Waving, not drowning - Geography - Challenges and opportunities

There are clear signs that geography is losing ground in schools in England and Wales, and that it is becoming a less popular subject in higher education. While this is a relatively new phenomenon, it has links with geography's perennial concern to justify itself as a 'serious' academic subject. This article seeks to address the resulting identity crisis, arguing that geography can be both intellectually stimulattng and popular; indeed that it must be both, or neither. Geography is needed now more than ever in a globalised world, and we have a responsibility to proclaim our subject's vital contribution to education. Three aspects of our subject make it distinctive: the synthetic approach, or the big picture; the stress on autopsy - seeing for oneself - through fieldwork; and the claim to a unique relevance, both to the essential intellectual equipment of a citizen, and to employability in today's flexible labour market. One major factor in the present crisis, and a potential way out of it, is the relationship between higher education and the school sector.