Although geography is often seen by middle and high school students as an ancillary subject to history, it is just as much a part of their civic education and is also marked by ideological discourses.

The “national novel” constructed by school history is the subject of lively debates that contrast with the deafening silence surrounding geography programs. As much as history, the latter participate in citizenship education. However, their ideological dimension is transparent, passed over in silence. And we tend to consider geography as the little sister of history, or simply the subject that provides its context.

This is one of the clichés that the book Nine Preconceived Ideas on Teaching Geography, published in October 2024, aims to deconstruct. Indeed, the national novel has a geographical equivalent, the “territorial story”.

Let us recall that the generalization of history-geography in primary school after 1871 aimed to develop students’ reasoning skills , to make them discover and love the homeland, but also to train future soldiers capable of reading maps.

Initially focused on the wealth and singularity of each French region and the colonial power, the territorial narrative has profoundly evolved during the 20th century  while continuing to stage a fantasy world. Originally, it was built around the idea of ​​a continuous construction of the territory, delimited by its “natural” borders, a construction organized by an omnipotent planning State with a “vision” of its organization. This construction is also marked by major episodes demonstrating the will and power of the State: Vauban’s strongholds, the star-shaped transport network, the balanced metropolises, the development of the Languedoc coastline.

If the territorial story is punctuated by major development programs, decentralization could have marked its end by multiplying the spatial actors, but this story actually continues at different scales.

A story marked by neoliberalism

School geography highlights the spaces that are well integrated into globalization and continue to divide the world into two, the Norths and the Souths, even though this limit is being challenged within scholarly geography .

Among the valued territories, those that emerge as winners from globalization are at the forefront, notably the major global metropolises that are well integrated into economic and financial networks: Paris, London, New York, etc. On a larger scale, these are still competitive productive areas such as clusters, technology parks, centers of excellence, etc. On a French scale, this leads to an over-representation of metropolitan regions and border regions to the detriment of the rest of the national territory.

Imbued with a productivist and neoliberal discourse, this story based on territories selected in the light of the economy and globalization replaces the territorial story of the 19th and  20th centuries  , more marked by colonialism. It shows the competitiveness of France in the face of more publicized powers, such as the United States or China. This story is therefore highly politicized and ideological without this being clearly perceived by the students, accustomed to a consensual education, presenting indisputable results .

A staging of public power

Areas that are less well integrated into globalization, such as overseas territories or low-density areas, are not completely absent from the programs. But they are the subject of a specific narrative and are approached from the angle of their assets, which should therefore be valued in order to also achieve the status of winning territories.

In rural areas, subject to agricultural decline and demographic decline, the development of new activities such as agrotourism, organic farming or the promotion of local areas with products with a controlled designation of origin (PDO) are highlighted. Isolation, socio-economic inequalities or the withdrawal of public services are underdeveloped most of the time.

Overseas territories are treated in a similar way. School geography highlights their tourist attractions, their landscapes, and possibly the fragility of their environment. On the other hand, the weak integration of these regions in their regional area, the significant discontinuities between the overseas territories and the mainland, the socio-economic inequalities within these territories and their specific problems such as the challenges of migration, for example in French Guiana or Mayotte , are not or are barely addressed. The social struggles that have crossed the overseas territories in recent years are also not addressed. The ZADs , such as Notre-Dame-des-Landes, are also part of these invisible territories.

The areas that are poorly covered by school geography are therefore also marked by a neoliberal discourse that contributes to the promotion of these territories. Paradoxically, this discourse is coupled with a staging of public power, through developments such as the coastal road in Réunion, presented as a means of promoting island mobility. However, the isolation of the island’s interior is omitted and the saturation of the island road is not addressed. The staging of the State as the savior of the territories is a form of incarnation of republican solidarity, a renewed form of the welfare state.

The territorial narrative participates in ordering the world through the prism of two antagonistic ideologies: neoliberalism and the welfare state. It thus contributes to an education in citizenship of adhesion, knowing that “citizenship of adhesion is based on a process of construction of unity through the transcendence of particular identities” .

Territorial narrative, a lever for citizenship education?

The national novel and the territorial narrative are part of the perspective of citizenship education that aims to transmit a common culture and shared values. The territorial narrative thus highlights a planning State concerned with equality between citizens, forgetting to mention public policies that lead to the closure of essential services such as maternity wards, in the name of profitability. It promotes a State concerned with freedoms, but which eliminates vocational education courses that do not correspond to the productive spaces present.

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The teaching of geography, like that of history, also aims to develop students’ critical thinking, which can lead them to question, or even challenge the territorial narrative, thus becoming part of a citizenship of engagement. This other form of education for citizenship

“is based on active participation in the life of the local or national community, which is not limited to the full exercise of civic rights. This includes all forms of engagement in the life of the city, particularly elective or associative . “

Education for citizenship of engagement and that of citizenship of adhesion coexist within the teaching of geography and history. However, the choices made in the textbooks go very little in the direction of citizenship of engagement, which then depends entirely on the choices and proposals of the teachers constrained by the publishers.

History enjoys strong social prestige and media visibility while the image of geography is tarnished by school practices that no longer exist, but which persist in the collective imagination, such as learning the map of departments and regions. However, geography is increasingly used in the media as a means of demonstrating major geopolitical and environmental issues, and there is therefore a democratic issue in debating the content taught there in the public arena.

Author Bios: Caroline Leininger is Professor of Geography and Karine Ferol is Professor of History and Geography and a Doctoral student both at Paris Cité University