Children drawing Europe: The effects of nationality, age and teaching

The aim of this study is to investigate cross-national differences in child ren's geographical knowledge of Europe. The analyses are based on 300 maps of Europe drawn by 8- and 10-year-olds from different European countries an d regions: northern Italy, southern Italy, England, Scotland, Spain and Swi tzerland. Based upon place schema theory (Mandler, 1984), each map was scor ed according to number of drawn countries (inventory information), correctn ess of spacial location (spatial relation information) and of shape (descri ptive information) of drawn countries. The main results were the following: (1) 8-year-olds' schematic knowledge of Europe is poorer than that of 10-y ear-olds; (2) the core of children's representation of Europe is given by t he knowledge of their own country; (3) the best represented countries are t hose chat are closest to the physical limits of their own country; (4) nort h Italian children have the best knowledge of Europe, followed by English, Scottish, and south Italian children, Spanish and Swiss children showing le ast knowledge; (5) teaching programmes do improve 10-year-olds' knowledge o f the geography of Europe.