Rethinking Map Literacy

This book provides two conceptual frameworks for further investigation of map literacy and fills in a gap in map literacy studies, addressing the distinction between reference maps and thematic maps and the varying uses of quantitative map literacy (QML) within and between the two. The text offers two conceptual frameworks and uses specific map examples to explore this variability in map reading skills and knowledge, with the goal of informing educational pedagogy and practices within geography and related disciplines. The book will appeal to cartographers and geographers as a new perspective on a tool of communication they have long employed in their disciplines, and will also appeal to those involved in the educational pedagogy of information and data literacy as a way to conceptualize the development of curricula and teaching materials in the increasingly important arena of the interplay between quantitative data and map-based graphics. The first framework discussed is based on a three-set Venn model, and addresses the content and relationships of three “literacies” – map literacy, quantitative literacy and background information. As part of this framework, the field of QML is introduced, conceptualized, and defined as the knowledge (concepts, skills and facts) required to accurately read, use, interpret and understand the quantitative information embedded in geographic backgrounds. The second framework is of a compositional triangle based on (1) the ratio of reference to thematic map purpose and (2) the level of generalization and/or distortion within maps. In combination, these two parameters allow for any type of map to be located within the triangle as a prelude to considering the type and level of quantitative literacy that comes into play during map reading. Based on the two frameworks mentioned above, the pedagogical tool of “word problems” is applied to “map literacy” in an innovative way to explore the variability of map reading skills and knowledge based on specific map examples.

A contemporary follow-up to the groundbreaking Power of Maps, this book takes a fresh look at what maps do, whose interests they serve, and how they can be used in surprising, creative, and radical ways. Denis Wood describes how cartography facilitated the rise of the modern state and how maps continue to embody and project the interests of their creators. He demystifies the hidden assumptions of map making and explores the promises and limitations of diverse counter-mapping practices today. Thought-provoking illustrations include U.S. Geological Survey maps; electoral and transportation maps; and numerous examples of critical cartography, participatory GIS, and map art. The book will be important reading for geographers and others interested in maps and their political uses. It will also serve as a supplemental text in advanced undergraduate- and graduate-level courses such as Cartography, GIS, Geographic Thought, and History of Geography.

Maps are changing. They have become important and fashionable once more. Rethinking Maps brings together leading researchers to explore how maps are being rethought, made and used, and what these changes mean for working cartographers, applied mapping research, and cartographic scholarship. It offers a contemporary assessment of the diverse forms that mapping now takes and, drawing upon a number of theoretic perspectives and disciplines, provides an insightful commentary on new ontological and epistemological thinking with respect to cartography. This book presents a diverse set of approaches to a wide range of map forms and activities in what is presently a rapidly changing field. It employs a multi-disciplinary approach to important contemporary mapping practices, with chapters written by leading theorists who have an international reputation for innovative thinking. Much of the new research around mapping is emerging as critical dialogue between practice and theory and this book has chapters focused on intersections with play, race and cinema. Other chapters discuss cartographic representation, sustainable mapping and visual geographies. It also considers how alternative models of map creation and use such as open-source mappings and map mash-up are being creatively explored by programmers, artists and activists. There is also an examination of the work of various ‘everyday mappers’ in diverse social and cultural contexts. This blend of conceptual chapters and theoretically directed case studies provides an excellent resource suited to a broad spectrum of researchers, advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students in human geography, GIScience and cartography, visual anthropology, media studies, graphic design and computer graphics. Rethinking Maps is a necessary and significant text for all those studying or having an interest in cartography.

Rethinking Maps brings together leading researchers to explore how maps are being rethought, made and used, and what these changes mean.

In this unique collection, more than 30 articles show how to weave social justice issues throughout the mathematics curriculum, as well as how to integrate mathematics into other curricular areas. Rethinking Mathematics offers teaching ideas, lesson plans, and reflections by practitioners and mathematics educators. This is real-world math-math that helps students analyze problems as they gain essential academic skills. This book offers hope and guidance for teachers to enliven and strengthen their math teaching. It will deepen students' understanding of society and help prepare them to be critical, active participants in a democracy. Blending theory and practice, this is the only resource of its kind.

This is a unique and exciting book that challenges traditional conceptions of middle years provision. It should be read by policy-makers, educators and researchers alike.' Jackie Marsh, University of Sheffield Carrington's analysis of contemporary youth and the lives that they bring to school is significant. This stage of education is fundamental to understanding how we might engage learners, and her sensitive and insightful analysis makes a major contribution to our understandings about how these years resonate with their needs and interests.' Professor Nicola Yelland, Victoria University Despite two decades of research and reform, schools across the Western world still struggle to engage their students in the middle years. But does this mean there is a youth crisis? And what do technology and risk have to do with it? Victoria Carrington argues for the need to move beyond developmentally based models to see middle years pedagogy in historical, social, economic and political contexts. Setting research from Australia alongside international experience, she emphasises the importance of understanding the risk society, and young peoples' immersion in digital technologies and consumer culture. She shows how teachers and schools can use this understanding to work more effectively with early adolescents, and how policy-makers and education leaders could reshape the middle years reform agenda to improve professional practice and student outcomes.

This book revisits key social issues and controversies in education. There are many social issues currently on political and governmental agendas, both in the UK and other countries – from safeguarding, childhood obesity, bullying and mental health, through to widening participation. Some of these issues relate to children and young people and are of concern to those working and researching in education, while others relate to Higher Education. The boundaries between the academic disciplines of politics, sociology, economics, psychology and education are porous. The contributions here illustrate how common interests and collaboration can assist in our understanding of complex social issues, the evaluation of current governmental responses, and the promotion of ideas about the way forward into the 21st century.

This edited collection provides an introduction to the emerging interdisciplinary field of cultural mapping, offering a range of perspectives that are international in scope. Cultural mapping is a mode of inquiry and a methodological tool in urban planning, cultural sustainability, and community development that makes visible the ways local stories, practices, relationships, memories, and rituals constitute places as meaningful locations. The chapters address themes, processes, approaches, and research methodologies drawn from examples in Australia, Canada, Estonia, the United Kingdom, Egypt, Italy, Malaysia, Malta, Palestine, Portugal, Singapore, Sweden, Syria, the United Arab Emirates, the United States, and Ukraine. Contributors explore innovative ways to encourage urban and cultural planning, community development, artistic intervention, and public participation in cultural mapping—recognizing that public involvement and artistic practices introduce a range of challenges spanning various phases of the research process, from the gathering of data, to interpreting data, to presenting "findings" to a broad range of audiences. The book responds to the need for histories and case studies of cultural mapping that are globally distributed and that situate the practice locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally.