Ethics, Geography and Responsible Citizenship

ABSTRACT
Responsible citizenship requires moral accountability. Geography educators need to give greater attention to the teaching of professional ethics as part of our contribution to the education of responsible citizens. The paper introduces an approach which couples the case method with a jurisprudential inquiry model as a means by which geography teachers might contribute effectively to this education. The approach requires students to review a case involving an ethical dilemma, assess it against relevant normative ethical theory and social standards, and. make the best possible decision about the dilemma which they can defend coherently in public.

KEYWORDS
Ethics, geography, citizenship, case method, jurisprudential inquiry.

Teaching 'Transition' in Central and Eastern Europe through Fieldwork

ABSTRACT
Since 1989 the former communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe have been in a state of transition to a market economy and pluralist democracy. However despite the increasing academic interest in the region teaching about transition to undergraduates is a subject which has received little attention. This paper identifies some of the particular challenges and problems of teaching about transition in post-communist countries particularly the lack of awareness of the region's communist past among many students. It also reports the development of a module designed to teach about transition in Romania primarily through fieldwork. The content of the module and examples of teaching activities are presented.

KEYWORDS
Central and Eastern Europe, transition, Romania, fieldwork.

Raising Awareness of Local Agenda 21: the use of Internet resources

ABSTRACT
Seminar discussions and Internet resources were used to stimulate debate and enhance second-year undergraduate students' understanding of Local Agenda 21. Emphasis was placed on exploring local authorities' Local Agenda 2I strategies and examining how these were being implemented and monitored. In order to obtain a selection of strategies from different authorities the students used material published on Worldwide Web sites. Prior to the module less than 10 per cent of the students had heard of Local Agenda 21 and they all felt that they should have done, either through formal education or through the media. The use of the Internet allowed quick and easy access to a number of different authorities' strategies and most of the students felt encouraged to use it as a resource to support other courses.

KEYWORDS
Local Agenda 21, Agenda 21, Internet resources, environmental education.

Integrating World-views and the News Media into a Regional Geography Course

ABSTRACT
Using Africa for the regional context, this article presents an instructional strategy for improving students' awareness of African world-views and the news media's coverage of the continent. After studying about African world-views and the media's representation of Africa, students use a research/writing project to evaluate the media's inclusion of world-views in the coverage of selected African events. The research/writing project helps students to become more inclusive in their awareness of cultures and to develop writing skills and electronic network research skills.

KEYWORDS
African world-views, media, reporting, cognitive skills, electronic networks, transferable skills.

Antecedents to Empowerment: a preliminary investigation

ABSTRACT
In the geographical literature very little attention has been given to the perceptions, aspirations or cognitive state of new undergraduate students. This paper addresses the issue of antecedents to empowerment, the contention being that empowerment and student autonomy correlate strongly with self-confidence and that this needs to be enhanced through the acquisition of enabling skills. Analysis of a questionnaire survey suggests that many students are enthusiastic, well motivated, keen to do well and aware of the importance of developing their skills. Others lack self-confidence and are ambivalent about becoming autonomous individuals, showing a marked disinclination towards participatory decision-making and independent learning. A gender bias is revealed with females, 73 per cent of whom were under 21 years of age, significantly less confident than males, yet more likely to prioritise a need to become more autonomous.

KEYWORDS
Empowerment, gender, information technology, key skills, self-confidence, undergraduates.

Postgraduate Education for Human Geography in The Netherlands: some comparisons with the UK

ABSTRACT
Prompted by discussion in an Arena Symposium in JGHE, this paper compares postgraduate education for human geographers-particularly on doctoral programmes-in The Netherlands with that in the UK. It is clear that there are some similarities in the restructuring of postgraduate education which has occurred in the two countries. However, individual doctoral students in The Netherlands appear to have much better financial and contractual conditions than their UK counterparts. Using the example of The Netherlands Graduate School of Housing and Urban Research (NETHUR), research training programmes for postgraduate research students are discussed, and some of the issues associated with comparability of provision are raised.

KEYWORDS
Postgraduate education, The Netherlands, national education policies, international comparison.

The Geography Discipline Network would also like to thank Taylor & Francis Ltd for permission to reproduce abstracts from the Journal of Geography in Higher Education