Welcome

Welcome to this archive of John Huckle’s publications.  These outline critical approaches to geographical and environmental education developed over five decades. Please use the contact form if you have comments or wish to get in touch.

Latest addition John is currently writing an ebook on critical realism, the philosophy of knowledge he introduced in Critical School Geography. Critical realism is particularly suited to the teaching of geography as it unites the natural and social sciences and the humanities, explains nature, place and space in terms of underlying structures and mechanisms, prompts critical theories of social change, and supports forms of global citizenship based on universal ethics. The drafts of all six chapters can be downloaded from the critical realism page and these are currently being revised and edited before being joined in a single ebook that should be published later in 2026.

Here is an overview of the lastest chapter to be drafted, the introductory chapter:

Critical realism is a philosophy of knowledge that focuses on the bio-physical and social structures and processes that shape the geography of the world. It claims that the social structures are controlled by a powerful minority with the result that the world displays a multidimensional crisis. Radical democracy and radical global citizenship, as proposed by the populist left, are necessary to resolve this crisis and promote universal human flourishing. Digital capitalism is the emergent and dominant form of social organisation shaping geopolitics, supported by tech billionaires and their political allies on the populist right and opposed by the populist left, a growing number of whom support digital socialism. These populisms are engaged in culture wars or a struggle for hegemony that seeks to render the knowledge of the powerful or that of the powerless, the taken-for-granted common sense of the majority. Digital media are key sites of this struggle which shapes the nature of politics, the ongoing fiscal crises of nation states, and the worldviews of older school students. The review of the national curriculum in England and the prospects for a more critical school geography should be viewed in the context of the culture wars, the rise of Reform on the populist right, the Labour government’s failure to support the populist left, and the rise of the Greens as an eco-populist and socialist alternative.