Teaching methodology of geography and educational geography in Croatia over the last fifty years

Abstract

The teaching methodology of geography is a relatively young scientific discipline within the scientific field of geography, that has only been experiencing its full scientific affirmation in the last few decades. In the early years, scholarly production focused on works that primarily dealt with geography education, but further development of the discipline showed a tendency to single out educational geography as a distinct scholarly entity and branch within the field. Given the aforementioned, there is a need to recapitulate scientific production and the most important findings of this geographical scientific discipline from the last fifty years. A review of scientific and scientific-expert papers on the teaching methodology of geography and educational geography indicates a thematic and methodological paradigm shift toward covering topics and objects of research significantly wider than those covered in the classroom and during geography lessons. The noticeable changes in the prevailing scientific interest in the curriculum and organization of teaching according to human resources research, the organization of education in certain areas and student achievement indicate a continuous and stable development.