Geography Education Research: Top Picks Compared

Geography education research draws on at least four types of publications and resources—peer-reviewed journals, open access repositories, professional-body guidance, and special research groups—each serving university lecturers, department heads, and doctoral students differently. Flagship titles such as the Journal of Geography in Higher Education (founded 1977) and International Research in Geographical and Environmental Education anchor a research community that has grown steadily across Europe and beyond.

• Four types of resources are most important for geography education research: peer-reviewed journals for publication and citation, open repositories for broad access to literature, professional-body guidance on methodology and ethics, and research groups for collaboration and networking.
• Tailor the resource to your task: Publishing, literature review, teaching innovation, and grant-writing require different starting points.
• European networks offer special added value: HERODOT and similar bodies connect geography educators across borders in a way that national journals and repositories cannot.
• Open access options are expanding, but prestige and indexing still vary significantly between titles; check the coverage in Scopus and Web of Science before committing.
• No single resource is enough: The strongest research practices combine journal literature, methodological guidance, and active community participation.

What Counts as Geography Education Research?

Geography education research examines how geography is taught, learned, assessed, and understood at all levels of education, from primary school to doctoral studies. Drawing on educational theory, cognitive science, curriculum studies, and geography’s own disciplinary traditions, the field produces work that is both theoretically sound and practically applicable.

Research in this area generally addresses questions such as: How do students develop spatial thinking? What role does fieldwork play in conceptual understanding? How should climate change be taught in an age of misinformation? How do national curricula differ and what can educators learn from international comparisons?

The field has matured considerably since the mid-twentieth century. Early work focused largely on curriculum content and teaching methods; contemporary scholarship engages with critical pedagogy, decolonisation of the curriculum, geospatial technologies, sustainability education, and the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL). This breadth means that geography education research now appears in general education journals as well as specialist geography titles.

The Four Main Resource Types Compared

Resource Type	Best For	Access Model	Typical Audience
Peer-reviewed journals	Publishing, citation, literature review	Subscription or hybrid OA	Researchers, PhD students
Open repositories	Broad literature discovery, grey literature	Free	Students, early-career researchers
Professional-body guidance	Methodology, ethics, funding advice	Free or member-only	Lecturers, teacher trainers
Research groups & networks	Collaboration, conferences, mentoring	Membership or free	All career stages

Each type carries trade-offs for geography education research. Journals offer rigour and prestige but can be slow to publish and expensive to access. Repositories democratise access but vary enormously in quality control. Professional guidance is practical and current but rarely peer-reviewed. Networks provide irreplaceable human connection but depend on active participation.

Peer-Reviewed Journals: The Core of the Literature

Peer-reviewed journals remain the primary venue for validated geography education research. Several titles dominate the field, each with distinct scope and audience.

Related: Collins School Atlas (KS3/GCSE editions) — The atlas most UK geography departments actually hand out.

The Journal of Geography in Higher Education (JGHE), published by Taylor & Francis, is the leading international journal focused specifically on the teaching and learning of tertiary geography. Its scope includes curriculum design, fieldwork pedagogy, innovation in assessments, and the internationalization of geography programs. JGHE is often the first point of contact for university lecturers and department heads, both for reading and publishing teaching-focused scholarship.

The International Research in Geographic and Environmental Education (IRGEE) covers geography and environmental education at all educational levels, with a strong international and comparative focus. IRGEE is particularly relevant for researchers working on sustainability education, environmental literacy, or cross-national curriculum comparison.

The Journal of Geography (also Taylor & Francis) serves a broader audience including school geography educators, publishing research with clear classroom applications. Geographical Education, the journal of the Australian Geography Teachers Association, and Teaching Geography, published by the UK’s Geographical Association, offer practitioner-oriented content that bridges research and classroom practice.

Where we would start: Silva Expedition 4 Compass & School Compass Sets — The fieldwork compass that survives a whole GCSE cohort.

Review of International Geographical Education Online (RIGEO) provides an open-access option with a genuinely international editorial board, useful for researchers who need visibility in regions where subscription access is limited.

A practical caveat: journal prestige varies by national research assessment frameworks. In the UK, REF panel criteria shape which outlets “count”; in Norway, Denmark, and Finland, national publication indicator systems do similar work. Lecturers should check their institution’s recognised outlet list before targeting a journal.

Open Repositories and Databases

Open repositories complement journals by widening access to the literature, including conference papers, theses, and working papers that never appear in indexed journals.

Academia.edu hosts a substantial collection of geography education documents uploaded by researchers themselves. Its strength is discoverability of otherwise hard-to-find work; its weakness is the absence of systematic peer review. Treat it as a discovery tool, not a quality filter.

ScienceDirect’s topic pages aggregate peer-reviewed articles on geography education from Elsevier’s portfolio, offering structured overviews with citation metrics. These pages are useful for rapid orientation but reflect one publisher’s holdings rather than the whole field.

ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), maintained by the U.S. Department of Education, remains the most comprehensive free database for geography education research, including education research in general. Scopus and Web of Science provide citation tracking and journal quality indicators, though both are subscription-based.

Related: Etsy Geography Classroom Decor & Map Prints — Map posters and globe decor you will not find in a school catalogue.

Google Scholar deserves mention for its breadth and citation-chaining features, but its inclusion criteria are opaque. For systematic reviews, ERIC plus a subject-specific database such as Scopus is a more defensible combination.

Professional-Body Guidance and Support

Professional bodies translate research into practical guidance and set expectations for ethical, rigorous inquiry.

The Geographical Association (UK) publishes dedicated support and guidance for geography education research, covering research design, ethics, data handling, and dissemination. Its guidance is written for practitioners — teachers and lecturers — rather than full-time researchers, making it unusually accessible.

Our pick: Twinkl Geography (Primary & Secondary) — Ready-made geography lessons when planning time runs out.

The American Association of Geographers (AAG) maintains a Geography Education Specialty Group that connects researchers from across North America and beyond, hosts sessions at annual meetings, and distributes calls for papers.

Eurogeo and the International Geographical Union’s Commission on Geographical Education (IGU-CGE) provide international frameworks, including the International Charter on Geographical Education, which has shaped curriculum thinking worldwide since its first version in 1992. The Charter is a foundational document for anyone researching curriculum internationalisation.

HERODOT, the pan-European network for geography in higher education, connects lecturers, department heads, and researchers across European institutions. Its conferences and working groups offer a route into collaborative projects and comparative research that single-institution studies cannot achieve.

The Geography Education Research Community: Groups and Networks

The geography education research community operates through formal associations, informal networks, and conference circuits. Understanding these structures matters for PhD students seeking supervisors, early-career researchers building profiles, and department heads looking for external collaborators.

The Geography Education Research Group (GeogEd RG), affiliated with the Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers), is one of the most active national groups. It organizes regular events, maintains a mailing list, and supports early-career researchers through mentoring and writing workshops.

The National Council for Geographic Education (NCGE) of the United States, the European Association of Geographers (EUROGEO) and the IGU-CGE hold conferences every two years or annually at which geography education research is presented and discussed. Participating in a conference is still the fastest way for newcomers to enter the community.

A practical consideration: community participation is unevenly distributed. Researchers in well-resourced institutions with travel funding can attend international conferences regularly; others rely on virtual participation, which expanded significantly after 2020 and has not fully receded. Networks that maintain hybrid options are more genuinely inclusive.

How to Choose: A Decision Framework

Selecting the right resource depends on your immediate task. The following criteria list offers a practical sequence.

1. Define your purpose. Publishing, literature review, teaching innovation, and grant applications each prioritise different resources.
2. Check institutional requirements. National research assessment frameworks and promotion criteria may specify recognised outlets.
3. Assess access. If your library lacks a subscription, prioritise open-access journals and repositories.
4. Verify indexing. Scopus and Web of Science coverage signals quality control, though it excludes some regionally important titles.
5. Engage the community. Join at least one research group relevant to your work; the informal knowledge gained often exceeds what any database provides.
6. Balance prestige and fit. A well-matched specialist journal may serve your work better than a general title with a higher impact factor.

Caveats and Common Pitfalls

Several traps recur in geography education research practice. Over-reliance on a single database produces skewed literature reviews; ERIC, Scopus, and Google Scholar return different results for the same query. Ignoring non-English literature narrows the evidence base unnecessarily, particularly given strong research traditions in German, Nordic, and Iberian geography education. Confusing practitioner guidance with peer-reviewed evidence can weaken grant applications and journal submissions. Neglecting ethical approval processes for research involving students or schools is a frequent and avoidable problem.

Finally, the field’s interdisciplinary position — between geography and education — means researchers must sometimes explain their work to two audiences with different expectations. Framing studies to speak to both disciplinary and educational concerns strengthens impact but requires deliberate effort.

Sources & Further Reading

• Educational research — Wikipedia: Educational research refers to the systematic collection and analysis of evidence and data related to the field of education. Research may involve a variety of methods…

Frequently Asked Questions

What is geography education research?

Geography education research is the systematic study of how geography is taught, learned, and assessed across educational levels. It draws on education theory, cognitive science, and geography’s disciplinary traditions to address questions about curriculum, pedagogy, fieldwork, spatial thinking, and sustainability education. The field publishes in specialist journals such as the Journal of Geography in Higher Education and the International Research in Geographical and Environmental Education.

Which journals are best for publishing geography education research?

The Journal of Geography in Higher Education is the leading outlet for tertiary teaching and learning research, while International Research in Geographical and Environmental Education covers all levels with a comparative focus. Journal of Geography, Geographical Education, and RIGEO serve different audiences and access models. The best choice depends on your topic, audience, and institutional requirements.

How do I join the geography education research community?

Joining usually involves membership in a professional association such as the Geographical Association, the American Association of Geographers, EUROGEO, or the IGU Commission on Geographical Education. Specialist groups such as the Geography Education Research Group in the UK offer events, mentoring and mailing lists. Attending a conference is still the fastest way to network.

Is geography education research open access?

Access varies depending on the outlet. RIGEO is fully open access, while most mainstream journals use hybrid models where individual articles can be free to read. Repositories such as ERIC and Academia.edu offer free access to a wide range of materials, but quality control differs from that of peer-reviewed journals. Always check a journal’s access policies before submitting.

What support exists for new geography education researchers?

Professional bodies provide substantial support. The Geographical Association publishes guidance on research design, ethics, and dissemination aimed at practitioners. The Geography Education Research Group runs writing workshops and mentoring for early-career researchers. University teaching and learning centres often provide additional methodological training and small grants.

How does geography education research differ from general education research?

Geography education research is distinguished by its disciplinary grounding — it engages with geographical concepts such as place, scale, spatial thinking, and human-environment interaction. This gives it a subject-specific focus that general education research often lacks. However, it shares methodologies, theoretical frameworks, and publication venues with the broader education research field.

P.S. A few readers have asked which lesson resources we actually reach for — it's Twinkl Geography (Primary & Secondary); take a look here if you want the current details.