Geographical and Environmental Education in South-eastern Europe: Geopolitical Developments and Educational Prospects

Abstract

The region of South-eastern Europe has been under two different socioeconomic regimes until the early 1990s, so the development of both geographical and environmentaleducation in the region is now in the process of significant changes. Hence, the current problems relating to geographical and/or environmental education differ significantly among these countries. Since, however, the prospect that former socialist countries join the European Union in the not-so-remote future seems increasingly probable, it is important to depict the particular problems that these countries encounter in their formal and non-formal educational systems. An overview of geographical and environmental education in the region may suggest that geographical education at primary and high school levels is more advanced in less economically developed countries of the region, while environmental education is more advanced in wealthier countries. Certainly, there are exceptions to this generalisation, but this bias may have a geopolitical interpretation. The promotion of civic education in tandem with environmental education will facilitate the countries’ accession to the European Union in the future, whilst geographical education is likely to dissociate itself from its purely ‘theoretical’ past.