This doctoral thesis is concerned with how upper secondary students in Sweden develop system geographical knowing through Geography teaching, where complex issues such as climate change are dealt with. In many countries, these issues are particularly relevant for the school subject of Geography since the subject is responsible for issues that involve system changes. These issues involve a complex web of aspects and dimensions so it is challenging for students to develop indepth holistic understandings. Commonly, students are left alone to synthesise the various parts into a whole. Systems thinking is suggested as an approach to dealing with these challenges, but there is little research on what such thinking implies in Geography teaching, or what students need to experience to develop this knowing. This educational design study departs from practice theory to explore and broaden systems thinking in Geography teaching by introducing a model task with connection web models that combine system dynamic causality, soft systems thinking, and spatial dimensions in a new way. The model task was developed and tested empirically in two upper secondary schools in Sweden. Research data consist of interviews and recordings of the students’ work with connection web models as a way of exploring complex issues. Findings from the study are presented in four peer-reviewed articles that together answer the two research questions: i) what does it mean to become system geographically knowledgeable when managing complex geographical issues? and ii) how can Geography teaching be designed to develop students’ system geographical knowing? 

Article I proposes a subject didactic model where the systems concept and other geographical concepts were used as organising tools to design Geography teaching. The model was developed in collaboration with Geography teachers and was used for designing the teaching interventions in the present study. Article II contributes findings from a series of lessons where the connection web model was introduced and presents four qualitatively different aspects of knowing that are critical for students to be able to use the model. For instance, being able to discern different causal characters of connections, to use place and scale as analytical tools, and to interpret the holistic pattern of interwoven connections. Article III analyses three different teaching designs and presents four design principles that teachers can use to support the development of the students’ system geographical knowing and overcome challenges that have been identified. Article IV presents findings about how the students experience the phenomenon of using the connection web models as a way of managing complex issues. Three different ways of experiencing the phenomenon are presented as well as critical aspects that students need to experience to qualify their knowing. 

This doctoral thesis broadens the view on what systems thinking can mean in the integrated and spatial school subject of Geography and contributes didactic models for teachers and researchers to use to develop the students’ knowing. The study argues that system geographical knowing is relevant for students to better understand complex issues concerning system changes. Finally, it is argued that connection web models have the potential to function as learning models if the model work is considered as a long-term process.

The school subject of Geography deals with complex issues that involve changes of the Earth systems that human systems are depending of, such as climate change and related key sustainability issues. The subject content requires an understanding of complex multicausal and dynamic relationships between nature, people and societies and span over large temporal and spatial scales. A systems approach has been suggested as a way of dealing with this complexity. This article reports from a design study that examines how different factors in Geography teaching can enable or impede, different aspects of upper secondary students' systems geographical knowing. Furthermore, the article discusses how this knowing can also be seen as aspects of critical thinking in geography. The teaching intervention used a specifically designed system geographical connection model. The purpose of the article is to contribute with four tentative design principles that aim to provide teaching conditions for students to: I) experience the idea of a complex issue in terms of a specific system, II) test and use system geographical concepts for constructing the system, III) examine and anchor the constructed system in place-specific contexts and IV) synthesise, interpret and evaluate consequences based on different perspectives in order to develop critical thinking. With these principles the article contributes with knowledge that teachers can use to organise geography teaching around sustainability issues and discuss how system aspects can contribute to critical thinking in geography. 

This article explores system geographical webbing, i.e., to use a specific connection web to analyze sustainability issues, as an object of knowing in upper secondary Geography teaching. A model task was developed based on systems principles and geographical concepts. Empirical data consists of teaching interventions aimed at encouraging students to perform webbing actions and to construct geographical relationships of sustainability issues. The article describes aspects of the geographical knowing needed for using a connection web and its embedded tools to explore sus- tainability issues. Finally, the article suggests avenues for teachers to support system geographical knowing development. 

Este artículo explora el sistema de redes geográficas, es decir, utilizar una red de conexión específica para analizar cuestiones de sostenibilidad, como un objeto de conocimiento en la enseñanza de la Geografía en el bachillerato. Se desarrolló una tarea modelo basada en principios de sistemas y conceptos geográficos. Los datos empíricos consisten en intervenciones didácticas destinadas a incentivar a los estudiantes a realizar acciones de tejido y a construir relaciones geográficas de temas de sostenibilidad. El artículo describe aspectos del conocimiento geográfico necesario para usar una red de conexión y sus herramientas integradas para explorar temas de sostenibilidad. Finalmente, el artículo sugiere vías para que los maestros apoyen el desarrollo del conocimiento geográfico del sistema. 

This article presents a model for organising geographical concepts that aims to support teachers’ choices of what to teach and how to organise a cohesive and appropriate teaching plan for school geography. The model is a result of a collaborative research process between researchers and Swedish teachers. The purpose was to explore how the core concepts of geography, which are implicit in the Swedish syllabus (Örbring, 2017), can be used in teaching as powerful tools for learning (Brooks, 2018) and to develop epistemic teaching practices for school geography to counterbalance the traditional focus on content (Eriksson and Lindberg, 2016; Knorr-Cetina, 1999). During professional development seminars, teachers’ experiences were linked to procedural concepts in geography (i.e. concepts that mediate specific geographical ways of thinking and doing (Lambert, 2011)), used at an organisational level in line with models introduced by Taylor (2008). This article describes a model that integrates geographical concepts and suggests how they could be used as tools in relation to each other as well as to specific content. Here, we present the considerations behind the structure and functions of the model, and teachers’ reflections on producing and using it in class as a way to develop students’ geographical knowing.

For almost a decade there has been an ongoing discussion about the question of powerful knowledge in geography education (Lambert, 2011; Roberts, 2015; Maude, 2017; Taylor, 2018) and there are several conceptual models trying to describe what might be considered powerful knowledge in a school context. However, these models have mainly addressed philosophical, epistemological and pedagogical issues in its focus on (a) the characteristics of powerful knowledge, and (b) what kind of power does it give those who possess it. Building upon the extensive work made in history education (Lee, 2005; Seixas & Morton, 2013) this paper suggests a shift in focus towards a conceptual model describing knowledge as first and second order concepts. The argument is that powerful geographical knowledge as geocapabilities mainly can be understood from the second order level and that these can be useful for teachers in order to make tacit knowledge more explicit in learning activities. Departing from the discussions in geography education, a framework of six geographical thinking concepts are suggested.

This study examines Swedish students’ understanding of migration in the aftermath of the European “refugee crisis” and discusses what subject resources geography education might contribute with in order to understand global migration. Previous research on young people’s knowledge on migration is limited, but studies show that students are strongly influenced by media reporting which they internalise with own lived experiences. The data consist of 51 accounts on global migration and demonstrate a narrative of migrants as refugees. Departing from Michael Young’s (2013) concept of “powerful knowledge” we discuss how geographical thinking might advance students’ understanding beyond their everyday experience. The contribution is twofold: it gives educational insight into young people’s understanding on migration and discusses the possibilities of subject resources.

Vi sägs leva i antropocen - människans tid. Mänskliga aktiviteter har fått följdverkningar i form av försurade hav, förändrade biokemiska flöden och klimatförändringar, vilket väcker viktiga frågor om planetens gränser (Steffen et. al., 2015). Som undervisningsfråga är klimatförändringar inte nödvändigtvis en kontroversiell fråga. Vetenskapssamhället är överens om att människan orsakar de stora förändringarna (Hess, 2009, ss. 117-122; jfr. Steffen et. al., 2011). Det kontroversiella ligger snarare i hur klimatförändringarna ska hanteras, vilket kräver såväl tekniska som sociala, politiska och ekonomiska åtgärder. I lösningarna ryms även värdefrågor och ställningstaganden. Litteraturen beskriver klimatförändringarna som ett så kallat “wicked problem”. Det vill säga en komplex fråga där behovet av lösningar är akuta; där aktörerna som söker lösningar bidragit till att ge upphov till dem; och där det saknas en central auktoritet som kan leda arbetet framåt (Brown et al., 2010; Levin et. al., 2012). I undervisningen behöver sådana frågor studeras tvärvetenskapligt för att hantera både den faktiska och den normativa dimensionen. Tidigare forskning har visat på spänningar mellan dessa dimensioner i elevernas förståelse av klimatfrågan (Sternäng & Lundholm, 2011; Rickinson, Lundholm, and Hopwood, 2009; Kramming, 2017), men diskuterar i mindre utsträckning hur slutsatserna kan användas för att designa undervisning. Denna artikel undersöker elevers (n=72) förståelse av orsaker och konsekvenser av klimatförändringarna före undervisningen och diskuterar viktiga designprinciper för hur en tvärvetenskaplig undervisning om klimatfrågan skulle kunna se ut. Elevernas förförståelse undersöktes genom ett skriftligt förtest som omfattade frågor omorsaker till klimatförändringarna, dess konsekvenser och argument för olika lösningar avklimatfrågan. Elevsvaren har analyserats kvalitativt med fenomenografi (Marton, 2015). Elevernas svar visar på såväl ideologiska och normativa förståelser som faktisk vetenskapligförståelse av klimatproblematiken. Resultatet kommer att användas för att designa en tvärvetenskaplig undervisning som syftar till att utveckla elevernas kunnande och handlingskompetens.