New political geography

Abstract

After the end of a bipolar world, political, ethnic, religious, social and economic relates have entered into a new phase of development in an effort to discover new forms of balance. The political structures of the world are undergoing changes in different spatial dimensions from global through macro-regional to local ones. We are witnessing of processes leading to democratisation of political systems, but also of the opposite trends. These political processes are very strongly influenced by ethical and religious conflicts and nationalist tendencies, from positive emancipation to negative xenophobia. In terms of education, the disadvantage of reflecting changes of political structures is their relatively high speed, which cannot be reflected in textbooks and which requires constant updating from teachers. It is important to find an optimal level of politico-geographical knowledge for each school grade and to avoid the mere memorising of facts. The relation to political structures is most affected by subjective opinions of every teacher who passes them onto their students. Therefore, a strong emphasis should be placed on the training of pre-service teachers in the context of modern education of political and cultural geography. The political and economic changes in some Central European countries and their perception by the children of secondary schools will be reflected in the chapter.