Connections in a changing world – reflections from international research in geographical and environmental education

Abstract

International Research in Geographical and Environmental Education (IRGEE) celebrates its 30th anniversary in 2022. Our founding Editors would certainly have envisioned that the journal would provide an outlet for top quality publications in the fields of geographical and environmental education. The journal has certainly lived up to that expectation – it has become a top tier journal in the education domain in Scopus since 2019. The editorial in the inaugural issue some 30 years ago written by Rod Gerber and John Lidstone started with the sentence “It has become a cliché to say that we live in a changing world” (Gerber & Lidstone, 1992 p. 1). The first issue curated original research articles on syllabus design (Stoltman, 1992), helping students solve geographical problems (Lee, 1992), map reading (Gerber, Lidstone, & Nason, 1992), enhancing geographical inquiry (Neighbour, 1992), and awareness of environmental issues (Karpik, 1992). In fact, any of the paper titles in the first issue are of interest to someone reading an issue in IRGEE in the year 2021. It seems that the sentence still holds immense validity thirty years on, reaffirming the relevance of the scope of the journal in documenting the developments in the academic discourses on geographical and environmental education. As a way to consider IRGEE’s journey over the last three decades, the notion of ‘connections’, as used as the theme of the recent International Geographical Union (IGU) Commission on Geographical Education (CGE) Conference in Prague in August 2021, is utilised to frame the article. Three types of connections become apparent as we look back at the discourses in the journal over these few decades. Firstly, the connection between geographical and environmental education has been featured in the journal’s title right from the beginning. The founding of the journal happened at a time when the first International Charter for Geographical Education (referred to as the Charter for the rest of this article) was being formulated. In fact, the Charter was released by IGU in 1992, the same year that IRGEE published its first volume. The relationship between geographical and environmental education was made explicit in the Charter. Indeed, geographical education contributes to environmental education by “ensuring that individuals become aware of the impact of their own behaviour and that of their societies, have access to accurate information and skills to enable them to make environmentally sound decision, and to develop an environmental ethic to guide their action” (CGE, 1992 p. 9). The inclusion of both “geographical” and “environmental” education was not just a convenient coincidence but it represents the intention to highlight the connection between these two domains of work for a common goal.