Abstract
Urban centres in Europe have been recently affected by touristification processes which endanger their sustainable development. In this context, education in urban sustainability is gaining great importance at all stages of education. It has been noticed that this issue is not appropriately presented in primary education studies where “tourism” is one of the topics to be addressed. This paper provides the design of a teaching activity for teachers in training in order to understand the process of tourism gentrification in European cities. The aim of this activity is to enable the transfer of knowledge to primary education concerning contemporary urban processes involving tourism within a framework of respect and sustainability. This activity is based on an urban geographical analysis in public squares located in touristified districts of several European cities. This is achieved by way of a visual, interactive and cartographic analysis and evaluation. This paper presents the results of the didactic experience in Madrid. The results are positive, since students develop geographic abilities, attitudes of respect, critical thinking, and contrasted knowledge about tourism gentrification. We conclude with a call for a conceptual update of contemporary urban processes involving tourism in primary education curricula and advise that teachers in training should be taken to the field to explain complex spatial phenomena.
Highlights
One of the most recent focuses in this area has been the impacts of tourism in urban centres, especially in heritage cities, where there is a strong conflict in the use and values of space [2]
The purpose is that future teachers will understand, by using urban geography tools and encouraging meaningful and active conceptual, procedural and attitudinal learning, how this discipline provides a broader framework including the dynamics of the intensification of tourist use of urban spaces
Their common trajectory tells a story of a first degradation and appropriation of spaces by alternative and marginalised social groups that become “fashionable” areas over time. This is the case, for example, with the “Madrid movement” in Malasaña, or the homosexual community in Chueca. These processes have led to new forms of conflict that have appeared in the urban centres of many cities as the economic crisis of 2008 coincided with a sharp rise of liberalisation of the tourism sector [41]
Summary
Tourism is a phenomenon with a long tradition in Europe that has important effects on the culture, environment and economy of countries [1]. Gentrification caused by tourism is affecting a growing number of cities around the world and is a relevant study object in the 21st century [5] It is a challenge for a university to transfer updated knowledge in order to offer critical interpretative frameworks of the social reality which are kept separate from the mythologized visions of the tourist phenomenon, such as those collected by Jafari [6] in the “apologetic platform” The purpose is that future teachers will understand, by using urban geography tools and encouraging meaningful and active conceptual, procedural and attitudinal learning, how this discipline provides a broader framework including the dynamics of the intensification of tourist use of urban spaces This can improve the quality of tourism education and the didactic quality of social sciences
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