Perspectives on geography education in the Czech National Curriculum

Abstract

The geography curriculum at primary and secondary schools in Czechia is undergoing a revision. This study aims to identify aspects of the current curriculum that may assist in the formulation of recommendations in the revised curriculum. We use a deductive content analysis approach based on Catling’s typology of perspectives on geography education. This typology follows in the tradition of geographical thought and describes, for example, the following categories: Globalist, Earthist, Interactionist, Placeist, and Environmentalist. The findings show inconsistencies and misalignment between the stipulated objectives of geography education and the attainment of targets in the analyzed documents. The Czech geography curriculum exhibits (a) frequent occurrences of the Globalist perspective at secondary-level schools, which emphasizes a simple and non-relational approach to teaching; (b) low congruence between the perspectives stipulated in the curriculum at individual school levels; and (c) low congruence between the perspectives stipulated in the objectives of geography education and in the expected outcomes for individual school levels. Our results attempt to provide implications for the implementation of a new national geography curriculum in Czechia.

Keywords:

• Catling’s typology
• curriculum
• geography education
• perspectives on geography
• primary geography
• secondary geography

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments on this manuscript. A data set associated with the paper supporting the results or analyses is available on request by the authors.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Czech Scientific Foundation by the Grant Teachers’ Perceptions of Geography and Geography Teaching (GA18-08315S).