Perspectives on Brazilian Geography and Cartography Education Research

Abstract

The Colloquium on Cartography for Children and Students was initiated in Brazil in 1995. Its tenth meeting was held in 2018 integrated with the first International Meeting on School Cartography and Spatial Thinking. The background, purpose and themes of this integrated conference are outlined, which focused on ‘the different languages in the contemporary world’ within cartography, geography and spatial thinking. The purpose was to share and promote research across all levels of education, foster new directions of study, encourage sharing and collaboration, stimulate debate, and generate publications. The variety of papers given at the conference provided this, illustrating work in cartographic representations, geographic reasoning and urban spaces, cartographic and spatial reasoning from the early years to high school, the potential of geospatial technologies and atlases, cartography and inclusion, and issues in teacher education. The quality of research was high. To develop this continuing work future directions are discussed for geographical, spatial and cartographic research for children and students, drawing on the International Declaration on Research in Geography Education and the Road Map for Large-Scale Improvement of K-12 Geography Education as key documents that offer relevant research questions. Researchers are encouraged to develop their national and international networks to support and extend their studies, and several research directions are suggested for both dimensions.