VISUAL MATERIALS AND MODERNISATION OF GEOGRAPHY EDUCATION IN SOCIALIST ROMANIA
Oana-Ramona ILOVAN 
Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Faculty of Geography, and Territorial Identities and Development Centre, ROMANIA.
Email: oana.ilovan@ubbcluj.ro
ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2075-1808
Adrian-Daniel MUNTEAN
West University of Timișoara, Faculty of Chemistry, Biology, Geography, and Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Territorial Identities and Development Research Centre, ROMANIA.
Email: adrian.muntean99@e-uvt.ro
ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2160-2206
ABSTRACT
In this study, we presented and discussed how teachers were advised to teach geography, using images, during socialism in Romania (1948-1989). Besides geographical knowledge, geography classes were supposed to also transmit other types of knowledge, because the scientific canon of geography in socialist Romania was shaped through politicised education. Our aim was to show how geography education and geography textbooks were infused with propaganda, in particular to produce a coherent and impactful official visual discourse through spatial representations of territorial development under socialism. We analysed several didactics of geography from the socialist period and school textbooks for teaching geography. Critical visual methodology and the discourse analysis method were employed. Results showed that didactic advice for teachers aimed to shape students’ socialist consciousness. This was to be developed starting from patriotism and a positivist approach to geographical space: visual representations were “telling the truth” about the socialist reality.
KEYWORDS:
didactics of geography, textbooks, maps, propaganda, socialist development
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Cite this article as:
Ilovan, O.-R., Muntean, A.-D. (2025). Visual Materials and Modernisation of Geography Education in Socialist Romania. Romanian Review of Geographical Education, 14(2), 5-20. http://doi.org/10.24193/RRGE20256