Improving teaching quality in geography education requires tools that strengthen geographical knowledge and pedagogy, particularly in relation to classroom observation, an area that has received limited attention in geography education research. We developed the Geo4Tea.com application, a self-report tool based on nine conceptions of geography teaching. This study examined its validity by conducting structured, non-participant classroom observations of 108 geography lessons and comparing these findings with teacher self-reports collected through the Geo4Tea questionnaire among 29 pre-service and 27 in-service teachers in Czechia. We analyzed how the self-reported conceptions relate to the observed practices and found the tool valid for identifying dominant conceptions. The findings show that Geo4Tea bridges teachers' stated beliefs and classroom practice, making it a practical, evidence-based tool for teachers' professional development.

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The moral dimension of primary geography in England is less obvious in the current national curriculum requirements for geography. The debate about geography and powerful knowledge has dominated in recent years, and has limited consideration of morality in geography. As a result, primary school geography curriculum statements focus on the knowledge (and skills) to be learned, leaving the moral dimension often unstated and implicit. The view in this article is that the moral dimension in primary geography is important and cannot be neglected. Primary schools need to make clear in their geography curriculum statements the moral aspects (or values) which they espouse in the subject to ensure these are clear to all who have a stake in the school's geography curriculum.

A Geografia dos Anos Iniciais (AI) é um assunto bastante confortável. Ela tende a evitar tópicos da Geografia considerados "inaceitáveis", ameaçadores e potencialmente perigosos. Considerar desafio e 'perigo' na Geografia dessa fase escolar não é tanto sobre os perigos do trabalho de campo, mas sim sobre tópicos intelectuais, emocionais e socialmente perigosos, local e globalmente. A tendência é ensinar o que é aceitável e não causar desconforto, focar nos aspectos positivos do mundo, demonstrar esperança. Porém isso não é sempre recomendável. Aqui serão descritos e questionados quatro argumentos em prol dessa abordagem confortável. O argumento que versa sobre ‘ir com cuidado’ em um mundo inseguro, mesmo quando pensamos em crianças menores, mantém o indivíduo desinformado, e por isso deve ser questionado. O desejo de ser positivo não deve comprometer o ato de ser realista e honesto com as crianças, que por sua vez são capazes e resilientes. A fim de corroborar a proposta de uma abordagem mais exigente, até mesmo mais ‘perigosa’ em relação à Geografia dos AI, alguns tópicos que podem ser investigados pelas crianças são aqui sugeridos. Surge então a inevitável pergunta: a quem ensinamos Geografia? O objetivo desse artigo é levantar questionamentos e trazer uma reflexão sobre o papel da educação (em Geografia) no mundo atual.

Primary school teachers are highly professional people. Being a primary teacher means committing to enabling primary children’s development of capability, values, attitudes, and interests in and knowledge about the world and its people. It involves helping children to relate to each other and adults, to enjoy their learning, and to be fascinated to build their understanding and skill foundations across many subjects and areas of learning. Supporting primary children to achieve is demanding. It involves a wide range of knowledge, positive perspectives about children and their education and significant skills interpersonally (Alexander, Children, their world, their education, Routledge, 2010). Teachers must be positive about themselves and their colleagues.

Geographical knowledge is essential in primary geography but it requires recontextualsation from its disciplinary context to be the school subject for younger children. The purpose of recontextualising knowledge for primary geography is considered, leading to an exploration of ways in which geographical knowledge is recontextualised. The approach is epistemologically focused through three dimensions. First, to clarify the knowledge foundation of school geography, the notion of threads of geographical knowledge is considered in terms of propositional, substantive and procedural knowledge. Examples distinguish the threads in primary geography and emphasises the role of substantive and procedural knowledge as key to structuring geographical knowledge. Second, the epistemological distinction between kinds of knowledge is employed to illustrate the diversity of geographical knowledge within the primary geography curriculum. Third, geographers’ varied notions of knowledge is considered using a selection of the discipline’s own theoretical lenses, and these are related to ways in which geographical knowledge appears in primary school geography. In conclusion the variety of knowledge threads, kinds and lenses are argued to provide a rich foundation for developing and empowering children’s geographical understanding and thinking.

This chapter establishes the context in which research on geographic education is conducted in Brazil, Chile and Colombia, and the contributions made by local researchers to the teaching and learning of geographic space. The chapter begins by reviewing the development of school Geography in these countries from the perspective of the framework of geographical theory and thinking. We then go on to discuss the curricular context, the categories of analysis and the elements associated with the use and meaning of school cartography as fundamental dimensions of the development of geographic education in the three countries. Finally, we summarise the principal theoretical-methodological elements and findings of each of the chapters of the book, and discuss the overall implications of its content.

The Colloquium on Cartography for Children and Students was initiated in Brazil in 1995. Its tenth meeting was held in 2018 integrated with the first International Meeting on School Cartography and Spatial Thinking. The background, purpose and themes of this integrated conference are outlined, which focused on ‘the different languages in the contemporary world’ within cartography, geography and spatial thinking. The purpose was to share and promote research across all levels of education, foster new directions of study, encourage sharing and collaboration, stimulate debate, and generate publications. The variety of papers given at the conference provided this, illustrating work in cartographic representations, geographic reasoning and urban spaces, cartographic and spatial reasoning from the early years to high school, the potential of geospatial technologies and atlases, cartography and inclusion, and issues in teacher education. The quality of research was high. To develop this continuing work future directions are discussed for geographical, spatial and cartographic research for children and students, drawing on the International Declaration on Research in Geography Education and the Road Map for Large-Scale Improvement of K-12 Geography Education as key documents that offer relevant research questions. Researchers are encouraged to develop their national and international networks to support and extend their studies, and several research directions are suggested for both dimensions.

Two purposes have dominated map teaching in primary education. First is the focus on map skills which enables, secondly, younger children to begin to read maps for place information to appreciate what is shown on a paper or digital map. This article extends these purposes by recognising other aspects of children's map learning which usually remain implicit or are rarely countenanced. One concerns primary children's out-of-school mapping in their daily lives, the ways they make sense of the places they engage with through their personal geographies. Rather than an adjunct in map teaching, younger children's mental mapping can be engaged and enhanced through conscious use and reflection throughout primary schooling. Two further important contexts involve children using local large-scale maps and atlas maps. Children encounter imaginary maps in stories and games providing a role for such maps in fostering children's map learning. These map learning contexts and maps have emotional connections for children. This is that mapping at local and national scales fosters their senses of local belonging and national identity. Drawing on these contexts, 12 purposes are identified for primary map learning. RESUME Deux objectifs ont domine l'enseignement des cartes dans enseignement primaire. Premierement l'accent est mis sur les competences cartographiques qui permettent, deuxiemement, aux enfants les plus jeunes de commencer a lire des cartes pour trouver des informations sur les lieux afin de se rendre compte de ce qui est montre sur une carte papier ou numerique. Ce papier etend ces objectifs en reconnaissant d'autres aspects de l'apprentissage des cartes par les enfants qui restent generalement implicites ou alors sont rarement acceptes. Le premier aspect concerne la cartographie non scolaire des enfants de primaire dans leur vie quotidienne, la facon dont ils donnent sens aux lieux dans lesquels ils s'engagent a travers leur geographie personnelle. Plutot qu'un complement a l'enseignement des cartes, les cartes mentales des jeunes enfants peuvent etre investies et ameliorees par une utilisation et une reflexion consciente tout au long de l'enseignement primaire. Deux autres contextes importants sont l'utilisation de cartes locales a grande echelle et l'utilisation d'atlas. Les enfants decouvrent des cartes imaginaires dans les histoires et les jeux, cartes qui favorisent leur apprentissage des cartes. Ces contextes d'apprentissage des cartes et ces types de cartes ont des liens emotionnels pour les enfants. Ce sont ces cartes a l'echelle locale et nationale qui aiguisent leur sens d'une appartenance locale et d'une identite nationale. En s'appuyant sur ces contextes, douze objectifs ont ete identifies pour l'apprentissage des cartes en primaire.

Like all school textbooks, geography textbooks are authored. Almost all textbook research in and beyond geography has neglected their authors. This questionnaire-based multinational research project investigated the perceptions of 71 primary and secondary school geography textbook authors from seven countries in five continents. Though not intended as a definitive study, the findings identified several values and areas of expertise which many textbook authors in different countries held to be important for their work. While there were variations across country contexts, there was much that was shared by the authors. Authors valued enabling students to develop geographical perspectives, knowledge and skills and informed attitudes about the world when learning in real world contexts and making connections with everyday life. It was notable that the focus of authors on subject knowledge, the pedagogy of textbooks and the students who will use the textbooks aligned with these same key elements which are central to curriculum making. Authors can be said to perceive their role as creating a geography curriculum, albeit externally to any specific geography classroom, through their textbooks

Maps are inherent in younger children’s lives, implicitly and formally. Their experiences in their immediate and local places from their earliest years enable children actively to construct their personal geographies, drawing on their everyday observations, journeys, explorations and activities. Place exploration and knowledge foster their spatial awareness, capability and decisions and enable their mental mapping of their known places and imagining of other places real and invented. Their personal geographical learning is essential in developing children’s meaning and understanding of formal maps. Primary geography best develops children’s map skills through extending their awareness and knowledge of places from the immediate and local to national and global using maps at all scales at all ages. From their early years children should engage with plans and large scale maps, and with globes and world maps, and begin to learn about and use atlases. Children’s progression in learning maps skills is accretive and varies; it interplays with their personal geographies. From this can be provided a sequence for learning across children’s developing environmental map abilities and their map reading capabilities. Geography provides the opportunities for their contextual learning of map knowledge, use and understanding.

This study investigated the perspectives of seven English authors, on aspects of their geography textbook writing for schools in England, through a questionnaire-based enquiry. This investigation asked about the features that geography textbook authors consider to be the most important when designing student activities, and which criteria they used to select and develop case studies for their textbooks. The authors emphasized the geographical content and key concepts for developing pupils' knowledge base, rather than the learning processes. The key criteria identified by the majority of the authors were the geographical relevance of the case studies, coverage of the national curriculum requirements, and geographical balance.

This article reflects on the implications for practitioners, researchers and policy-makers of the future of the humanities in primary schools in the light of the challenges facing future generations. There is wide divergence in the four jurisdictions of the UK. The humanities are perceived as important, in principle, though curriculum frameworks differ. However, the status of the humanities is often uncertain, in practice, given the current emphasis on outcomes in literacy and numeracy. There is a lack of robust research on how, and by whom, the humanities are taught. The more theoretical articles suggest that the humanities, broadly conceived, are an essential aspect of young children's education - to enable a deeper understanding of human culture and identity, and to develop the qualities and values needed in a diverse world. Additionally, curricular breadth is required alongside a realisation that narrowly focusing on propositional knowledge is limiting. While this has implications for the whole curriculum, History, Geography and Religious Education have key roles in meeting these aims and in engaging and motivating young children. A stronger policy steer is called for, to ensure that schools give more priority to humanities education, with greater investment in professional development in Initial Teacher Education and beyond.

On seeing the theme of this issue, one may reasonably ask ‘why focus on the humanities at this time?’ Are there not more urgent priorities in primary education, such as ensuring that all children can and do attend school, behave properly, learn to read and write fluently and acquire a sound grounding in mathematics; and that teachers are trained to deliver the curriculum efficiently and effectively? Certainly, these seem to be the main concerns of politicians, policy-makers and those who disburse funding for research. This initiative – a Special Edition of Education 3-13 focused on the teaching of the humanities in primary schools in the four parts of the United Kingdom – started with a series of discussions in 2013 between four academics and teacher educators based in Oxford, England. Two of us are geographers, one a historian and one interested in cross-curricular approaches, spiritual, moral, social and cultural development and primary classteacher expertise. We were all convinced of the importance of the humanities in helping children to understand themselves and the changing world in which they are growing up in the context of globalisation; and the uncertainties that accompany this. However, we were concerned at the current emphasis on propositional (content) knowledge for young children in the National Curriculum in England possibly at the expense of skills, procedures and values; and the lack of time and emphasis given in practice to anything other than literacy and numeracy. Indeed, one recent description of the attitude to the primary curriculum has been that the humanities, and the arts, are simply seen ‘as desirable but inessential’ (Alexander 2016, 2). The loss of curricular breadth and balance, especially in the final year of primary schooling when children and teachers are preparing for tests in literacy and numeracy, which often seem to take centre stage, was also troubling. Factors such as the influence of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and other international comparison tests in the home language, mathematics and in some cases science seem to have led to a greater emphasis on the ‘core subjects’ and the marginalisation of the humanities, and the arts, in most education systems. Initially, we were thinking of the humanities as the subject disciplines of History, Geography and Religious Education and possibly others such as citizenship. We soon discovered that there was a startling lack of information and research about these – specifically about how and how well they were taught, and by whom, in primary schools in England – even from inspection reports. As time went on, we came, slowly, to recognise that our assumption that the humanities should necessarily be conceptualised in this way might be too anglocentric. Contacts with colleagues in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales indicated that policy and practice were very different in these other jurisdictions of the United Kingdom; and our limited knowledge of other systems (for instance, in Canada and Australia) suggested that this was so elsewhere. We discussed the idea of ‘powerful’ disciplinary knowledge which has been debated in some humanities subjects, particularly in secondary education (see Young 2008; Young and Muller 2016). We considered the level of subject knowledge required by primary classroom teachers, in the light of the consistent findings (see, for instance, Catling and Morley 2013; Catling 2014; Carter 2015) about the importance of this and the relatively low levels of many primary teachers’ subject knowledge in History, Geography and Religious Education; and the need for pedagogical content knowledge as well as subject knowledge (see Eaude 2012). Linked to this was a concern at the reduced amount and quality of sustained professional development opportunities in Initial