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Which topics are currently
taught in geography, and how do teachers proceed in teaching
them? One would expect a large variety of teaching practices
and methods. 6 primary school teachers, teaching geography for
students in 5th and 6th grade in schools located in the French
part of the Kanton of Wallis, Switzerland, were interviewed
about this question. The analyses of these semi-standardized
interviews revealed that the most frequently pursued method
is some kind of optimized direct teaching, and is a quite stable
teaching habit. Teachers believe to transfer their knowledge
to the students and seem to promote descriptive content knowledge
rather than practical skills and the development of general
intellectual activities. The mentioned teaching habits correspond
with the preference of a certain type of evaluation. «Mondes
d’éducation», a theoretical frame of analyses
by Chatel, is applied in order to investigate the tradition
of educational cultures within the discipline. Educational cultures,
on their part, are created in an interplay between teachers,
students, and knowledge. |
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