Children’s spontaneous ideas about Europe, Comunicazione al Simposium internazionale “Challenges of European Integration”, University ‘Dimitri Cantemir’

The purpose of our study was to outline developmental patterns in mental representations of a complex geographical and social entity as Europe, that cannot be organized on the basis of personal experience of physical environment, but depends on information that are culturally provided (Amann Gainotti, 2006a, 2006b; Amann Gainotti, Pallini, 2006). Representations of Europe have to do with different conceptual areas and notions. These include spatial and geographical notions, naïve physical models of the earth, social notions and also developmental changes in the construction of personal and social identity. In first and second grade, the request of drawing Europe, elicits the production of drawings of landscapes with houses, characters, trees, roads, etc., according to the typical graphic schemata of ages 5 to 7. Since many children at those ages explained that Europe is a city, most probably their drawings wanted to represent a city. Starting third grade there is a decrease in the drawings that represent landscapes, etc. and the first attempts to draw a map appear, with representations of spots, that are more or less coloured, more or less rough or detailed. At these ages, the very first attempts to draw Italy can be noted through the representation of a kind of appendix that detaches from a round, unshaped spot. In fourth and fifth grade there are basically no more drawings of the previous kind. Attempts of drawing a map that uses more or less sophisticated graphic and spatial strategies starts to prevail. These consist mostly in representing Europe, fractioned into a series of territories, that are more or less correct in their spatial collocation, one respect to the others. -