9

Centering Students’ Cultural Geographies as Content and Process

in an Introductory Course

Erin DeMuynck
University of Wisconsin Oshkosh

Accepted June 26, 2019

Abstract
Studying Cultural Geography can provide opportunities for students to develop
nuanced insight into how places are created, perceived, experienced, resisted, and
re-made. It can sensitize students to diverse experiences and perspectives.
However, teaching complex concepts that highlight the fluidity and messiness of
culture in ways that introductory-level students relate to can be challenging. This
article presents an approach that takes students’ perspectives and experiences
seriously as course content and evaluates its outcomes. An analysis of students’
reflective writing reveals it can help make Cultural Geography accessible and
relevant to introductory-level students and non-majors, while simultaneously
offering benefits associated with culturally responsive pedagogy. Exploring
students’ own experiences through the lens of Cultural Geography and promoting
humanizing and collaborative dialogue on these topics can have multiple benefits.
It can help students feel validated, which encourages engagement and a sense of
belonging in the classroom. It can also inspire curiosity and a sense of discovery
as students learn to use Cultural Geography as an approach to understanding the
world around them and the people with whom they share it in new ways.

Keywords: culturally responsive pedagogy, dialogue, student subjectivities

10 DeMuynck

Introduction

I teach at a 2-year access campus that is part of a State University System

in the USA. The student body includes a greater percentage of first generation,
lower income students, and students who face academic and non-academic
challenges than is typical at most comprehensive 4-year universities.
Consequently, students enter my courses with a wide range of abilities,
challenges, and previous experiences. When I learned I would be teaching
Introduction to Cultural Geography, I surveyed the literature, explored available
textbooks, and had conversations with colleagues at my institution and instructors
at other universities to learn how Cultural Geography is being taught to freshmen
and sophomores, most of whom would not go on to take an upper level Geography
course. In particular, I was interested in identifying what scholars consider to be
the most germane aspects of the broad and complex field of Cultural Geography
to be taught at the introductory level and what methods are being used to teach
them. My main concern was making sure all of my students would get the most
out of a course that has the potential to help them understand the world and the
people with whom they share it in more complex ways.
A literature review revealed a disconnect between how Cultural
Geography is practiced by academics and school geography (Brown & Smith,
2000; Jo & Milson, 2013; Rawding, 2010; Standard, 2003) and between academic
geography and public knowledge (Bonnet, 2003). Rawding (2010) points out, “In
a world where academic geographers teach undergraduate geographers who then
are trained as geography teachers, it would be reasonable to assume that after a
suitable time delay, developments taught in the universities would find their way
into the classroom” and explains that “this is far from the case” (p. 12). Winders
(2014) explains that introductory-level college students are not necessarily
learning academic cultural geography either. This, she suggests, could be due to
the complex nature of the discipline, pointing out “the challenge teachers of
Cultural Geography face for translating a diverse, seemingly endless body of
research into the structure and material used to walk undergraduates through the
semester” (Winders, 2014, p. 234). Discussions with colleagues, while not an
exhaustive or scientific survey by any means, also demonstrate the existence of
the disconnect scholars have identified between academic geography and what is
taught to introductory-level students.
What defines Cultural Geography has changed over time and continues
to be contested, but a broad objective of the discipline at present is to deepen
understanding of multiple complex, contradictory, and ongoing processes, flows,
and relations through which cultural spaces come into existence, change over
time, and are experienced. This kind of understanding is important in our
increasingly global world and diverse communities. It is difficult to develop this
kind of understanding via a course focusing on description and explanation of the
 Centering Students’ Cultural Geographies 11

cultural world as if it were a set of ready-made things to be memorized for a test.

Students miss out on opportunities to hone the kinds of critical thinking skills and
to develop the ability to recognize diverse cultural possibilities and see
controversial topics from multiple perspectives. I believe teaching introductory
courses in a fundamentally different way than how the discipline is practiced by
academics represents a missed opportunity for students. Moreover, top-down
approaches to teaching geography have been proven to be inappropriate in any
student diverse class (Boehm et al. 2018). This article presents an analysis of
student work and reflective writing that demonstrates that students at any level
can learn Cultural Geography as an academic approach to understanding the world
rather than as essentialized content.
I employed the course interventions described in this article based on a
belief that Cultural Geography can help students at any level develop skills and
knowledge that are critical in our increasingly global world and in our
increasingly unequal and divided communities. My goal was to engage a class of
37 freshmen and sophomores at an access institution in learning Cultural
Geography as an approach to understanding the world around them. In order to
bring complex concepts to life for my students, I focused on bringing their own
cultures and cultural places into the classroom as course content in a non-
essentialized way and on students’ own terms. A benefit of this that hadn’t been
my initial motivation, but the importance of which quickly became apparent, is
related to promoting a sense of belonging in the classroom among students. By
centering students’ own identities and cultural contexts, not only was I making
the course less abstract and more relatable, I was sending a message that what
each student brought to the course was valid and valuable. This has benefits for
learning within the context of this course and beyond, as will be described in
further detail below.

Student Subjectivities

A diverse body of research suggests that instruction should begin with

the subjectivities of the students and what they know about their own lives. From
the perspective of culturally relevant or culturally responsive pedagogy, this
encourages students to feel a sense of belonging in the classroom (Gay, 2010).
This is important not only for engagement and learning within a specific course,
but also because the greater the sense of belonging, the more likely it is that the
student will remain in college (Hausmann et al., 2007; Lehmann, 2007; O’Keefe,
2013). This is especially relevant for the access campus context in which I work,
which serves a large number of lower income and first generation college
students, which are groups that are more likely to feel alienated in the classroom
and who are more likely to leave college before graduating (Soria & Stebleton,
2012; Stephens et al., 2014). Culturally responsive pedagogy begins with
12 DeMuynck

students recognizing that their own backgrounds and cultures can be assets in the
classroom, an outcome of which is the development of confidence and positive
feelings about one’s identity (Gay, 2010). Beyond the benefits of learning how
Cultural Geography relates to their lives, students may benefit in terms of their
well-being and their persistence in college due to developing a sense of
confidence, courage, and belonging (Soria & Stebleton, 2012).
In a discussion about designing educational experiences that incorporate
student subjectivities, we should also recognize the role of educational
experiences in shaping student subjectivities (Dewey, 2008; Freire, 1998; Giroux,
2014; Peters, 1966). Both the content and pedagogical process involved in the
courses student take can have lasting impacts that go far beyond learning the
information covered in the course. For example, Dewey (2008) discusses the
impact of top-down, memorization-based pedagogies, suggesting that a
memorization approach to learning encourages “docility, receptivity and
obedience” (p. 6) in students. Not only does this teaching method circumvent
opportunities to develop critical thinking skills, it is considered to have an
adverse, miseducative impact (Dewey, 2008; Freire 1998).
Furthermore, Peters (1966) suggests that what makes a person educated
rather than simply being well informed is that they understand “the ‘reason why’
of things” and through this understanding, comes “to care” (pp. 30-31). Peters
(1966) also proposes that what students learn should have direct relevance to what
students care about. Care may be pre-existing for students, or it may come after
classroom learning helps then understand a topic in a more complex way. For
example, care may arise from learning to recognize and understand relationships
between students’ own experiences and broader systems in which they’re
embedded (McInerney et al., 2011).
Freire (1970) refers to students’ self-realization and development of
understanding of political, economic, and social structures that shape their lives
as conscientization. The development of student’s agency is an important aspect
of this concept. In this perspective, understanding one’s place in the world and
relationships between students’ own lives and broader structures is seen as a
crucial step toward changing the world (Freire, 1988). Cultural Geography is a
discipline that lends itself toward conscientization, for example by revealing the
ways in which “culture doesn’t take place in a vacuum” (Anderson, 2015).
Through studying Cultural Geography, students can develop an understanding
that existing patterns have causes and are not natural and as such, are not
inevitable.

Centering Students’ Cultures Through Reflective Writing and Dialogue

While all cultural geographers seek in some way to understand how

identity, place, and culture influence and are influenced by each other, the
 Centering Students’ Cultural Geographies 13

definition of culture is contested within the field. In this course, we based our
discussion of culture on Anderson’s (2015) definition, which is, “what people do,”
and includes, “the material things, the social ideas, the performative practices, and
the emotional responses that we participate in, produce, resist, celebrate, deny or
ignore” (p. 6). This very broad definition helped students think beyond
preconceptions of what culture is and grasp the ways in which culture – what
people do – relates to their own lives.
Outside of the academic context, culture tends to be understood as
something exotic, or something traditional, something that involves formality or
a specific intention. A class discussion during the first week of the semester
revealed that for some students, culture was understood as special traditions,
foods, and clothing and not everyday life. For some culture was primarily what
other people in or from other places had or participated in and something they can
closely relate to. Anderson’s definition clearly lays out all the ways that culture
is part of all of our everyday lives. It helped reinforce for the students that their
cultures were going to be important course content and that they were going to be
knowledge produces – and not just knowledge consumers – within the classroom.
This broad definition also helped me identify opportunities to make
connections between culture as the subject of our course and culturally responsive
pedagogy. The following elements of culturally responsive pedagogy, identified
by Gay (2010) and in Mezirow et al. (2011), were useful in the course
development:
• appreciation of diverse ways of seeing and being in the world;
• learners allowed to be experts on their own cultures;
• feelings of validation and belonging as students’ cultures and
contributions are acknowledged as valuable;
• classroom relationships that demonstrate caring, connectedness,
and collaboration; and
• sensitivity to social justice and equity.

We began considering the diverse ways of seeing and being in the world
on the first day of class. I asked students to reflect on our classroom silently for
a few minutes – what it meant to them, their experience of being in our classroom,
how it made them feel. Then, after asking them to write down a few notes on
their reflection, I explained my perspective on and experience of being in the
classroom. It was clearly very different from what the students had written,
among which there was a diversity of notes written. Some of them had written
about being excited to learn or to meet new friends, but many students had written
about feeling nervous and anxious. This was an opportunity to validate all
students’ experiences and feelings and begin building classroom relationships.
After the first day, I continued to use reflection and reflective writing
prompts to integrate cultural responsivity into the course. These prompts based
14 DeMuynck

on the day’s lecture and often an accompanying reading assignment from Jon
Anderson’s Understanding Cultural Geography: Places and Traces (2015). Haigh
(2001) suggests journals are useful for making students “self-conscious of the
development of their learning” (p. 168) and explained that through journaling his
students were able to “contextualise themselves and to construct their own
understanding (p. 171). The journal prompts that I designed invited students to
relate Cultural Geography concepts learned in class to their own experiences and
occasionally to reflect on their learning experiences. They were meant to be short
responses completed in about five minutes at the end of the class period although
I often gave the prompt at the end of one class and asked students to think about
it until the following class period when they would be provided time to write.
The practice of reflective journaling offered students an opportunity to
begin to take their everyday places and experiences and identify how they relate
to Cultural Geography. The open-endedness of the prompts and the short time
period provided for writing meant that students were just supposed to get their
ideas on the paper – they didn’t need to worry about writing style or structure and
didn’t need to be concerned with identifying “the correct answer.” An example of
a journal prompt assigned around the middle of the semester following a lecture
on Mobilities and examples of student responses are below. By this time in the
semester students knew what was expected and needed very little explanation in
terms what kind of example I was asking for. Students understood if they
correctly applied the concept, any example was fine. Some students relate
examples from lecture or assigned readings to their own personal examples, such
as in Response 2, below.

Prompt: Apply the practice component of the Mobilities framework to an example

from your own life.

Response 1: I decided to attend college close to where I live because I couldn’t

afford to live in a dorm. Lack of money caused this immobility that some of my
high school friends didn’t experience. I was disappointed at the time when I made
the decision, but I know my restricted mobility now means more mobility later
when I have a degree and look for jobs in other places and that makes me hopeful.

Response 2: My daily movement between home and school is easy unless the
weather is bad. I slid off the road last winter so now I’m scared driving in the
snow. But I’m a U.S. citizen with a driver’s license and I’m white so other than
hazardous weather and other drivers I don’t have much to worry about.

Response 3: When I took the L in Chicago I found it confusing and chaotic and
felt out of place and anxious and a little unsafe. I’d never been to Chicago before
or taken public transportation so I didn’t know what to do. Everyone else looked
 Centering Students’ Cultural Geographies 15

as relaxed as they would be sitting in their own house. Some were listening to
headphones with their eyes closed. I didn’t think about it at the time, but the
mobilities approach tells us to ask why. Why are they comfortable and why am I
not? Why are they tired?

Through their journaling practice students were able to begin to

recognize how experiences they may understand as mundane or “normal” and
may not have previously thought a lot about relate to sophisticated Cultural
Geography concepts. It also helped them recognize the multiplicity of ways of
experiencing place (or movement between places in the case of Mobilities) and
understand that their own cultures were valued as an important part of the course.
I believe this made it easier to foster sensitivity to social justice and equity. Rather
than feeling defensive when confronted with perspectives and experiences they
may not have considered previously, students put effort into understanding them
because their own perspectives and experiences had already been validated.
Dialogue among students enriched this learning.
The key to fruitful dialogue lies in the recognition of and interaction
between multiple perspectives and appreciation of a common humanity amid
these differences (Rule, 2015). In dialogic interactions, students are required to
engage with alternative points of view in ways that challenge and deepen their
own understandings of course concepts and their application. This practice not
only serves the purpose of engaging students in the learning process as active
knowledge creators rather than simply consumers, but it also highlights the critical
notion in Cultural Geography that there are multiple legitimate ways of seeing,
understanding, and experiencing the world.
Dialogic inquiry not only enriches individuals' knowledge and
understanding but also transforms it (Freire, 1970; Wells, 1999). Thus, dialogic
learning can only be successful when the participants succeed in creating and
maintaining shared understandings, contradictions notwithstanding, of course
content and its meaningful applicability to students and their respective cultural
worlds. Moreover, students simply learn more when they are actively engaged
and guided group dialogues encouraged all students to engage (Pascarella &
Terenzini, 2005).
Regular small group dialogues were an essential part of the course and
focused on applying course concepts to local, national, and global current events
and issues. The dialogues were structured and required students to prepare in
advance. Students were assigned readings from a variety of sources and asked to
summarize the authors’ main points, relate readings to a Cultural Geography
concept covered in class, and explain their reactions to the articles through their
own cultural lenses. Some examples of reading topics included refugee
experiences, segregation, and the Dakota Access Pipeline protests. Students
worked with the same small group on a near weekly basis. Respectfully listening
16 DeMuynck

to, thinking about, and understanding their classmates’ understanding of the

assigned readings and how they relate to concepts we have studied in Cultural
Geography were stressed as essential to successful participation in this activity.

Analysis of Students’ Observations and Experiences of Place

Place is central to the study of Cultural Geography, viewed as a basic

element in the constitution of culture and as a basic outcome of cultural processes.
Cultural geographers seek to understand culture’s influence on place and the ways
culture influences experiences of places and everyday life. Cultural Geography
students should learn to understand places not as “points or areas on a map, but as
integrations of space and time; as spatiotemporal events” (Massey, 2005, p. 130).
Places are “constructed out of a particular constellation of social relations,
meeting and weaving together at a particular locus” (Massey, 1994, p. 154).
A culturally responsive approach to Cultural Geography allows and
encourages students to put themselves and their own experiences into this picture.
It encourages students to consider how their own everyday lives and practices
constitute and are constituted by places. In this way, Cultural Geography becomes
a lens through which students make sense of themselves and the world around
them and a way to validate students’ experiences and encourage their engagement
in class.
This article began from an assumption that when Cultural Geography is
taught as facts to memorize, important learning opportunities are circumvented.
For example, it may be less likely to disrupt cultural centric thinking. On the other
hand, when it is taught as an approach to understanding the world, students may
be more apt to develop an understanding of the multiple ways places are
understood and experienced, power relations involved in producing these
differences, and possibilities for a more just production of space are important for
all students. I argue that cultural geographers at all levels, including students
enrolled in 100-level courses and non-majors, should and can engage in this kind
of learning. It has the possibilities of interrupting insular and prejudicial views
students (and instructors) bring to the classroom and offers new pathways for
students.
To foster connections between place and students’ lives, I drew on the
following elements of place-based learning, discussed in Gruenwald & Smith
(2014):
• using local phenomena as a basis for curriculum development;
• an emphasis on learning experiences that encourage students
to become knowledge producers;
• a study focus that is driven by students’ own experiences,
interests, and concerns;
• the role of teachers as co-learners; and
 Centering Students’ Cultural Geographies 17

• increasing the permeability of boundaries between inside and

outside of the classroom.

With these elements in mind, I designed assignments that guided

students in conducting observations and analyses of familiar places and
experiences of interest to them. Students were invited to choose a place to observe
and assignment instructions explained the steps through which to analyze their
observations using a specific Cultural Geography concept we covered in class.
For example, for an assignment exploring relationships between nature and
culture, students’ analyses focused on places ranging from a coffee shop to the
campus parking lot and from a corn field to a golf course. Students made
insightful connections. For example, the student who observed a coffee shop he
visits regularly before school made connections between the grooves on a wooden
coffee shop floor where customers stand in line each day, the tired faces and
bodies of those in line, including his own, the caffeine that occurs naturally in
coffee, and cultural expectations of high levels of human production as well as
economic needs. The student who wrote about the golf course made her
observations from her back porch and noted that, “although grass and trees
indicate nature, they are meticulously designed and maintained, which affects
property values of the surrounding homes and how much people are willing to
pay to golf there.”
For an assignment on transgression and resistance, some of the places
students observed and analyzed were a corridor at the mall, the campus library, a
fast food restaurant, and a church. The student who observed the mall did so with
his male partner while the two of them held hands. He noted that this was outside
of the norm in this place and thus could be considered an act of transgression. He
explained that his sexual identity means that he is transgressing cultural norms in
most places. The student who wrote about the fast food restaurant where she
works observed the ways in which, “the counter in the restaurant serves as a
border between two sets of cultural orders and expectations” and how it feels to
be behind the counter and in front of it in terms of the idea that “the customer is
always right.” Before students turned in their final essay for each observation and
analysis assignment, they took part in a peer review through which they received
feedback from their classmates and had opportunities to see several examples of
how their classmates had approached the assignment, thus broadening and
enhancing their learning. Students whose analyses were somewhat superficial
were able to recognize the depth of their classmates work as examples of what to
strive for.
For the final observation and analysis assignment, students were not
given detailed instructions and a specific concept to use for their analysis as they
had been previously in the semester. Rather, students were asked to select any
course concept we covered during the semester and design their own small study
18 DeMuynck

that focuses on any aspect of their university or of higher education more broadly.
The topic they chose was to be something they have experience with and care
about. Students met with me individually for guidance and final approval of their
topic and methods but were on their own to complete the work. They used a
variety of methods including interviews, observations, and self-reflection. The
final projects culminated in poster presentations on the last day of class. The
following are a sample of students’ poster titles and brief explanation of the
author’s approach to their topic. The specific course concept students chose to
apply in each project is italicized. “The University” was substituted in place of
the institution’s name for the purpose of this paper.
• The University as a Liminal Space
o Explored experiences of college as a transition stage
between childhood and adulthood
• Diverse Identities and Diverse Experiences of College
o Discussed the ways that race, class, gender, and
sexuality influence students’ experiences
• Resistance to High Textbook Prices
o Identified and evaluated the impacts of several ways
students are reacting to high textbook prices and
proposed three possibilities for resistance
• A Mobilities Perspective of International Students’ Experiences
o Compared and contrasted several different
experiences of being an international student, focusing
on aspects relevant to moving and movement
• Representations of College Drinking and their Impacts on Students’
Attitudes, Actions, and Self-Perceptions
o Identified the major messages embedded in the
informational posters around campus that focus on
educating students about college drinking and
explained how these messages influenced students’
attitudes about drinking, the actions they took, and
their perceptions of themselves as drinkers or non-
drinkers
• Capitalism and Culture: Impacts of Budget Cuts on our Campus
o Identified via interviews with faculty and staff how the
material and emotional spaces of the university have
been influenced by a series of budget cuts and how this
affects student learning

The final presentations were in lieu of an exam and were an opportunity

to demonstrate the depth of their understanding of a Cultural Geography and their
ability to use it to explore and analyze their topic. In addition to presenting,
 Centering Students’ Cultural Geographies 19

students each turned in a written critique of classmates’ projects, evaluating their

classmates’ understanding and application of the Cultural Geography concept
each group of chose to focus on for their project. Upon completion of this project,
many students gave passionate presentations that reflected an understanding that
the existing status quo has a variety of causes and consequences that a Cultural
Geography perspective can help illuminate. The notion that existing Cultural
Geographies are not natural or inevitable, and thus, can be changed was also
represented in presentations.

Results

Following IRB approval, an analysis of student work, including journal

reflections, and my observations of in-class discussions revealed that an approach
to teaching Cultural Geography that begins with student subjectivities can be
successful. It also brought out several overlapping benefits. First, when
principles of culturally responsive pedagogy are engaged and dialogic practice is
encouraged, Cultural Geography as an approach to understanding the world can
be made accessible and relevant to introductory-level students. Students’ ability
to think of examples from their own lives and relate them to course concepts
reveal that students were able to understand the concepts being covered and
recognize how Cultural Geography “works” as an approach to seeing the world.
In a classroom with students with an especially wide range of academic
backgrounds, skills, and challenges, all students were able to engage and
contribute. I observed that it took several weeks for some students to set aside
their expectations for what college courses and geography should be like (e.g.
lecture-centered classes, maps, and fact memorization). However, by the end of
the semester every student had developed the ability to demonstrate understanding
and applicability of Cultural Geography theories and concepts in their journal
responses and/or observation and analysis assignments at a satisfactory level or
better. This is a marked improvement over previous iterations of the course in
which I was less intentional about integrating cultural responsivity and place-
based activities focusing on students’ own cultural experiences, interpretations,
and places. While only based on one semester’s worth of data, the outcomes
suggest that using an approach to teaching Cultural Geography that centers
students’ subjectivities can be successful in terms of teaching content.
This approach is also helpful in terms of process. Centering students’
cultural geographies helped build a sense of belonging and community in the
classroom and encouraged students to work together to produce knowledge by
fostering more meaningful and empathetic group dialogues. Notably, students
became genuinely interested in their classmates’ diverse experiences and
perspectives, which many of them had previously not considered or had assumed
to be equivalent or comparable to their own. One student indicated, “Once we
20 DeMuynck

started talking I didn’t want to stop.” Another student said, “I’m from the same
town as [student] and I didn’t expect that we are so different.”
In their self-reporting via journal reflections, in particular in their
reflections on observation and analysis assignments, students expressed a belief
that these activities helped them become better critical thinkers, ask better
questions, and/or learn to understand everyday places in more complex ways. For
example, the first observation and analysis assignment asked students to observe
the cultural norms of a specific place, explore how they are communicated,
identify the ways in which they are conformed to and/or resisted, and reflect on
their impacts. Following this exercise, students made comments such as, “I didn’t
notice the cultural norms that exist in [local coffee shop] and how everyone
conforms to them so closely until I had to pay attention” and “I’m comfortable in
my church, but the same signs and symbols that are normal to me might make
someone else uncomfortable.”
Additionally, while I did not record attendance numbers, I anecdotally
observed a higher rate of attendance this semester than in previous semesters, and
I did not observe an attendance drop-off toward the end of the semester, which is
something that has occurred previously as students experience end of semester
fatigue. I understand the sustained high attendance as both a cause and effect of
a more engaged class. At the same time, I also want to acknowledge that the
observed increase in student engagement and participation could be due to a large
or small degree to the increase in my own excitement level due to trying out a new
approach to teaching. Nonetheless, this is important to note as it is not typical for
all students to make it through courses with a passing grade on the access campus
where I teach. A relatively large percentage of my students work full time, are
engaged in care-giving for their children, siblings, or parents, and/or have other
time consuming responsibilities.
All of the members of five out of six discussion groups reported via
journal reflection a positive response to the experience and noted that their group
had become proficient in respectful dialogue by the end of the semester. Students
explained that they became friends with the other members in their groups and
that the discussions were something they looked forward to. Two members in the
sixth group were neutral and one had a negative response, noting that a group
member tended to dominate the discussions and made dialogue uncomfortable. I
did not become aware of this problem until the end of the semester and will be
more vigilant in catching and addressing issues with group dynamics earlier in
future semesters. Nonetheless, the framework for and expectation of respectful
listening worked very well for five out of six groups. Based on my observations
of the level of engagement and student reflections, I believe it encouraged students
who might not otherwise interact to get to know one another and feel relatively
comfortable talking and learning together. As one student explained, “I’m usually
really quiet, but once we were friends we all opened up a lot more.” Another
 Centering Students’ Cultural Geographies 21

noted, “I didn’t dread coming to school.” To me, these quotes indicate that
building relationships and a level of comfort in the classroom can perhaps be even
more important than the content covered. If students dread coming to school, are
they engaging and learning?
All members of the same 5 out of 6 discussion groups that reported
positive experiences reported via journal reflection that they felt a connection to
other group members, had a good experience sharing their perspectives and
experiences, and learned from their classmates. Several students expressed
interest and surprise at the different ways their classmates related to the same
course concept or understood the same article or issue. Students identified that
small nuances surfaced in the ways their classmates related course concepts to
assigned discussion readings. The discussion group that was less successful at
connecting and occasionally struggled with respectful dialogue had one member
who would often dismiss his classmates’ experiences and interpretations. This
made other group members feel uncomfortable and hindered the processes that
facilitated the positive energy and learning that occurred in the other groups.
While this group was less successful than the other groups at connecting with each
other on a deep level through dialogue, they were able to relate course concepts
to the assigned current events readings.
In response to a prompt asking how comfortable and valued they felt in
class and what they took away from the class, students reported that they:
• felt a sense of belonging in a collaborative learning
community;
• understand ways in which Cultural Geography relates to their
own life; and
• believe that their contributions were valued and an important
part of the class.

Unprompted on the topic of motivation, some students explained that

they had experienced an increase in their motivation and desire to put effort into
the class between the beginning and end of the semester or were more motivated
to put effort into their Cultural Geography course than other courses. Students
also mentioned, unprompted, that the learning process was just as useful or more
useful for them than the specific content of the course, one noting that “learning
to listen to understand without judging is useful in many areas.”

Implications

The results of this brief one-semester study indicate that introductory

level students can successfully learn Cultural Geography and develop critical
thinking skills through a culturally responsive instructional approach that takes
student subjectivities and dialogic practice seriously. By centering students’ own
22 DeMuynck

cultures in the course, students recognize they can make valuable contributions to
collaborative learning, thus encouraging participation, building community, and
increasing confidence and motivation. It is likely that focusing on familiar places
and cultures can make learning academic Cultural Geography (as opposed to an
objective, top-down, and fact-based memorization-style approach that is
sometimes used to teach introductory level courses) less intimidating for students,
encouraging students who might not otherwise engage on a deep level (or at all)
to engage and participate more fully.
Findings also suggest that being asked to pay attention to and critically
reflect on their own feelings and those of others may help students develop
emotional intelligence and empathy. The opportunity to learn from and with each
other and make connections between personal experiences and course concepts
together can help students understand diverse ways of seeing and experiencing
the world, even, as suggested by student journal entries, among classmates who
may have initially appeared on the surface to be quite similar to themselves.
Finally, because it took some students most of the semester to understand
and fulfill what was expected of them, not only explaining the expectations, but
also thoroughly explaining the motivations behind the use of this pedagogical
approach during the first week of class may be useful. This may encourage more
students to fully engage earlier in the semester, which would allow them to get
even more out of the class. Moreover, transparency is a way to build on the
culturally responsivity by offering additional respect to students as important
members of the classroom community. Instructors using the teaching approach
discussed in this article should fully disclose as much as possible about
expectations, how students they can meet them, and the purposes for which they
are being asked to meet them.

Discussion

Students come to class with preconceived ideas, some that may be

cultural centric or discriminatory. I believe this necessitates a pedagogical
approach that gently encourages students to begin to see cultural places and
practices and contemporary issues through multiple perspectives and invites them
to critically examine their own preconceived ideas. This can be accomplished
best through an approach that supports and validates students, thus avoiding
humiliation. The approach described here is one way of recognizing and
validating students’ prior experiences and ways of seeing and being in the world
while also taking a deep dive into the origins and consequences of these ideas’,
worldviews’, and experiences’ origins and consequences. This culturally
responsive approach helps students develop a sense of belonging and of being
valued in the classroom while helping students broaden and deepen their
understanding of their own cultures and the cultures of others.
 Centering Students’ Cultural Geographies 23

Through the study of Cultural Geography, students can learn knowledge

and skills that are particularly useful in their increasingly diverse and
interconnected communities, workplaces, and world. Access to this kind of
learning is important for introductory-level students and non-majors who may not
have an opportunity to take the kind of upper-level courses that that more often
promote critical engagement with the cultural world. This can contribute to
increased cross-cultural understanding, which will not only be helpful in students’
careers, but can also enhance civic engagement and encourage peace 1. However,
attaining this result necessitates student engagement with ideas and issues they
may not have previously considered at all or beyond a superficial level.
Understanding familiar places and cultures in new ways through the lens of
Cultural Geography before or concurrent with applying cultural geographic
concepts to less familiar places, experiences, and issues can be a useful method
for teaching introductory-level students.

References
Anderson, J. (2015). Understanding cultural geography: Places and traces (2nd
ed.). New York: Routledge.
Boehm, R. G., Solem, M., & Zadrozny, J. (2018). The rise of powerful
geography. The Social Studies, 109(2), 125-135.
Brown, S., & Smith, M. (2000). The secondary/ tertiary interface. In A. Kent
(ed.). Reflective Practice in Geography Teaching (pp. 262-275).
London: Paul Chapman.
Bonnett, A. (2003). Geography as the world discipline: connecting popular and
academic geographical imaginations. Area, 35(1), 55-63.
Dewey, J. (2008). Ethics. In J. A. Boydston, (ed.), John Dewey the later works,
Vol 7: 1932 (pp.1-462). Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.
Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Continuum Books.
Freire, P. (1998). Pedagogy of the heart. New York: Continuum Publishing
Company.
Gay, G. (2010). Culturally responsive teaching: Theory research, and practice.
New York: Teachers College Press.
Giroux, H. (2014). Neoliberalism’s war on higher education. Chicago:
Haymarket Books.

1
At the K-12 level, Powerful Geography is designed to encourage similar, albeit
broader, processes and outcomes. Powerful Geography is a framework for
new K-12 Geography standards based on a bottom-up approach that considers
the unique aspirations, needs, and contexts of each state, school district, and
individual student (see Boehm et al. 2018 and www.powerfulgeography.org).
24 DeMuynck

Gruenewald, D. A., & Smith, G. A. (Eds.). (2014). Place-based education in the

global age. New York: Routledge.
Haigh, M. (2001). Constructing Gaia: Using journals to foster reflective
learning. Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 25(2), 167-189.
Hausmann, L., Schofield, J., & Woods, R. (2007). Sense of belonging as a
predictor of intentions to persist among African American and White
first-year college students. Research in Higher Education, 48, 803-839.
Jo, I., & Milson, A.J. (2013). College readiness for geography: Perceptions of
high school teachers and college faculty. Journal of Geography,
112(5), 193-204.
Lehmann, W. (2007). “I just didn’t feel like I fit in:” The role of habitus in
university drop-out decisions. Canadian Journal of Higher Education,
37(2), 89-110.
Massey, D. (1994). A global sense of place. In D. Massey (ed.). Space, place
and gender (pp. 146-156). Cambridge: Polity Press.
Massey, D. (2005). For space. London: Sage Publications Ltd.
McInerney, P., Smyth, J., & Down, B. (2011). ‘Coming to a place near you?’
The politics and possibilities of a critical pedagogy of place-based
education. Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 39(1), 3-16.
Mezirow, J., & Taylor, E. W. (Eds.). (2011). Transformative learning in
practice: Insights from community, workplace, and higher education.
San Francisco: John Wiley & Sons.
O'Keeffe, P. (2013). A sense of belonging: Improving student retention. College
Student Journal, 47(4), 605-613.
Pascarella, E.T., & Terenzini, P.T. (2005). How college affects students: A third
decade of research. Volume 2. Indianapolis: Jossey-Bass, An Imprint
of Wiley.
Peters, R. S. (1966). Ethics and education. London: George Allen and Unwin.
Rawding, C. (2010). What are the connections between subject developments in
academic and school geography?. International Research in
Geographical and Environmental Education, 19(2), 119-125.
Rule, P.N. (2015). Dialogue and boundary learning. Boston: Sense Publishers.
Soria, K. M. & Stebleton, M. J. (2012). First-generation students' academic
engagement and retention. Teaching in Higher Education, 17(6), 673-
685.
Stannard, K. (2003). Earth to academia: On the need to reconnect university and
school geography, Area, 35, 316-322.
Stephens, N.M., Hamedani, M.G., & Destin, M. (2014). Closing the social-class
achievement gap: A difference-education intervention improves first-
generation students’ academic performance and all students’ college
transition. Psychological Science, 25(4), 943-953.
 Centering Students’ Cultural Geographies 25

Wells, G. (1999). Dialogic inquiry: Towards a sociocultural practice and theory

of education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Winders, J. (2014). From journals to classrooms: Theory and teaching in
Cultural Geography. Journal of Cultural Geography, 31(2), 230-244.

Erin DeMuynck is an Assistant Professor of Geography at the University of

Wisconsin Oshkosh – Fox Cities Campus. Her recent book is Farmers’ Markets
in the Green Entrepreneurial City: From Urban Redevelopment Planning to
Lifestyle Activism.