Changing Horizons in Geography Education - HERODOT Network ...

The countries are well defined, however for France, the students tend to confusethe names of the administrative regions and departments. Does this suggest that theposition of the Nation-State is weakening for that of Europe. This is unsure, but itis perhaps heading this way.If Europe becomes a major theme in secondary school history and geography,this is not the case in Higher education. Maybe this is because of the scientificorientations of geography there. There is a movement to reduce and even to removethe regional themes in the courses. For example, in the geography department inBordeaux, in the new curriculum, teaching about “France and Europe”, “Africa”,“Asia”, “America” have been removed to make room for a more economic classificationsuch as “industrial and post-industrial areas”, “developing areas”, “emergingareas”, “transitional areas”. Studies that mention the theme of Europe in geographydepartments at undergraduate level tend to be general courses, mainly taught duringthe first or second year. Only a few universities have courses on Europe at Masterslevel. One example is the “Men, cities and territories” Masters course at Lille. Duringthe first semester there is a course on the “Evolution of policies regarding territorymanagement and European integration”, and during the second semester there is acourse taught in English: “Europe: european regional organisation and policies”.Nevertheless, this approach is still marginal in France and it is probably related tothe geographical situation of Lille and also to the strength of special agreements andlinks between the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region (France), Hainaut region (Belgium)and the Kent region (UK).Europe is obviously not absent from university teaching, nor from research, butit is less an object of study and more a context. Organizational studies like sociospatialdynamics that are studied take place in a European context. Nevertheless,Europe is a weak scientific paradigm which brings about difficulties regarding itsteaching. Which Europe can we teach? The one that depends on a political will (theEuropean Union)? The one that emphasises its scientific side that obviously means amultiple one? Generally, until the 1989−1992 break ups, Europe was not a geographicobject very appreciated by the geographers at University (Foucher, 1998). It seemsthat they tend to study more the territories of the Nation-States and they might havegrown away from this only to view the worldwide scale with the tools of spatialanalysis and geopolitics. |During the last few years, French geographers have startedto nurture the Europe concept by studying its cultural dimension (Levy, 1997). Thisgeography goes beyond the traditional dominant economic approach which startedin the sixties with Pierre George and his “Europe des marchands” (Dessieux Knafouand Leon, op. cit.).As this development reaches its end, we can notice a clear cleavage betweensecondary school where European citizenship is a academic or pedagogical subject,and University where, even if it is integrating the European tuning process of highereducation (the Bologna process), it doesn’t label Europe as a scientific culture.However, although Europe is not really considered as a scientific object, it increasinglyparticipates in our living area, and our representations. The interest is then notto favour a Euro-focused instruction which neglects the study of nations but to base245