Geographical Thinking: Is It a Limitation or Powerful Thinking?

Abstract

Referring to tendencies among German geography educationists to deny their subject its background and to substitute its educational contribution with either values education, or endeavours at psychotherapeutic care, this chapter discusses the importance of powerful disciplinary knowledge in the geography classroom. It offers a number of examples which show how geographical thinking can lead students to better understand the world around them and take them beyond what they already know. This understanding transcends subject boundaries and helps students to both handle, and to work with, what in political theory are known as essentially contested concepts (such as the concept of justice).