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Description: The paper is part of a wider study conducted by the social sciences didactics team at the University of Geneva under Professor Audigier's supervision. One of the main purposes of this research is to determine the contribution of history, geography and citizenship education teaching and learning to the understanding of society among pupils. In other words, the research tries to reveal in what way and to which extent knowledge constructed by these teachings among pupils is helping them to understand, interpret and question social situations. In this paper, we will more precisely examine whether disciplinary knowledge is useful for pupils to question and classify different social situations represented on photographs. One of the issues of this question and, more broadly, from the research, is to explore how knowledge constructed at school is transferable outside the classroom and to which extent it can be mobilized in social situations.
Methodology: Nineteen photographs have been presented to thirty-nine pupils from primary to upper secondary level. Pupils were asked to classify them according to five categories -history, geography, citizenship education, two or more domains, none of the three domains. The selection of photographs representing social past and present situations followed hypotheses we made about the themes or topics strongly related to the three domains of history, geography, citizenship. The result is a mix of more or less complex situations. We avoided images that were too obviously associated with one domain. We also postulate that no chosen image is by nature historical, geographical or related to citizenship. The question that one poses about the photograph determines the classification of an image in this or that domain, or for us, in this or that school subject.
Conclusions: What pre-results show is that disciplinary knowledge is used by pupils as a means to question and classify images but it does not constitute a sufficient criteria. Faced with more complex situations, pupils need at least two other kinds of indicators: for example, criteria that cannot be related to one domain or discipline exclusively, criteria that are not disciplinary and criteria that are specific to the represented situation, or to the photographs themselves.
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