Journal of Geography in Higher Education

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Towards a pedagogical policy turn in geography

Janet Banfield, Sam Hampton & Monika Zurek

To cite this article: Janet Banfield, Sam Hampton & Monika Zurek (2022) Towards a pedagogical
policy turn in geography, Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 46:2, 161-166, DOI:
10.1080/03098265.2022.2038101

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/03098265.2022.2038101

Published online: 08 Apr 2022.

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JOURNAL OF GEOGRAPHY IN HIGHER EDUCATION
2022, VOL. 46, NO. 2, 161–166
https://doi.org/10.1080/03098265.2022.2038101

EDITORIAL

Towards a pedagogical policy turn in geography

Introduction
It is nearly 50 years since David Harvey (1974) famously asked “what kind of geography
for what kind of public policy?” (p. 18). We seek to reopen this debate following devel­
opments since then which constrain the discipline’s current potential to engage with the
practical doing of policy. We suggest that definitional, institutional and structural arrange­
ments are preventing the policy turn from materialising, compounded by the “impact
agenda” and university research assessment exercises, which obstruct practical policy work
and overlook the potential for generating impact through curricula. Recognising a growing
sense of imperative to act among undergraduate students, we prioritise students as our
first public (Ward, 2006) to develop a more pedagogically inclined perspective on the
policy debate, validating students’ aspirations as a pedagogical driver within a broader
push towards reconfiguring geographical policy work.

Background
25 years after Harvey’s intervention, debate raged in the 2000s as human geographers
contemplated the character and desirability of policy impact. Martin (2001) explained
geographers’ limited influence on policy through a turn towards theoretical rather than
empirical work, and called for a new “geography of public policy”. Dorling and Shaw
(2002) sympathised but argued that a policy turn was unlikely because geographers do
not value it, are not good at it, and are not validated by policy makers. Ward (2005, 2006,
2007) expanded the debate by highlighting impactful geographical contributions, includ­
ing refuting normative notions of relevance, which focused too narrowly on policy
audiences and short term, measurable impact. Public geography, by contrast, concerns
itself with diverse publics and multiple modes of scholarship, including activism, parti­
cipation, and pedagogy. Students, he argued, are our “first public, for they carry geo­
graphy into all walks of life” (Ward, 2006, p. 500). Subsequently, and re-articulating the
value of participatory scholarship (Pain, 2003, 2004, 2006), Pain et al. (2011) expressed
concerns that the forthcoming UK Research Excellence Framework assessment (REF)
would entrench elitist notions of impact and underplay community knowledge exchange.
Since this flurry of frustration, the policy debate amongst human geographers has
subsided, and Martin’s vision of a “policy turn” has not materialised, although the
relationship between geography and policy impact continues to attract comment, with
(for example) physical geographers embodying critical reflexivity and concern for policy
relevance through the emergence of critical physical geography (Lane, 2017; Lave et al.,
2018); and transdisciplinary concerns surrounding anthropogenic environmental change
reigniting disciplinary interest in the value of an explicitly geographical perspective
(André, 2017; Schwanen, 2018).
© 2022 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
162 EDITORIAL

Nonetheless, the residue of the earlier debate constrains geography’s potential to make
meaningful policy impact. Ward’s (2006) criticism that geography is too focused on
policy audiences encourages us to cast our eyes elsewhere, while both Martin’s (2001) call
for a geography of public policy – while encouraging active engagement – and Dorling
and Shaw’s (2002) lament seemingly objectify policy as something to be studied rather
than practised by geographers. It is hardly surprising that Pain’s (2003, 2004, 2006)
advocacy of participatory research in social geography has not translated into policy
work, if policy is seen as external and to be critiqued rather than practised. This, though,
conflicts with blossoming undergraduate interest in and demand for more practically
oriented educational experiences to prepare them for engaging with pressing issues of
environmental and social justice beyond the ivory tower. Geography graduates pursue
myriad careers, and many aspire to policy roles, typically in sustainability, international
development or spatial planning. Currently, geography is growing (in the UK), with
GCSE, A-Level and undergraduate entries in England increasing since 2010 (Royal
Geographical Society (with IBG), 2020). At the same time, the diverse skills developed
by geographers are attractive to employers across varied sectors (Prospects Luminate,
2020), but how sustainable can this be if the type of policy work to which students
increasingly aspire is conspicuously absent from the policy work to which they are
exposed in their curricula?

Policy and pedagogy

This situation is exacerbated by the introduction of national university research assess­
ment exercises around the world. Besides the UK’s REF, Australia administers its
Excellence in Research process every three years, New Zealand awards funding based
on its Performance-Based Research Fund. The approach has been adapted for the African
context too (Kraemer-Mbula et al., 2019). The exclusive emphasis on research in such
processes further constrains the nature of geography’s engagement with policy. It com­
pounds the impact agenda’s outward focus, directing attention away from teaching as its
own route to impact. However, diversifying geographical policy work and connecting
this with teaching can meet shifting student demands and deliver long-term societal
impact.
Geography has certainly not cowered from the impact agenda (Rogers et al., 2014),
and by some measures could be considered more impactful than ever. Researchers at
Oxford University’s School of Geography and Environment, for instance, have been
lead authors of IPCC and IPBES reports, been instrumental in developing the science
of climate attribution, and have advised the Climate Change Committee, the National
Infrastructure Commission, and the UK Climate Assembly. However, of the 11
impact case studies attributed to the geography department on the university’s
website, 10 were generated by its institutes (University of Oxford, n.d.), with few of
the named researchers identifying themselves as geographers. While such examples
have helped the department to top various league tables, they exhibit both a research-
focused relationship between geography and policy and a disconnect between those
doing impactful research and those delivering teaching, as such research roles tend to
have limited interaction with undergraduates and scant influence on curriculum
design.
 JOURNAL OF GEOGRAPHY IN HIGHER EDUCATION 163

While all institutions are not alike, this situation is mirrored elsewhere in UK
universities, where impactful research once considered the staple of geographers is
conducted outside geography departments. The Grantham Institute at the London
School of Economics has helped develop the UK government’s policies on climate,
water and air pollution (LSE, n.d.), but holds an arms-length relationship with geogra­
phy; 66% of the 2014 REF submission for University College London’s geography
department met the 4* standard (REF, 2014), but the Bartlett Faculty of the Built
Environment produces a greater range and quantity of policy-relevant research on
geographical topics (UCL, n.d.); and the Tyndall Centre – spanning the Universities of
Manchester, Cardiff, Newcastle and East Anglia and at the forefront of climate policy
research since 2000 – has closer ties to their psychology and engineering departments
than geography (Tyndall Centre, n.d.).
Evidence of policy impact resulting from geographical research both satisfies funders
and university administrators and alleviates pressure on others to prove relevance and
impact (Dorling & Shaw, 2002). However, our contention is that such institutional
arrangements limit the exposure of students to policy-oriented scholarship and confines
it to a narrow definition of the policy-geography relationship, doing a disservice both to
students seeking more policy exposure and to the diverse policy practices that many
geographers undertake. Certain structural issues within academia exacerbate this situa­
tion. Those with extra-academic experience of policy making tend to be excluded from
curriculum design because the very extra-academic experience that equips them ideally
to design policy-related teaching impedes their academic careers. More likely to hold
temporary than permanent posts, they almost inevitably lack the institutional position to
lead programmes, courses and modules. Where teaching opportunities do arise, these are
consequently likely to be short term, potentially precluding a more strategic approach to
pedagogy and/or reverting in the long term to delivery by faculty staff whose expertise is
less likely to be based on extra-academic experience. This is reflected in the sporadic
nature of geographical approaches to teaching climate recently identified by Cross and
Congreve (2021). Definitional, institutional and structural factors rooted in the default
disciplinary perspective means that policy is framed as external to geography. A shift in
disciplinary attitude and the integration of policy and pedagogy is needed.

Realising the potential of polymorphic pedagogy

As an undergraduate education prepares students to make their own impact post-
university, teaching is not an internal, introspective activity but a route to external
impact, and with graduating students looking ahead to a lifetime’s career comes huge
potential for long-term impacts via teaching. Despite the impact agenda’s focus on
benefits beyond academia (Rogers et al., 2014), pedagogy surely is the discipline’s greatest
claim to impact (Ward, 2006) and thus deserves a more student-focused, policy-oriented,
skills-led strategic direction.
Students increasingly demand practice-grounded educational experiences that reach
beyond scientific technicalities and intellectual critiques to working through real-world
challenges, to prepare them with skills as much as knowledge for their aspirational policy
roles. We know this from student feedback. Yet historical definitions of and perspectives on
164 EDITORIAL

policy, allied with the determinisms of the impact agenda and identified institutional and
structural barriers risk creating a blind spot that would prevent the benefits latent within the
intersection of student aspirations, pedagogical strategy and policy work from being realised.
A geography degree already delivers a polymorphic education, producing graduates
characterised by agility, critical thinking and creativity, able to converse across humanities
and sciences, and to evaluate different forms of evidence. In other words: the perfect policy
maker. A happy outcome, undoubtedly. However, accompanying this education is insuffi­
cient scaffolding to support students in tailoring these characteristics to the applied policy
roles to which so many students aspire, resulting from the disciplinary devaluation of
practical policy making and the disconnect between policy work and teaching. Those
leaving academia upon graduation are potentially left under-skilled and under-confident,
while those progressing to postgraduate study are likely to go down one of three paths:
adhering to policy work as evidentiary contribution or discursive critique; becoming
channelled into theoretical or empirical niches and away from policy-oriented work; or
directed towards interdisciplinary policy work and away from a disciplinary identity.
So how might this situation be redressed? Firstly, by policy-active geographers con­
tributing more to curriculum design and delivery. Institutional recognition of extra-
academic expertise could both reconfigure geography’s understanding of policy and
provide the more practically oriented policy-related education that students increasingly
demand. Such developments could learn from Cross and Congreve’s () review of climate
teaching, which recommended framing climate change as a quintessentially geographical
problem; encouraging learners to grapple with various solutions and their complexities;
and emphasising skills-led learning with a focus on the contributions made by different
professions and institutions. Such approaches would validate and create opportunities
for those geographers with extra-academic experience, and those who cross disciplinary
and methodological divides, and would apply to other topics of growing interest to
students – food, water and energy systems – that are closely associated with policy
discourse (Leck et al., 2015).
Second, by establishing stronger links between disciplinary and careers provision, as has
been done at King’s College London (KCL) through a compulsory third-year module linking
academic skills and career pathways, delivered in collaboration with careers advisors (KCL,
n.d.). Such integration could emphasise that policy work extends beyond central government
and the civil service to local government, supranational organisations and the non-profit
sector, and that the divisions between policy, industry and research are increasingly perme­
able as training in each can lead to opportunities in others. Similarly, in recent years, the
Royal Geographical Society has been attempting to connect “professional” geographers with
academic colleagues through its Chartered Geographer network. Involving those with extra-
academic experience would support students in forging links between academic skills and
professional competencies, easing their transition from education to employment, and
would facilitate the strategic design of undergraduate programmes to enhance further the
attractiveness of geography to students, the appropriateness of geographical skills to cross-
sectoral employers, and the long-term societal impact of geography.
Whether we follow Cross and Congreve () or KCL, the path-dependency of the
current situation warrants attention, given the constraints that it places on the disci­
pline’s potential to meet the changing needs of its students and to optimise its long-term
potential impact, necessitating more effective integration of policy and pedagogy.
 JOURNAL OF GEOGRAPHY IN HIGHER EDUCATION 165

Conclusion
In re-opening the policy debate, we do not wish to rehash old quarrels, and we acknowl­
edge both compelling postcolonial arguments against striving for policy impact, and
radical geographical reasons to resist the pressure for demonstrable short-term impact.
However, disciplines make their greatest impact through their students. Our professional
experience indicates increasing desire for applied learning opportunities to complement
the theoretical and critical emphasis of human geography and the scientific niches of
physical geography. Yet, definitional, institutional and structural issues perpetuate the
devaluation of extra-academic policy experience and the division between policy work
and curriculum direction. There is a growing imperative to act among young people but
with students increasingly coming to university to develop the knowledge and skills
necessary to enter the policy world yet graduating without meaningful exposure to extra-
academic policy work, we are failing to provide them with the policy-specific scaffolding
that they both desire and require to capitalise on their academic skills, make informed
career choices and fully realise their – and our – potential.

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Banfield and Sam Hampton are Joint first authors

Janet Banfield
School of Geography and Environment, University of Oxford, Oxford UK

Sam Hampton
School of Geography and Environment, University of Oxford, Oxford UK

samuel.hampton@ouce.ox.ac.uk http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0596-9710
Monika Zurek
School of Geography and Environment, University of Oxford, Oxford UK

Received 13 October 2021; Accepted 1 February 2022