This Themed‐Intervention commentary provides a brief overview of the history of Geography as a modern academic discipline in China, its development in the reform era (1979–), and the distinctive ...conventions and norms that distinguish it from paradigms and practices of geography in the Anglophone academia. We identify two tensions: between sciences and social sciences orientations, and between applied knowledge and critical/reflexive knowlegde. These tensions are both internal to Geography in China, and exist between Chinese and Anglophone Geography, the latter as embodied in major international journals. Mindful of these tensions, this commentary develops reflections over geography education in China and the challenges faced by academic dialogues between Chinese and Anglophone geographers.
Abstract We reflect on Geography in the US university by focusing on the paths taken by undergraduates into and beyond our classrooms. Those paths reveal aspects of Geography that appear unique to ...this national context, and include the structural barriers to US students' entry into Geography, from their highly uneven exposure to Geography in school to their unfamiliarity with it as a university degree. Yet many students still manage to find the field, with the troubling exception of Black and Indigenous students. We also highlight the paradox whereby graduates of this ‘invisible’ field are in high demand within government and industry, even as their training encourages them to simultaneously critique the tight coupling of Geography with those structures of power. We suggest that these are the distinctive and constitutive attributes of Geography in US universities that shape undergraduates and the geographies that they take out into the world.
Short Abstract We reflect on Geography in the US university by focusing on the paths taken by undergraduates into and beyond our classrooms. We suggest that these are the distinctive and constitutive attributes of Geography in US universities that shape undergraduates and the geographies that they take out into the world.
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