THE CONTINUING MISMATCH BETWEEN STUDENTS UNDERGRADUATE EXPERIENCES AND THE TEACHING DEMANDS OF THE GEOGRAPHY CLASSROOM - EXPERIENCE OF PRESERVICE SECONDARY GEOGRAPHY TEACHERS

Reforms to the structure of the education system of England and Wales in recent years, notably the introduction of a National Curriculum fol lowing the Education Reform Act of 1988, have tended to reinforce the subject-based arrangements of the school curriculum Moves to establish initial teacher training in a competence-based model have also emphas ised the importance of good 'subject knowledge' as a requirement of ef fective teachers. Increasingly influential research in school improvem ent and effectiveness has also pointed to the significance of sound ac ademic knowledge and goals as a condition for school and departmental effectiveness and improvement. It follows, therefore, that the subject knowledge of beginning teachers is of special interest to those invol ved in the initial training of teachers. This is particularly the case in a system such as exists in the UK where the current mode of traini ng of secondary teachers is via the Post Graduate Certificate in Educa tion (PGCE), a system which assumes competence in 'subject knowledge' (to a greater or lesser extent). This paper reports a small-scale stud y designed to investigate the nature of this concern from a sample of geography PGCE students (1994-5) at the University of London Institute of Education (ULIE). In addition to elucidating the nature of subject knowledge which PGCE recruits bring to their training, it seeks to id entify some of the implications of perceived subject knowledge 'gaps' or, in the authors' terms, defects in students' own feelings of compet ence'.