Rethinking School Geography: A Challenge for Didactics

Abstract

After defining the meaning given to the tem «didactics» in France nowadays -that is, the study of the evolutionary processes and methods in teaching and learning within each specific discipline- the article questions the very idea of school geography. In the first place, school geography is defined. Secondly, its plurality is demonstrated through the listing of the diverse educational purposes attributed to it, through the various geographical schools of thought seen from a scientific viewpoint, and through the social applications of the tem geography. School geographies are constantly nourished by one or other. In the third place, a serious attempt is made to reconstruct its unity, by pointing out some cornmon features, thus focusing on the idea of a separate epistemology for schools. Altogether, these constitute some challenges which will have to be solved if the teaching of geography -inevitably renewed- is to survive.