Magdolna A. Sipos and Miklós M. Nagy: The Teaching of Geography Between the Two World Wars

Hungarian politicians of the years following the First World War were searching for a way out of the distress the country was in as a consequence of the Trianon Peace Treaty. They chose education - and, within that, focused on geography education – as a possible ideological egress. In the present study the authors examine (1) how the teaching of geography, so popular in that period, was influenced by the cultural politics of the era in the schools, especially in secondary schools and (2) how geography education supported the notions of national education and revision. These decades were the golden age of the discipline and the teaching of geography. With its integration-based approach and its claim of the determining role of geographical conditions, the field, as it were, provided a natural geographical basis for the notion of revision. This way, a simple statement of natural geography, declaring the unity of the Carpathian basin, received an overtone corresponding to the actual political regimes.

MAGYAR PEDAGÓGIA 98. Number 1. 41-57. (1998)

Address for correspondence: Sipos Anna Magdolna, H – 2040 Budaőrs, Szivárvány u. 2. X. em. 64.; Nagy Miklós Mihály, H – 1149 Budapest, Pillangó park 12/c VII. em. 45.

 
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