Please Miss, why
are they so poor?
Stephen Scoffham and Cathy Potter
The requirement to study distant
places is perhaps one of the most
problematic areas of the primary
school curriculum. It raises questions
about stereotypes and prejudices, it
taps into our historical perceptions and
it challenges us to clarify our own
attitudes and values. Given the fact
that there are so many potential
pitfalls it is surprising that there is so
little official guidance in this area of
the curriculum. There is also a dearth
of recent research. This article, which
is based on a student study
undertaken by Cathy Potter,
seeks to open up the debate.
How do pupils learn about distant places?
What frames of reference do they draw on
as they form their images? And what
teaching strategies are likely to be most
effective? This study, undertaken in a
predominately affluent, white, middle-class
school, explores how a class of year 1 and 2
pupils developed their ideas about Mexico
and Tocuaro over a series of four lessons.
Previous research
Although there is no clear consensus, a
number of studies have illuminated our
understanding of how pupils form their
ideas about distant places. The following
seem particularly relevant:
■ Pupils appear to develop attitudes to
other people and countries before they
have any appreciable knowledge of
them. In other words, they repeat
opinions they have gleaned from others
without question or criticism, in the same
way as they repeat factual knowledge
(Weldon, 2004; Wiegand, 1992).
■ Pupils who have been abroad seem
more likely to have positive images of
other people and places than those
who have not (Wiegand, 1991). Direct
contact with people from overseas and
school linking can also be effective
ways of developing international
© Primary Geographer Spring 2007
Photo 1: Younger pupils are more likely to have stereotypical, superficial ideas about
people from other countries.
understanding (Disney, 2004; see also
pages 16-18 this issue).
■ A number of studies indicate that
pupils prefer countries that they
perceive as being similar to their own.
Thus, providing pupils with accurate
information may not necessarily lead
them to develop positive attitudes
towards a country and its people
(Palmer, 1994).
■ There is tentative evidence that the
presence of pupils from ethnic minority
backgrounds has a beneficial impact in
moderating the perceptions held by
the rest of the class about distant
places (Dean, 2006).
■ There are suggestions that pupils’ ideas
about the wider world depend on their
developmental stage. Aboud (1988)
argues that between the ages of four
and seven children are strongly
egocentric and liable to make
superficial judgements based on
appearances (Photo 1). As they grow
older, they begin to think cognitively.
Graham and Lynn (1989) speculate
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that children pass through a stage
when they relish stories about hunters
and life in prehistoric times and that
this colours their understanding.
■ By the time they reach secondary
school age, children tend to become
less receptive to foreigners and other
peoples and cultures. It seems that as
their attitudes harden they are more
liable to screen out information and
ideas which fail to conform to their
established images (Scoffham, 1999).
The research method
The research centred on a short
programme of four lessons about Mexico
and Tocuaro. Initially the pupils located
Mexico using atlases and Google Earth
software. This was followed by a discussion
about their images of Mexico and an
exercise to draw pictures for a class map.
A visit by a native Mexican, who was
currently working as a scientist for a local
multi-national company, formed the core
of the project. Photographs from Tocuaro:
A Mexican Village (Bunce et al., 1998)
provided further evidence of daily life. In
advance of the visit the pupils spent a
considerable amount of time framing the
questions they wanted to ask. Afterwards
they wrote about what they had learnt.
Evidence for the pupils’ perceptions
was obtained in a variety of ways in order
to validate the findings. Transcripts of
group and individual conversations were
a key element. The pupils also made
drawings and composed mind maps.
A sorting exercise in which pupils decided
which statements described or did not
describe Mexico served as an assessment
at the end of the project.
Teacher
Has anyone heard of Mexico?
Pupil 1
It’s a place.
Teacher
It’s a place, it’s a country …
Pupil 2
There’s all wooden houses and all forest and mountains and a river which
goes through all rocks and goes down a river and then I think went to an
old shop where its just no doors and its just, you just go in and just pay
and just go to another shop and just go.
Teacher
Has anyone got a picture in their head of what Mexico is like?
Pupil 3
It’s got mountains.
Pupil 4
It’s got like skyscrapers.
Pupil 5
It’s got like flower necklaces.
Pupil 6
It’s very hot.
Figure 1: Transcript of the initial class discussion.
Findings
The themes which emerged from the
discussions reveal a great deal about the
pupils’ interests and perceptions. For
instance, many of them were keen to
volunteer ideas about the Mexican
landscape (Figure 1). Several of them made
drawings of the desert, clearly thinking
back to what they learnt about Egypt. One
pupil included ‘a wise man’, basing his
ideas on his knowledge of the nativity. Two
others produced drawings of volcanoes.
Interestingly, both these drawings also
included dinosaurs – images that are often
paired together in children’s books
When it came to discussing the people,
most of the pupils thought that Mexicans
would have brown skin. Images showing
Photo 2: Getting to grips with the architecture of Mexico.
pale people tended to be discounted..
‘Brown, they’re all brown’ Lucy declared,
while stroking her hands and face.
Buildings were another area of immediate
and sustained interest (Photo 2). Opinions
were divided as to whether Mexicans
would live in ‘proper houses’ or ‘wooden
structures with no doors’. Encouragingly,
one pupil suggested there would be a
difference between town and country.
However, another remarked (in a later
science lesson) that Mexicans wouldn’t
have electricity in their houses ‘because
they live in caves’.
The pupils all agreed that Mexicans
would speak a different language. ‘They
talk a bit different so they go blah, blah,
blah.’ Later, when the pupils heard a
Spanish song they all burst into laughter.
There was general agreement that
Mexicans were ‘poor people with raggy
clothes’. Most of the pupils seemed to find
the idea of Mexican food (even chocolate)
rather repulsive (Photo 3).
Reflections
On reflection, the visit by a ‘real live
Mexican’ who communicated easily with
the pupils and valued all their questions,
was hugely useful in helping pupils build
more balanced images of the country.
However, the perceptions they held before
the visit were quite firmly rooted. Rather
than being replaced, it seems these
perceptions were still maintained at the
end of the project in parallel with the new,
more balanced, notions.
One of the other challenges of
teaching about distant places is to have
sufficient knowledge to answer the pupils’
questions. Focussing on a named locality
such as Tocuaro helps to avoid
generalisations but there are many details
of everyday life which remain obscure.
Palmer (1994) points out that pupils’
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© Primary Geographer Spring 2007
and social traditions’ (Graves, 2002).
As we find ourselves being drawn into
the political arena it is natural to feel
uneasy about the dangers of bias and
indoctrination. One of the implications is
that we need to acknowledge, along with
Disney (2004), the importance of training
geography educators and giving them
guidance both at school and ITE level.
Ultimately, it is only by clarifying our own
attitudes and values that we are going to
able to respond adequately to one of the
most the fundamental questions which
pupils often ask about developing
countries: Please Miss, why are they so
poor?
References
Photo 3: Don’t knock it ’til you’ve tried it! Most pupils were dismissive of Mexican food.
misconceptions can be re-inforced through
a teacher’s ‘genuine ignorance of particular
facts or biased viewpoint’. Being aware of
these dangers is a useful starting point but
avoidance strategies can never be more
than a partial solution.
Surprisingly, there is relatively little
official guidance on teaching strategies for
distant place geography. The QCA
‘Innovating with Geography’ website is a
notable exception. It emphasises the
importance of investigating pupils’
stereotypes and perceptions before starting
work on a distant locality and concluding
with a brainstorm to see how their ideas
have changed. The QCA unit of work on
Tocuaro (QCA, 2000) makes no mention of
the need to challenge stereotypes. Nor
does it stress the importance of starting
from the similarities rather the differences
in people’s lives. However, an example of
how one school adapted Unit 22 to focus
on St Lucia (www.qca.org.uk/8965.html),
has addressed these criticisms. This
adapted unit also takes a skills-based,
rather than the usual content-based,
approach to planning and key questions.
Another striking observation is that
many of the pupils used ideas about the
past to inform their images of modern
Mexico. For example, there were references
to cave life, dinosaurs and Egyptian style
pyramids in both the drawings and the
discussion. These historical references are
likely to be re-inforced if pupils learn about
the bloody rituals and warfare
associated.with Aztec, Maya and Tula
civilisations.
Over the past few decades there has
been a lively debate about the notion of
‘otherness’. This has drawn attention to
the way we are influenced by a wider
© Primary Geographer Spring 2007
discourse which equates difference in
culture with distance in time. As Edward
Said (1994) has argued so convincingly,
European colonialism still casts a
considerable shadow over our own times,
colouring our perception of the world.
According to this interpretation, the more
‘different’ people are to ‘us’ the more they
are living in the past. Thus, when we
describe a place as ‘primitive’, ‘simple’
or even ‘basic’ we are tapping, either
consciously or unconsciously, into a whole
way of thinking about other people and
cultures.
Today pupils are constantly being
alerted to both real and imagined threats
from strangers and unfamiliar people
which encourage them to be wary of
‘others’. At the same time they are
exposed to films like Indiana Jones which
utilise images of ‘savages’ and ‘simple
primitives’ in portraying people of other
lands. Indeed, children’s films are a
veritable goldmine of the racist and
prejudiced stereotypes. Bias is a problem
that pervades the media, including
television transmissions. Over a decade ago
Siraj-Blatchford (1994) commented that
‘television… continues to promote racism,
and our pupils continue to absorb it’.
Nothing much has changed since then.
Ultimately we need to recognise that
distant place studies involve complex
political issues. Graves has pointed out
how the notion of ‘developing countries’,
which is fundamental to the structure of
the geography National Curriculum, raises
questions about poverty:
‘Economic poverty does not mean a
parallel poverty of culture, ideas, thought
or creativity. The so-called less developed
countries are rich in art, cultural expression
Aboud, F. (1988) Children and Prejudice.
Oxford: Blackwell.
Bunce, V., Gibbs, F., Morgan, W. and
Wakefield, D. (1998) Tocuaro: A Mexican
Village. Sheffield: Geographical
Association.
Dean, S. (2006) ‘Ethnic Diversity in the
Classroom’, Unpublished student study.
Canterbury: Canterbury Christ Church
University.
Disney, A. (2004) ‘Children’s Developing
Images and Representation of the School
Link Environment’ in Catling, S. and
Martin, F. (eds) Researching Primary
Geography. London: Research Register in
Primary Geography.
Graham, L. and Lynn, S. (1989) ‘Mud Huts
and Flints: Children’s images of the Third
World’, Education 3-13, 17, pp. 29-32.
Graves, J. (2002) ‘Developing a Global
Dimension in the Curriculum’, The
Curriculum Journal, 13, 3, pp. 303-11.
Palmer, J. (1994) Geography in the Early
Years. London: Routledge.
QCA (2000) A Scheme of Work for Key
Stages 1 and 2: Update. London: QCA.
Said, E. (1993) Culture and Imperialism.
London: Chatto and Windus.
Scoffham, S. (1999) ‘Young Children’s
Perceptions of the World’ in David, T.
(ed) Teaching Young Children. London:
Chapman.
Siraj-Blatchford, I. (1994) The Early Years:
Laying the Foundations for Racial
Equality. Staffordshire: Trentham Books.
Weldon, M. (2004) ‘The Wider World’ in
Scoffham, S. (ed) Primary Geography
Handbook. Sheffield: Geographical
Association, pp. 205-15.
Wiegand, P. (1991) ‘Does Travel Broaden
the Mind?’, Education 3-13, 39, pp.
54-8.
Wiegand, P. (1992) Places in the Primary
School. London: Falmer.
Stephen Scoffham is a Principal Lecturer in
the Faculty of Education Canterbury Christ
Church University. Cathy Potter, a former
Christ Church student, now teaches at
Barnes Primary School, Richmond.
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