Geography Curriculum Planning in Evolution: Some Historical and International Perspectives

Abstract

Curriculum planning procedures in one form or another can be traced back over a long period. It has had wide ramifications, range in its scope from the imposition of curricula at the national level to detailed lesson planning. It has ranged from a type of planning that was at best rudimentary and rigid; to one that remained rigid and restrictive in intent, though became much broader in scale; to the more sophisticated and ‘scientific’ or rational curriculum planning. It must be stressed that these patterns have not simply followed each other in historical sequence but have to an extent co-existed. Through the various patterns of planning there has been both continuity and change in international geography curricula. Whatever the pattern, a contention of this paper is that curriculum planning has rarely been well-balanced as between the three vital components of matter or content; method or process; and mission, or social purposes. In one way or another, and for different reasons, one or two of these facets have been allowed to dominate. Within the short space available cameos of curriculum planning at different times and in different places will illustrate connections between the past and the present situation. These examples will be international in scope, though inevitably the majority are taken from the English-speaking world.