Mosher study to examine pathways to geography education
Anne Mosher, associate professor of geography and chair of
the Citizenship and Civic Engagement (CCE) dual degree program at the Maxwell
School, has been awarded a $20,000 research grant by the
National Center for Research in Geography Education (NCRGE) for her study
“Minding the Gap, Tending the Bridge,” examining pathways to college and
careers for students who express an interest in geography. The NCRGE research
coordination network is supported by a grant from the National Science
Foundation’s Geography and Spatial Science program (NSF Award BCS-1560862).
The study — led by Mosher in collaboration with Jamie
Winders, professor and chair of geography, and Amy Lutz, associate professor of
sociology — will utilize focus groups and interviews with high school guidance
counselors, college admissions representatives, and college general advising
staff in three different states to identify difficulties that students,
particularly young women and other underrepresented groups, face in continuing
their studies of geography in college. By opening a line of research focused on
non-instructional personnel, this group hopes to develop a new collaborative
methodology for investigating the information provided to students on choices
of college to attend, careers to target, specific courses to take, and majors
to declare. Having such information is critical to implementing strategies
aimed at escorting a more diverse and inclusive flow of students from high
school to college.
“Geography educators at all levels across the United States
have done a lot over the past 20 years to enhance geography education in the
K-12 social studies curriculum, but we aren’t seeing large, corresponding,
across-the-board increases that we had hoped for in college-level geography
course enrollment and major declarations nationwide,” says Mosher. “In
particular, we don’t see rising numbers of women and students of color. Our
goal is to figure out if we can enlist student support service professionals to
help communicate the value of geography and geospatial technologies in ways
that will resonate with a more diverse array of high school and beginning
college students.”
This grant is one of three new projects approved under the
Transformative Research grant program of the NCRGE, a research consortium
headquartered at the American Association of Geographers (AAG) and Texas State
University. Grantees will present the
results of their projects in a special symposium planned for the 2018 AAG
Annual Meeting in New Orleans.
Read more about this initiative at
http://www.ncrge.org/ncrge-announces-new-grants-for-transformative-research/.
07/06/17