Changing Horizons in Geography Education - HERODOT Network ...

the resources to develop such studies. Student numbers seem to increase in Easternand Central Europe, an impression I have got after visits and contacts with departmentsin Hungary, the Czech Republic and Estonia.The relative position in the Nordic countriesThe survey I made in 1988 on the situation of geography in the Nordic Countries wasbased on questionnaires I sent out to all the Nordic departments. I got answers backfrom almost all departments with data on staff numbers, graduate and undergraduatestudents in geography as well as at the total numbers of students at the institution.The percentage of geography students of the total student number at the institutiondoes not give the ultimate measure of position; some institutions may include forinstance faculty of medicine, dentistry etc, while others have a more limited educationchoice. But the survey led although to the following general conclusions: The statusof geography measured this way confirms that the status and position of geographyvaries between the Nordic countries with a much stronger position in Finland than inthe other Nordic countries. Less than 1% of the university students studied geographyin Denmark and Sweden at that time, a bit more than 1% in Norway and Iceland. InFinland, however, 2.5% of the university students were enrolled in geography. (Seesummary of survey in Norwegian in Holt-Jensen 1990).In Denmark geography had lived through a period if internal strife in the 1970sand 80s and departments were closed down. Later, however, the large departmentat Copenhagen University and the Department at Roskilde University Centre havebeen consolidated. I do, however, not have more recent quantitative data. A particularfeature in Denmark is, however that geography has a rather strong position still in theschool curriculum and in teacher seminars which educate teachers for the primaryschools.Wärneryd (1987) points out that there is a clear difference between the way inwhich geography is taught and organised in Finland and Sweden. With the exceptionof Umea University and University of Linköping, geography is separated intohuman and physical geography at the universities and also in the Swedish educationalsystem, most importantly in the high schools (gymnasiums). This separationstarted in the early 1950s and means that every university has both a departmentof physical geography and a department of human geography. In the school systemgeography does not any longer exist as a separate discipline, but is partly representedin the curriculum for ‘social sciences’ and partly in ‘natural science’. The reasonfor this partition goes back to the ‘spatial science’ period when it seemed that the‘core of geography’ – in general linked to the ‘regional paradigm’ – did not providesufficient basis for advanced studies. Swedish geographers managed to use the newperiod of scientific development in a way that gave success both internationally andas experts in the home country. And this gave candidates access to a new and interestingjobs in planning and public administration. On the other hand; the generalknowledge in the public about geography as a discipline became much reduced asit does not exist as a clear discipline in the schools. Incoming students know verylittle of what geography is about. Scientifically Swedish geography is rather strong139