Towards an Integrated Disciplinary Narrative and an Enhanced Role for Geography in Education for Sustainability: Reflections on South African Higher Education

The Anthropocene and the sustainable development goals: key elements in geography higher education?

“…Most countries throughout the world are immersed in a new development framework, defined by the UN, beginning a few decades ago with the MDGs, now with the SDGs and in the future most probably with an update of the sustainability goals to achieve. Within this framework, as Murga-Menoyo (2015) states, the acquisition of competencies in sustainability is an urgent pedagogical task, so a form of education that makes this possible is required, and geography degrees offer great potential for transmitting knowledge on sustainability and the SDGs (Pretorius, 2018). Despite important limitations, essentially related to the fact that they reflect new forms of governmentality and policies aligned with the processes of neoliberalism, as expressed by some respondents, it must be recognized that the SDGs have contributed to lifting more than one billion people out of extreme poverty (Liverman, 2018) and that they establish the guidelines for territorial management, with the high level of professional involvement of geographers.…”

“…The International Year of Global Understanding in 2016 provided an opportunity for geographers to learn about other educational practices and reinforce the role of geography as “the science for sustainability” (Meadows, 2020). However, despite the advances made by the IGU and some authors such as Pretorius (2018), until now there has been limited in-depth and generalized discussion on the role of geography training studies, in Spain and other countries, and whether they offer students the competencies required by an ethical framework of sustainability and the current labor market itself, within a context of crisis and global change.…”

A critical reflection on the inclusion of spatial thinking in undergraduate Geography modules: A case study of selected South African universities

“…In contrast, Physical Geography modules often refer to processes on a local scale, such as rock weathering or erosion, with little to no direct reference to any form of spatiality, indicating that spatial thinking may not be included in these modules. It is worth noting that very few Geography modules at South African universities follow an integrated approach (Pretorius, 2017). As such, the percentage of these modules forming part of this research study comprised only nine percent (9%) of the chosen modules.…”

“…For this research, spatial thinking is defined as the application of spatial concepts, processes of reasoning and representation tools to conceptualise and solve geographical problems (NRC, 2006). Although various researchers call for the inclusion of spatial thinking in Geography curricula (Metoyer and Bednarz, 2017;Bednarz, 2019;Nursa'Ban et al, 2020), it is reported that this essential thinking tool remains under-represented in undergraduate Geography curricula at South African universities (Pretorius, 2017). Jo & Bednarz (2016) developed a taxonomy of spatial thinking that can be used to determine the spatiality of assessment questions.…”