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Stavroula Philippou Assistant Professor (Curriculum Studies) Department of Education Sciences Cyprus College stavroula@c

Changing Geographical Understandings of Europe amongst 10-year-old Greek-Cypriot Pupils: A Study of the Impact of a Primary School Curricular Intervention. Stavroula Philippou Assistant Professor (Curriculum Studies) Department of Education Sciences Cyprus College

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Stavroula Philippou Assistant Professor (Curriculum Studies) Department of Education Sciences Cyprus College stavroula@c

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  1. Changing Geographical Understandings of Europe amongst 10-year-old Greek-Cypriot Pupils:A Study of the Impact of a Primary School Curricular Intervention Stavroula Philippou Assistant Professor (Curriculum Studies) Department of Education Sciences Cyprus College stavroula@cycollege.ac.cy

  2. ‘Europe’ and education: the political context • European enlargement, integration, constitution: discussion and debate • ‘Europe’ invites complexity, as it has been defined from various perspectives (geographical, political, cultural, religious, economic etc) at different historical periods • EU’s and Council of Europe’s educational policy aim: constructing a European identity and citizenship amongst young people though education: key role for Geography, History and Languages

  3. Questions • How are these concepts understood by children and what kind of geographical understandings does or could education contribute towards? • More importantly, how do geographical understandings of Europe relate to children’s adherence to a European identity, an identity which the EU and the Council of Europe have increasingly sought to develop through their educational policy?

  4. Children’s development of geographical understandings • Scarcity of research into geography as a subject-area (Biddulph & Adey, 2003) or into children’s geographical understandings of other countries (Barrett & Farroni, 1996; Barrett, 2005) • Early research (Piaget & Weil, 1951) and critique (Jahoda, 1964) • Descriptive and a-theoretical research until 1970s focusing on attitudes rather than knowledge • Resurgence after 1990s as geographical knowledge of own, other countries & Europe are included in definitions of national and European identities (Barrett, 2005) • Exploration of relation between geographical knowledge and adherence to national and European identities (Barrett, 1996; Barrett & Whennell, 1998; Barrett, 2005)

  5. The curricular intervention in Geography • Europe as content in 5th Grade (10-year-olds) Geography at Greek-Cypriot primary school national curriculum • Single-textbook policy: critiqued as factual-based (Kadis, 1999); encyclopedic & utilitarian approach to Europe (Philippou, 2004; 2007) • Intervention: critical and constructivist approach to Europe (Philippou, 2005) • Europe and EU as changing, multiple and diverse through exploration of geomorphology, frontiers, ecology, economy, culture, colonisation and stereotypes • Europe as a resource rather than a ‘fortress’, as a tool to reflect on identity • Interdependency with rest of the world • Pedagogy: critical study of multiple sources and maps, the construction of concepts and collaborative work.

  6. Research Design • Research strategies • Case-study and Curriculum development • Action-research and Quasi-experiment (December-June 2000-2001) • Sampling • 4 schools (2 semi-urban, 2 rural) and 8 teachers (opportunistic) • 140 pupils Greek-Cypriot 10-year-old pupils (63 exp. & 77 control) • Research instruments • Pre and post (tests, individual and focus group interviews of pupils) • Items investigating self-categorisation, degree of importance and relative subjective importance of national and European identities • Items investigating geographical understandings of Europe: • Representations of Europe and the EU • Configurational knowledge (of the spatial relationships which exist between different landmarks in terms of the direction and distance between them)of Europe (map of world and Europe) • Landmark knowledge (that specific spatio-geographic locations exist) of Europe and EU • Geographical understandings of Cyprus in relation to Europe/EU • Geographical understandings of Europe in relation to world • Data analysis • Atlas.ti • SPSS.10

  7. Findings:Children’s representations of Europe & EU

  8. Pre Europe=EU: emphasis on economic aspects Misconceptions: Europe as a city, country, state, continent (difficulties with spatial inclusion) Cyprus in Europe: cultural affinities-Greek Cyprus not European because not in EU yet Turkey not in Europe: Asia Post Distinction between Europe & EU: continent vs 15 countries Europe: neighbours but not united like EU EU: peace, cooperation, help, economy (euro), criteria of entrance, democracy, human rights Cyprus European but more so when in EU (economy-political problem) Turkey: only one part European geographically-BUT can change Representations of Europe & EU

  9. Configurational knowledge: location of Europe in world

  10. Findings: Configurational knowledge

  11. Landmark knowledge: countries of Europe

  12. Landmark knowledge of EU

  13. Pre European identity as a threat to national Non-European because of geography (proximity to Asia) Postponed to future (EU) Rarely accepted and only due to ‘Greekness’ Post Cyprus =European due to geography: Mediterranean, not Greece Political and economic advantages greater adherence to a European identity in self-categorisation item BUT Cyprus and Europe

  14. Degree of identification with European identity

  15. Relative subjective importance of European identity (1-12)

  16. Europe and the world • Test: ‘European countries treated the colonies in a nice way’ • Europe as one of the most developed continents=example for imitation Vs • Being critical of role of Europe, colonisation and economic progress-link with EU-Third World countries

  17. Discussion • Curriculum implications • Possibility of constructing Europe’s frontiers as arbitrary, constructed, changing and multiple • Suitability of the primary school context despite single-textbook and national curriculum policies • Space for action research-role of teachers

  18. Discussion • Pupil identities and education • Social constructivist argument to support role of school and teacher (Axia et al., 1998; Harrington, 1998) • Conceptual changes in understandings of Europe as an indicator of impact of intervention: ‘enriched’ with EU discourse and geography • Two opposite constructions of Europe/EU • Link to European identity: further adherence but no link to geogr. knowledge: is it a matter of what kind of knowledge-representations?

  19. Discussion • Limitations • short period of implementation-difficulties of research (11.42% of total school hours) • Europe as a small part of intervention/evaluation • Use of standard-syllabus for intervention • non-generalisable to GC pupils: insights • Future research • Temporal dimension: which changes in understandings of Europe at different ages and periods? • Spatial dimension: comparisons with TC pupils and other European pupils(Barrett & Farroni, 1996; Axia et al., 1998)

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