Geography teaching appreciation of young people socio-spatial practices in the city

Abstract

Youth category encompasses different ways of being young because it is not possible characterizing youth with a universal definition, since there is a heterogeneity in the youth experience, passing through different contexts and circumstances. Wherefore, youth must be understood in its plurality. The way in which the teacher uses the everyday knowledge acquired by young people to promote Geography teaching may interfere in their understanding of the city and in the geographical thinking that is built between experience and school contents. Promoting activities that unite the daily knowledge of young students to school contents brings possibility to produce meanings to concepts and contents and might enhance different reasoning. In such a context, this research seeks to contribute for discussions about socio-spatial practices of young students in the city, verifying how young people, based on their experiences, may develop geographic reasoning by integrating everyday knowledge with school content. The main objective of the work is to describe young students’ characteristics surveyed and proposing suggestions for pedagogical activities that teacher may use for Geography teaching from the youth as protagonist and the formation of concepts, aiming at the formation of geographic thinking and citizenship development. Research methodology integrated the analysis of questionnaires and elaboration of pedagogical proposals for teaching. In the research, suggestions were made for pedagogical activities that teacher may use for Geography teaching from the youth as protagonist and the formation of concepts. Youth as protagonist and formation of concepts show that the teacher’s main role in this situation is creating conditions for young people understanding the city they live in, recognizing themselves as subjects while they are able to fight for their demands.