Changing Places Extract from AQA Spec

3.2.2 Changing places

This section of our specification focuses on people's engagement with places, their experience of
them and the qualities they ascribe to them, all of which are of fundamental importance in their
lives. Students acknowledge this importance and engage with how places are known and
experienced, how their character is appreciated, the factors and processes which impact upon
places and how they change and develop over time. Through developing this knowledge, students
will gain understanding of the way in which their own lives and those of others are affected by
continuity and change in the nature of places which are of fundamental importance in their lives.

Study of the content must be embedded in two contrasting places, one to be local. The local place
may be a locality, neighbourhood or small community either urban or rural. A contrasting place is
likely to be distant – it could be in the same country or a different country but it must show
significant contrast in terms of economic development and/or population density and/or cultural
background and/or systems of political and economic organisation.

The place studies complement the requirement to embed the study of content in two contrasting
places. Study of this section offers particular opportunities to exercise and develop qualitative (and
quantitative) investigative techniques and practice-related observation, measurement and various
mapping skills, together with data manipulation and statistical skills including those associated with
and arising from fieldwork.

3.2.2.1 The nature and importance of places

The concept of place and the importance of place in human life and experience.

Insider and outsider perspectives on place.

Categories of place:
• near places and far places
• experienced places and media places.

Factors contributing to the character of places:
• Endogenous: location, topography, physical geography, land use, built environment and
infrastructure, demographic and economic characteristics.
• Exogenous: relationships with other places.

3.2.2.2 Changing places – relationships, connections, meaning and representation

In relation to the local place within which students live or study and then at least one further
contrasting place and encompassing local, regional, national, international and global scales:
• the ways in which the following factors: relationships and connections, meaning and
representation, affect continuity and change in the nature of places and our understanding of
place

and

• the ways in which students’ own lives and those of others are affected by continuity and change
in the nature of places and our understanding of place.

3.2.2.2.1 Relationships and connections

The impact of relationships and connections on people and place with a particular focus on:
either
changing demographic and cultural characteristics
or
economic change and social inequalities.

• How the demographic, socio-economic and cultural characteristics of places are shaped by
shifting flows of people, resources, money and investment, and ideas at all scales from local to
global.
• The characteristics and impacts of external forces operating at different scales from local to
global, including either government policies or the decisions of multinational corporations or the
impacts of international or global institutions.
• How past and present connections, within and beyond localities, shape places and embed them
in the regional, national, international and global scales.

3.2.2.2.2 Meaning and representation

The importance of the meanings and representations attached to places by people with a particular
focus on people's lived experience of place in the past and at present.
• How humans perceive, engage with and form attachments to places and how they present and
represent the world to others, including the way in which everyday place meanings are bound
up with different identities, perspectives and experiences.
• How external agencies, including government, corporate bodies and community or local groups
make attempts to influence or create specific place-meanings and thereby shape the actions
and behaviours of individuals, groups, businesses and institutions.
• How places may be represented in a variety of different forms such as advertising copy, tourist
agency material, local art exhibitions in diverse media (eg film, photography, art, story, song etc)
that often give contrasting images to that presented formally or statistically such as cartography
and census data.
• How both past and present processes of development can be seen to influence the social and
economic characteristics of places and so be implicit in present meanings.

3.2.2.3 Quantitative and qualitative skills

Students must engage with a range of quantitative and qualitative approaches across the theme as
a whole. Quantitative data, including the use of geospatial data, must be used to investigate and
present place characteristics, particular weight must be given to qualitative approaches involved in
representing place, and to analysing critically the impacts of different media on place meanings
and perceptions. The use of different types of data should allow the development of critical
perspectives on the data categories and approaches.

3.2.2.4 Place studies

Local place study exploring the developing character of a place local to the home or study centre.
Contrasting place study exploring the developing character of a contrasting and distant place.
Place studies must apply the knowledge acquired through engagement with prescribed
specification content and thereby further enhance understanding of the way students' own lives
and those of others are affected by continuity and change in the nature of places. Sources must
include qualitative and quantitative data to represent places in the past and present.

Both place studies must focus equally on:
• people's lived experience of the place in the past and at present
and either
• changing demographic and cultural characteristics
or
• economic change and social inequalities.

Suitable data sources could include:
• statistics, such as census data
• maps
• geo-located data
• geospatial data, including geographic information systems (GIS) applications
• photographs
• text, from varied media
• audio-visual media
• artistic representations
• oral sources, such as interviews, reminiscences, songs etc.