GEOGRAPHIC INTERPRETATION BY GEOGRAPHY TEACHERS: THE MOBILIZATION GEOGRAPHICAL REASONING

Abstract

This work focuses on the investigation of knowledge operated by Geography teachers when giving rise to the interpretation of a geographical situation, mobilizing geographical reasoning. The data were collected through a projective interview articulated by a geographic question. The results indicate that, despite using concepts when solving the proposed activities, teachers do not always operate with these concepts to understand the geographic situation under analysis, which compromises the effective mobilization of geographic reasoning. Furthermore, they show that the less the subject appropriates the languages provided, the more he makes use of common sense information, distancing himself from the mobilization of geographic reasoning. The limits presented by the subjects when mobilizing geographic reasoning in the interpretation of a geographic situation, allow inferring that the knowledge acquired by geography teachers in their initial training can compromise the understanding of the spatiality of a phenomenon that conditions a geographic situation. Finally, it should be noted that we are not betting on the single existence of a geographic reasoning, possibly other combinations should exist, arising from the multiplicity of research that take as central the realization of a geographical interpretation in which the geographic space is not a mere stage.