Teaching Geography facing current and future challenges. Cross perspectives. Introduction

Authors

  • Fabio Fatichenti Department of Ancient and Modern Languages, Literatures and Civilisations, University of Perugia, Perugia, Italy
  • Philippe Charpentier Department of Educational Sciences, University of Mayotte – ICARE Laboratory, University of La Réunion, France

Abstract

The teaching of Geography, like all other school subjects, changes in whole or in part according to the new challenges and issues that scientific Geography has to deal with (Bagoly-Simó, 2021; De Vecchis et al., 2020; Giorda, 2019; Shin and Bednarz, 2019; Legardez and Simonneaux, 2011). Despite this, national programmes or guidelines are sometimes lagging behind in transposing both the progress of the reference science and the issues arising from social, economic and political changes. And what about the transposition of these programmes into the proposals of school textbooks? (Charpentier and Fatichenti, 2023). This said, although “we are all geographical beings” as stated by Joublot-Ferré (2018, p. 10) and “Geography’s objective as a social science is to study the relationship between societies and the space around them” (Collectif, 2020), what kind of teaching do we want to offer to the students of today’s primary and middle schools? Should this teaching practice evolve? How and under what conditions? For what purposes? As a rule, in many countries school curricula are developed by joint committees. But what is the opinion of geographers in this regard, assuming they take part in these committees?

References

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Published

2025-06-24

Issue

Vol. 1 (2025)

Section

Thematic issue (ed. by Fatichenti, Charpentier)

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