How School Trips Modify the Pupils’ Representation of Space - Maps for the Future Children Education and Internet - page 93

Chapter 8
How School Trips Modify the Pupils'
Representation of Space
Katarzyna Bogacz
Abstract A research project studies the modalities of spatial learning. The objec-
tive was to understand if the experience of school trips modifies the children's
spatial representations. The research was carried out with 192 pupils in Lyon
(France) and Cracow (Poland). In order to examine the children's spatial
representations, mental maps were used. In this method, the geographical approach
places the lived-in space in the centre of preoccupations. The research postulated
that the connection to reality is inseparable from the filter of the representations.
Through experiences, the individual constructs an interior model of his or her
environment. This paper reports specifically on the results of a sample study in
Poland.
8.1 The Theoretical Framework
My work is related to two disciplines, geography and psychology. It is supported by
the postulate of spatial representations within the framework of the paradigm of
spatial production. The theoretical and epistemological reflections of geographers,
which consider the values attributed by the individual to the space, lead to
mobilizing the theoretical and methodological elements of psychology. The
representations, in the sense of reconstitution and interpretation, are very important
in this teaming of disciplines. Looking at space as representation seems to be triple
facetted: according to Berdoulay ( 1988 , cited by Di M´o 1991 ), the geographical
space can be understood as a complex construction where the subject, the spatial
reality of the earth, and the subject's representations intervene.