English and Italian children's knowledge of European geography

Abstract

English and Italian children's geographical knowledge of Europe was studied, particularly their landmark, configurational and route knowledge. The children were aged 7–11‐years‐old, and their knowledge of Europe was assessed using a variety of different methods, including verbal questioning, a categorization task, a physical arrangement task, an outline map task and a textbook map vs. satellite photo interpretation task. Convergent findings were obtained by the use of these various methods. In addition to differences associated with age, there were consistent and substantial differences in landmark and configurational knowledge between the Italian and English children, with the Italian children exhibiting a higher level of knowledge about Europe compared with their English peers. Sex differences were also found, but these were primarily confined to the children's configurational knowledge. It is suggested that the nationality differences may be due to the differential availability of information about Europe to children in Italy and England, with this differential availability of information itself being a product of the different social representations of Europe which prevail in these two countries.