TURKISH JOURNAL OF GEOGRAPHY EDUCATION (COĞRAFYA EĞİTİMİ DERGİSİ) (ISSN: 2149-522X)

Description

Turkish Journal of Geographical Education is the
academic journal of Turkish Geographers Association.
This is our first issue and I would like to address what
we aim to achieve by issuing this journal.
There are a number of pillars that this journal built on.
The first one is to promote geography education and
show others the place of geography in the evolving
school curriculum. The need for geography education
in schools is increased because of the spatial and
temporal changes in the world. We can be sure of only
one thing about the future of the world today; that is
the uncertainty. Geography teaches young people to
navigate through such uncertain times and spaces, to
deal with problems that require problem solving and
decision making skills and to face with issues of the
future which have ethical and moral dimensions. In
this respect, we need explanations that take into
account the complexity of the world as opposed to
smooth and straight forward explanations. Reaching
“the truth” may be impossible but we should attempt
to be true to our sources. However, we are concerned
that in some countries and schools, geographic
education is weak or perhaps totally absent. We believe
that for the well being of the planet and humanity
geography education plays a fundamental role and
therefore should be a fundamental element of every
child’s school education.
The second pillar is that the journal is considered to be
a learning platform. As the world becoming more
complex, geography education programmes serving
young people in many countries have become
increasingly complex, diverse, and comprehensive.
Then we need to learn from one another. Experiences
in one context may not be directly transferred to other
contexts but we could still draw some valuable lessons
from others’ experiences. Thus we welcome
contributors from different educational systems and
countries.
The third pillar that the journal stands upon is
concerned with the authors and audience of the
journal. Academic researchers, theorists, curriculum
developers, policy-makers and educational
administrators are our natural target audience and
authors.
However, the journal particularly encourages practicing
teachers who are traditionally omitted in educational
debates to submit their works for publication.
We also welcome quality contributions regardless of
authors’ specialism to achieve an interdisciplinary medium.
The forth pillar of the journal is more geographic in the
sense that it attempts to fill the gap between the world
of Eastern and Western geography educators. In other
terms, the journal positions itself, borrowing infamous
metaphor for geography, as a bridge between “the
East” and “the West”. We believe that we need more
efforts to increase the dialogue between the East and
the West. Thus, the journal is committed to promote,
enhance and share geographic learning and teaching
across “the East” and “the West”.
The fifth and the most important pillar of the journal is
that the journal was founded upon the conviction that
nothing subsides good teaching. In this respect, it seeks
to become a platform where every single issue related
to geography and environmental education could be
discussed through different perspectives and through
theoretical and practical dimensions.
I welcome everyone with the hope that we could affect
the direction of change positively in the world.