Education and the teaching of geography: information or knowledge age?

Abstract

The contemporary world, especially after the last quarter of the 20th century, has been going through fast economical, social and cultural changes as a result of the recent technological revolution. According to different authors, these technological changes have characterized the information age or knowledge age. Castells (1999), for example, affirms that we live under the development information model. In order to analyze the change in the role of knowledge throughout history, he refers to a category called development mode, which is discussed in this article. These concepts are used in some cases without much precision making it difficult to understand reality. Which is the most appropriate concept to understand the moment we live? This article tries to analyze and situate the role of education in this context. Has the school been able to meet the demands of a world in constant transformation? The amount of curricular reforms that have been implemented in several countries is a demonstration that the answer is negative, that education has not found a consistent way of meeting the demands yet. Furthermore, education can not restrict itself to meet the demands of the productive system, education should first of all, be concerned with human emancipation. Has Geography been able to adapt to the transformations of the contemporary world and at the same time explain it properly? This article discusses some of the issues related to the role of academic and educational Geography in this context.