1) The document summarizes Richard Bustin's book "Geography Education’s Potential and the Capability Approach" which outlines the development of the GeoCapabilities project that aimed to develop teachers' curriculum making skills. 2) It describes Richard's involvement in the project as a school partner and how he used it as the basis for his research exploring how the capabilities approach could influence geography curriculum development. 3) The capabilities approach developed by Amartya Sen is translated into a "geo" version as a conceptual framework for teachers to develop students' functioning and agency through geographical knowledge.

1. “Geography Education’s Potential and the Capability Approach”
Richard Bustin
Palgrave Macmillan, 2019
978-3-030-25641-8
In September 2014. I was contacted by Professor David Lambert to see
if I had the time to be involved in an ERASMUS funded project. As I
was working part time at King’s Ely at the time, I was able to commit
some time and explore more about the project which was called
‘GeoCapabilities’. I ended up as a freelance worker with UCL Institute
of Education for the next 18 months.
A few years earlier, in 2012 I had co-presented with Michael Solem, of the AAG and John
Lyon at the GA conference on the outcomes of an ERASMUS+ funded project called
digitalearth, which introduced the idea of geomedia, which we defined as: ‘any media that
uses the spatial localisation of information’.
Michael and the AAG were also involved in significant work to shape geography education in
the USA, with the publication of the ‘Road map for Geography’ being one of the important
documents at the time:
http://media.nationalgeographic.org/assets/file/NGS_RoadMapIMPDReport_6-21.pdf
There was reference made during our very well attended GA Conference session to the
work of the AAG developing the idea of a capabilities model around the work of Amartya
Sen, a Nobel prize winning economist with a project called ‘GeoCapabilities’, funded by the
US National Science Foundation: http://www.aag.org/geocapabilities
The new project was a development of one started by the AAG, and which Michael and
David had been working on along with Professor Sirpa Tani from Helsinki University. This
first phase http://www.aag.org/geocapabilities had the focus of ‘Understanding capabilities
in teaching geography’.
The project Richard got involved with was Stage 2 of GeoCapabilities, and gained ERASMUS+
funding from the EU. The project’s website can be found here, and had a focus on ‘Teachers
as curriculum leaders’: http://www.geocapabilities.org/geocapabilities-2/
Richard was involved in the project as one of the school partners, and used it as the basis for
some research.
Richard has outlined the development of the project along with his involvement in it in the
book, which explores the origins of the idea of capabilities.
As David has said although the official curriculum is no guarantee for what is taught, it is
specialist teachers who can, notwithstanding the various influences and pressures they are
under, take responsibility to design and make convincing and engaging lessons. To do this
they need to know why it is worth teaching the subject.
Asking the question “in what way is geographical knowledge powerful?” is a good way to
clarify the value of teaching geography. This process, which we developed during my time
working for the Geographical Association is called ‘curriculum making’.

2. In the preface, Richard talks about his own early school experiences of geography, and his
own great-grandfather Alfred Bray Treloar, who understood the importance of getting
young people out of the classroom to reflect on their surroundings.
The book explores the background to the approach, and moves into the ‘capabilities
approach’ and its connection with a Futures 3 approach drawn from the work of Michael
Young, someone I have seen several times speaking about his notion of ‘powerful
knowledge’.
Richard has shared his own (successful) journey towards his MA in Geography Education,
and later his PhD in the book, which explores the way that the capabilities approach could
(and already does) influence curriculum development in secondary geography education.
This came out of a frustration with the simplicity of some areas of geography such as urban
land use models, following his undergraduate work, and his work to put some of the
complexity back in.
He begins by explaining the beginnings of the capabilities approach and connects it with
geography education, connecting with Margaret Roberts’ important observation (2010) that
she had observed a lot of geography lessons which had very little geography in them. He
references the work done to identify the ‘purpose’ of school geography, and the work we
completed at the GA on our manifesto for school geography called ‘a different view’.
Along the way, Richard provides a clear exposition on the development of both ‘curriculum’
and ‘pedagogy’. He provides a useful thought from Beck and Earl (2003), who offered a
series of principles for selection of content as “any curriculum is a selection from all the
worthwhile knowledge which school could potentially transmit”. This selection is an
important decision for every teacher to make. Richard mentions the important work of
Eleanor Rawling in this regard, and also Basil Bernstein on curriculum ‘framing’ and
‘recontextualisation’.
He explores different ‘knowledges’ and the differences between F1, F2 and F3 (future 3)
curricula. Check out Richard’s articles from ‘Teaching Geography’ on these themes to see
more of his thinking articulated as it developed, and also the work of Alaric Maude in this
area.
There is important thinking here too on what makes something ‘geographical’.
“A map on its own, however, is not distinctly geographical as other subjects can use them in
their discourse. It is how maps are used to enhance geographical knowledge and
understanding that makes them geographical. Balchin (a former GA President) and Colman
(1971) described this skill as ‘graphicacy’, and the ability to represent, interpret and analyse
information cartographically can be seen to be a geographical skill, and this includes both
traditional and digital mapping such as Geographical Information Systems (GIS)”.
He moves on to consider the development of curriculum vignettes which was an important
part of my work with the project in the end. I attended a meeting in Sheffield at the GA,
where Alan Kinder asked some probing questions about the distinctive contributions of
geography and what made the project ‘different’ to other existing work, in Brussels, where
we explored how to present the vignettes we were creating (we went for my suggestion of

3. esri StoryMaps in the end), and Helsinki where we developed further ideas for the teacher
training course, including video materials which you can find online.
The GA’s ‘curriculum making’ model is now more important than ever, I think.
The capabilities work of Amartya Sen is outlined, and Richard explains the way this was
translated into the ‘geo’ version: a conceptual framework for teachers. Chapter 5 explores
the value of research in shaping Richard’s thinking, with details of both the 2nd
and the
current 3rd
phase of the project, led by David Mitchell at the IoE.
Chapter 6 brings the thinking together to show the possibilities of the approach.
Subject knowledge is inherent in the choices over functionings that an educated person has.
Through subjects, young people can learn (1) that actions have consequences; (2) about
ways of behaving; and (3) about ways to articulate and present coherent ideas and logical
arguments, and this will all affect the way a person lives and interacts in the world.
Richard finishes by exploring some critiques of the approach, which include some from
Michael Young, whose idea of ‘powerful knowledge’ was so influential in shaping David
Lambert’s original thinking.
The book is available in several formats, and would perhaps make a good library reference
copy, and practical manual of the Geocapabilities approach for those involved in teacher
education as well as a reader for other colleagues who may be interested in the way that
research may inform practice.
I have certainly taken great pride in playing a small part in the project’s development, and
have great memories of the project meetings, particularly the trip to Helsinki. For me, as
Richard says, it articulates a means by which powerful knowledge can be embedded in a
curriculum by ensuring a subject-based, knowledge-led curriculum. The extent to which this

4. is driving the curriculum is open to interpretation of course, and there are also many
different pedagogies which are applied. Richard has carefully outlined the development of
his thinking in what is an excellent book. Teacher agency is vital for the approach to be fully
incorporated into departments, or schools.
“To achieve this, teachers need to be fully trained subject specialists and trusted by
leadership teams to enact an enticing curriculum”.
Some of the ideas from my involvement in the project were later translated into a session at
the GA Conference which I took part in, outlining the work in our ‘ordinary geography
department’. My colleague Claire Kyndt’s 2015 presentation on the curation of a Geography
Museum ( https://www.slideshare.net/misskyndt/curious-connections-curating-a-
geographical-museum ) explored the value of artefacts and their use within the curriculum,
which is an important part of the GeoCapabilities approach, with its development of
‘curriculum artefacts’ and ‘vignettes’, which go beyond resources, but are not as detailed as
an entire scheme of work. These could be physical objects, books, or pieces of music. I have
used Hans Rosling’s ‘Factfulness’ book as a key artefact for my recent Year 8 work, for
example.
This is not directly a book that would be used in the classroom with students, but is
definitely one for anyone who is teaching geography, or are training teachers. This is one to
have in the professional CPD library, and not just for the geographers either.
The notion of curriculum making is one which is central to the work of GeoCapabilities, and
new teachers should be prepared for this important work, which requires a great deal of
creativity. This work is part of what Walter Parker (2017) calls the need for teachers to
‘swim upstream’ against National Curriculum reforms which are structured by downstream
institutional forces.
David Lambert ended his preface to the book by suggesting that GeoCapabilities offers “a
framework for imagining the profoundly important agentive space of geography education”.
A paperback edition at a reasonable price for classroom teachers or departments would find
an enthusiastic audience. In November 2019, a flash sale from the publishers brought the
book down to £9.99 and a surge in sales followed.
Disclosure: Richard arranged for me to have early access to a PDF copy of the book - one of
the formats in which it is available, but I have also purchased a copy for use.
Some accompanying articles on the theme of GeoCapabilities are here: David Lambert piece
on Powerful Knowledge
https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10042097/1/Lambert_Who_thinks_what_geography.p
df
https://eddieplayfair.com/2015/08/19/what-is-powerful-knowledge/
2017:
https://helda.helsinki.fi//bitstream/handle/10138/236332/Uhlenwinkel_et_al_IRGEE_2017.
pdf?sequence=1
2015

5. Bustin, R. (2015). What’s the Use: How Can Earth Meet Its Resource Need? Geography Key
Stage 3 Teacher Toolkit. Sheffield: Geographical Association
Bustin, R., Butler, K., & Hawley, D. (2017). GeoCapabilities: Teachers as Curriculum Leaders.
Teaching Geography, 42(1), 18–22
2013
http://www.rigeo.org/vol3no3/RIGEO-V3-N3-1.pdf
Margaret Roberts’ critique at the IoE - I was fortunate to be in the audience for this back in
2013: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyGwbPmim7o
Richard Bustin, the author, talking about the approach: https://youtu.be/VZv3QPcX8o4
2012
GA Conference Presentation on digitalearth
https://www.geography.org.uk/download/ga_conf12parkinsonlp5.pdf
And here are the GeoCapabilities Partners, with some Associate Partners, and a freelancer
from the IoE, in Helsinki, at our meeting in 2015.
Richard is stood in the front row, second from the left - I’m lurking at the back somewhere.
You can see a session on the GeoCapabilities phase 3 project at the GA Conference at the
University of Guildford in April 2020, with David Mitchell and Mary Biddulph.
This session presents the findings of Phase 3 of the Geocapabilities project. Focusing on geography teachers in
challenging school circumstances, this cross-European project uses the rich theme of migration to look at how
geographical knowledge, children’s perspectives and teaching approaches can be connected to enhance young
people’s capabilities to make real choices about how they will live.