Contemporary (economic) geography research illustrates China's high innovation capacity and the increasing relevance of Chinese companies in global value chains. In school, however, China is still often regarded as the world's factory with a focus on low-tech exports, which does not do justice to the current state of research - the transfer of knowledge from research to school lessons is therefore subject to a large time-lag.
In the Department of Economic Geography a new research project begins, which is funded by the DFG as a so-called knowledge transfer project and is dedicated to this problem. Ingo Liefner and Sebastian Losacker are working together with the geography didactics working group at the Justus Liebig University in Giessen and the Hessian Teaching Staff Academy (Hessische Lehrkräfteakademie) on two project goals under the title “Transferring current research findings concerning the economic development of China to the Geography classroom”.
Firstly, the project aims to integrate research insights of DFG-projects carried out by economic geography to geography classrooms in Hessen, as a start. Within the frame of symbiotic teacher workshops, teachers, representatives of the educational administration, and applicants from economic geography and geographical subject-matter education as well as Chinese scientists develop professionally qualified and methodically innovative educational arrangements concerning different aspects of China’s economic situation. These foundations for teaching and learning are evaluated and disseminated. Secondly, following the concept of habitus and by employing reconstructive approaches, the aim is to consolidate the existing orientations, based on the topical context dealt with here, within a typology of geography teacher types.
