Inga Gryl

Re-centring Geoinformation in Secondary Education: Toward a Spatial Citizenship Approach

This article explores starting points for spatial citizenship education and discusses fields of competence needed for active spatial citizenship. The use of geoinformation (GI) systems at the secondary-school level has been considered mainly as preparation to join the geospatial workforce and as a support tool to encourage spatial thinking. While this approach definitely has benefits in arguing for a wider set of competencies acquired by GI-based learning, it has frequently been linked to instrumental knowledge, and misses out on the societal consequences of GI use. The concept of spatial citizenship attempts to address these shortcomings. Originating from the individual and collective appropriation of social space, it supports learners in acquiring competencies that will enable them to participate more actively in society through the critical use of GI. Spatial citizenship adds an explicitly spatial domain to citizenship education.

Education for Spatial Citizenship

This chapter deals with approaches to use geoinformation (GI) as used in everyday settings. It first explores the concept of Spatial Citizenship, along an example taken from the holiday crowd that is easily translated to a host of other interest groups using space as symbolic means to exert their interests. It then looks into the role that digital GI may play in that process, and fields of competences needed to use GI competitively for active / activist citizenship. Theoretical foundations of a coherent concept of Spatial Citizenship are discussed, as is the reception of the approach by the scientific community not involved in the original conception of the Spatial Citizenship approach. The second part of the paper is devoted to the development of a more formalized set of competences as well as a curriculum that should enable in-service teachers to teach their classes in secondary schools along the line of the Spatial Citizenship approach. The contribution finally gives an outline of the materials developed within a European Union Comenius project.

Spatially Informed Citizenship Education as an Approach for Global Understanding

Education for Spatial Citizenship is a concept that was coined at the beginning of the decade as a social theory-based reaction to Spatial Thinking. The concept has been developed mainly as an alternative to technology and workforce-oriented ideas of GIS inclusion in secondary education and been further enhanced through an EC (European Commission) grant for teacher in-service training. Its international reception has been on the lines of geomedia-based education so far, but that has been widened to the fields of gender, age, and intersectionality and innovation and innovativeness, with various practice examples. This paper widens the scope in order to link to the concept of global understanding. While Spatial Citizenship has always linked to geomedia and the technologies that are available to lay citizens, this chapter seeks to explain the spatialities involved in citizenship in general, and the concepts needed to participate maturely and in an informed way. We consider these concepts—mainly rooted in the tradition of geographical thought—and explore their value to the understanding and appropriation of the world on a variety of scales, which opens up the field for global understanding. This exploration starts from a rereading of Benno Werlen’s and Anssi Paasi’s work on everyday regionalization, and draws links to participatory and activist forms of citizenship.

Gender-biased Appropriation of Space?

Several studies indicate gender differences in spatial orientation, map reading, and the way people appropriate spaces for everyday action. Thereby, the most important factor of gender differences in spatially related abilities is socialization. Gender roles and differences are already present in primary school age, and gender differences in the appropriation of space may lead to unequal chances of societal participation. Therefore, it is worth drawing a focus on gender-biased education in primary geography learning. This study examines potential gender differences in primary school with subjective cartography, respectively mapping of children’s everyday spaces.

geo@web. Zur Entfaltung und Anverwandlung eines neuen Forschungsfeldes

Als am 9. Januar 2007 auf der Messe Macworld Conference & Expo in San Francisco erstmals der Prototyp eines Apple Smartphones mit Multi-Touch- Bedienung offentlich prasentiert wurde, konnte wohl noch niemand erahnen, welche Lawine der daraufhin folgende Marktstart dieses ersten iPhones in Gang setzen wurde. Was war, ganz abgesehen von der gelungenen Marketingstrategie, in technischer Hinsicht so besonders an diesem Gerat? Streng genommen ist anzumerken: Nichts! Der kleine Taschencomputer mit Telefonfunktion fuhrte lediglich Handy, MP3-Player und Internet-Schnittstelle in einem Gerat zusammen – veredelt mit einem attraktiven Design.