<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>This article provides the results of classroom research involving university students training to be secondary school teachers of geography and history. The research is based on the analysis of a word association test on Europe and the European Union. The results constitute an approach to the geographical and historical representations these students have of their own European continent. This is a fundamental question considering that this collective group is training to teach the contents and values of European geography in secondary school education. From here on, our intention is no other than to carry out an exercise of synthesis and overall reflection on the test results and introduce issues which could generate some debate in the educational community.</p></abstract>

This article provides the results of classroom research involving university students training to be secondary school teachers of geography and history. The research is based on the analysis of a word association test on Europe and the European Union. The results constitute an approach to the geographical and historical representations these students have of their own European continent. This is a fundamental question considering that this collective group is training to teach the contents and values of European geography in secondary school education. From here on, our intention is no other than to carry out an exercise of synthesis and overall reflection on the test results and introduce issues which could generate some debate in the educational community.

Approach to students’ social representations in the construction of academic European geography: A case study of Spanish university students

Department of Applied Didactics, Faculty of Education Sciences

Department of Geography, Faculty of Geography and History

Department of Applied Didactics, Faculty of Teacher Training

Quaestiones Geographicae

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

This article provides the results of classroom research involving university students training to be secondary school teachers of geography and history. The...

Approach to students’ social representations in the construction of academic European geography: A case study of Spanish university students

Published Online: Dec 21, 2017

Page range: 159 - 170

Received: Jan 30, 2017

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/quageo-2017-0043

Keywords
academic geography of Europe, teacher training for secondary education, social representations, test of word association

© 2017 Xosé Carlos Macía Arce et al., published by De Gruyter Open

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Approach to students’ social representations in the construction of academic European geography: A case study of Spanish university students

Published Online: Dec 21, 2017

Page range: 159 - 170

Received: Jan 30, 2017

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/quageo-2017-0043

Keywordsacademic geography of Europe, teacher training for secondary education, social representations, test of word association

© 2017 Xosé Carlos Macía Arce et al., published by De Gruyter Open

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Keywords
academic geography of Europe, teacher training for secondary education, social representations, test of word association