Julia Klumparendt

Julia Klumparendt studied Geography and German Studies for secondary school teaching at the Goethe University Frankfurt. After her teaching internship at the ZfsL Bonn and several years of working as a teacher at Rodenkirchen High School in Cologne, she applied for a position in geography education at the Geographical Institute of the University of Bonn, where she has been teaching and researching since February 2023.

Due to her own extensive practical experience, it is particularly important to her to design her teaching in a way that it offers concrete practical references and experiences in order to make the geography teaching degree program as application-oriented as possible. She aims to encourage an intensive, critically-reflective examination of the educational significance of geography as a subject as well as didactic questions and concepts. Additionally, it is particularly important to her to open up spaces in which students can concretise and reflect on their own teacher’s personality and their role in the school system in general.

Against the backdrop of the pressing crises of our time, which allow no further delay in action (see, among others, Bedehäsing & Padberg 2017), and considering the fact that the success of a necessary "Great Transformation" is ultimately decided "primarily in the field of education" (Oberrauch & Keller 2016: 1) (see, among others, Schneidewind 2019), her overarching research interest is the question of how a solution-oriented, transformative, and motivating (geography) education can reduce the – so called – "value action gap" (Chiari et al. 2016: 5). Studies show that the environmental behavior of (among others) children does not reflect their attitudes and (theoretical) willingness to change (see, for example, BMUV 2022: 41). This indicates that "[we] [...] need a new kind of education for Sustainable Development that works, indeed, must work!" (Oberrauch & Keller 2016: 1). In response to this, an approach called ‘Transformative Geographic Education’ (e. g. Pettig & Ohl 2023) has only recently been gaining traction within geography didactics, evolving the concept of ‘Education for Sustainable Development’. Following up on this in her research, it is a particular concern of Julia to determine where and why this theoretical willingness to change is drying up and how it could be captured through an appropriate (transformative) geographic education, which, while still conveying climate-relevant knowledge, also takes into account emotions (such as climate anxiety) and creates open-ended spaces in which the student’s future can be thought of and shaped anew (Pettig & Ohl 2023). Her research interest is therefore primarily focused on the question of what geography education can look like in order to generate motivation for action for global (environmental) change instead of promoting feelings of helplessness and passivity – and what structural and organisational framework conditions in schools are needed to enable this. In this context, Julia examines, as part of her doctoral research, the potential of alternative pedagogical concepts, using the example of the developmental approach "Ontwikkelingsgericht Onderwijs (OGO)" (van Oers 2013) from the Netherlands. In view of its overarching goals and postulates and the structural framework within which ‘Development-oriented Education (OGO)’ takes place, it is assumed that this concept can provide important impetus and serve as a source of inspiration for the beforementioned intent.

• „Machtkritischer Stadtspaziergang. Auf der Spur von Machtkonfigurationen im öffentlichen Raum Bonns"; Leitung: Julia Klumparendt & Tobit Nauheim (Workshop & Führung im Rahmen des Vernetzungstreffens Feministische Geographien, Juni 2024, Bonn)
• "Transformative geographische Bildung ohne Transformation der schulischen Bildung? Institutionelle Logiken des Systems Schule auf dem Prüfstand“ (https://kulturgeographie.org/programm/); Julia Klumparendt & Tobit Nauheim (Vortrag auf der Tagung ‚Neue Kulturgeographie‘, Mai 2024, Münster)
• "The potential of the ‘OGO’-approach for Transformative Education in geography instruction" (poster presentation at the ISCAR conference 2024 - Inclusiveness as future challenge, September 2024, Rotterdam)