what is decolonisation in our subject’?

There has been recent momentum and work being done in decolonisation, with the Decolonising Earth Sciences project) and workshop hosted by the team in the autumn of 2023 (Dr Rebecca Williams, Dr Keely Mills, and Dr Anya Lawrence, amongst many others). Following on from this event, ScotGEESE invited Dr Steve Rogers, to share his and his team’s work on ‘Geology uprooted: Decolonising the curriculum for geologists’. You can access a full webinar recording (1h) at https://edin.ac/3GnQ3ak. Personally, I learned a lot from Steve and the presenters at the Decolonising earth sciences workshop. It helped give more context to how lecturers and some major organisations (like the British Geological Survey) are making progress and un-weaving the complex socio-political aspects of our modern practices and their colonial origins.

At the ScotGEESE meeting in June, we heard from several speakers who outlined current priorities and challenges in decolonisation within the public education and university education settings. Within the public education space, Conor Ellis from the Dynamic Earth presented his vision of a science centre, including a focus on engaging with the history of science and decolonisation, where he shared several UK museums taking big steps forward such as ‘The Hunterian: Curating Discomfort’ podcast. He also noted that the Museums Association has produced a guide ‘Supporting Decolonisation in Museums‘ on the process and current landscape for decolonisation.

Two examples from university geosciences and decolonisation came from Dr Ed Curley (University of Glasgow) and Steve McLeister (University of Edinburgh). Steve talked about his experiences unpacking the relationship that future geography teachers have with ‘distant place’ and how that will potentially impact their language and behaviours with secondary school students in a multi-cultural Scotland. He used myth-busting approaches, asking the teachers to reflect on where their perceptions of foreign countries come from and highlighted the ‘single story’ approach often used in the media. He drew attention to the TED Talk by novelist Chimamanda Adichie who warns of critical misunderstandings that can arise when our perceptions of another person or country are based on single story. As well as how to manage discussions in classes with young people who harbour inaccurate and prejudiced views; how to support these discussions with compassion and safety. His advice to other teacher educators was to deploy critical reflection techniques supporting student self-awareness, consider careful use of language, and building more accurate knowledge of the places that they teach about.

In Ed’s talk, he shared about his new module called ‘Decolonising Geography: Spaces of Colonialism and Anti-Colonialism’, in which students explore anti-colonial approaches to modern geography and the environment. It is a partnership between physical and human geographers and their students, where the students get to lead the directions and scope of mini-projects and case studies within the course (i.e. co-created, together). They navigate an overview of geography as a discipline and how it is shaped by colonialism with the aim of improving the discipline (‘more just, self-aware, and reflexive’). The students and teachers discuss environmental determinism, exploitative and extractive industries, ‘parachuting’ fieldwork, and environmental justice. Reflecting on the course, Ed talked about (1) the tension of the staff background (most being middle class White people, whereas many students were from diverse backgrounds), and (2) the need for better representation in his university and our wider discipline. He also reflected on the complexity of anti-colonial teaching and the intersections of themes and expertise. To me, it felt that he was saying that it’s not as simple as other courses where people can come in and ‘teach their bit’. A need for connections between the environment, industry, science, and society is needed to help students and ourselves fully understand what decolonised geosciences might look like.

Reflective questions

Looking back at the recent academic year, and my own learning about access to the geosciences and decolonisation, here are some reflective questions for our community:

• How are our secondary school students learning about geosciences? What language is being used to describe pathways and careers in our subjects?
• What are the incidental costs in our degree programmes? Is there a way to subsidize or reduce costs to make university access more equitable?
• What are the demographics of working-class GEES students in Scotland and the wider UK? Are some parts of the GEES subject areas more or less exclusive?
• How does the current class, race, and cultural representation of university educators impact our students?
• What steps can you take towards anti-colonial teaching practices?
• Where does our curriculum ‘come from’ and what are the histories of our curriculum that need to be re-examined and re-framed?
• What can we learn from other sciences and humanities disciplines (across the phases and spaces of education) to continually enable decolonisation?

Further information on ScotGEESE

For more information please join our ScotGEESE Mailing List or visit the Website.