GEOGRAPHICAL EDUCATION: PROGRAMMES, SCHOLAR BOOKS, AND MAPS
IN THE GEOPOLITICAL DISCOURSE
University of Milano Bicocca
Piazza Ateneo Nuovo 1
20126 MILANO
October 20-21th 2008
Promoters:
Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca
Dipartimento di Scienze Umane per l'Educazione "R. Massa"
Dipartimento di Sociologia e Ricerca Sociale
IGU-UGI (International Geographical Union)
Agei (Associazione dei Geografi Italiani)
AIIG (Associazione Italiana Insegnanti di Geografia)
Organizing Committee::
Lorenzo Bagnoli, Elena dell'Agnese, Stefano Malatesta, Fiammetta Martegani, Marcella Schmidt di
Friedberg, Enrico Squarcina
Description:
Scholastic plans, as the educational praxis, scholastic books and all other teaching, more than
answering to the contemporary pedagogical and educational theories, are influenced by the political
situation, social ordinance, customs, and common sense.
Education, in all its levels and degrees, is a promoter and a mirror of social order, and because of
this formative function tends to proliferate "common sense", which is simultaneously the base for
"cultural hegemony". That is how the ruling classes are able to justify their power and to gain
consensus for their political actions.
Geography, in particular, as a phenomenal localizer and as describer, measurer and partitioner of
place, is a formidable instrument of power. It allows for the legitimation of administrative and
political partitions, and for the diffusion of ideas of the "away" and the "others"- ideas which are
useful for labelling "us" as the assumed "core", also geometrical, of the world.
These days of work and study are to be a moment of reflection about the relation between
educational and political Geography, to share the results of varied research, and to improve new
studies about this area.
Topics:
. History of the Geographical Education
. Educational Cartography and Political Discourse
. Schoolbooks and Geopolitics
. Critical View on Scholastic Programmes
. Iconography and Geographic Representation
. Scholastic Tourism
. Gender and Geographical Education
CALL FOR PAPERS, Deadline for abstracts:
Before 30th May 2008. Length: no more than 200 words.
Organizing Secretariat:
stefano.malatesta@unimib.it
Tel. +393409184726