Developing of the relationship to the landscape and possibilities of primary education

Abstract

Review of dissertation defended by Kristýna Stará, at the Faculty of Architecture of the Czech Technical University, Prague, in 2019.

In order to promote education leading to a more conscious and committed civic society, this thesis explores integration of the notion of landscape with the interdisciplinary knowledge of architecture and urban planning into teaching practice in elementary schools. Until now, these inputs/efforts have been limited to a few stand-alone projects and programs offered by external experts, mainly from non-governmental, non-profit organizations.

The dissertation thesis by Kristýna Stará investigates possibilities of promoting and developing the relationship of early school age children with landscape through integration of subjects of architecture and urban planning into the curriculum of primary school education. The research focused on Czech environment and took into account foreign models that provided opensource inspiration.

The thesis utilized qualitative and quantitative methods of applied sociological research. Pivotal data constituted from semi-structured interviews with focus groups cross-sectionally covering diverse professionals of different institutional hierarchies and teachers who participated in experimental research stage. Data from interviews were interpreted according to principles of grounded theory.

The results are the following: (1) the design of measures needed to raise public awareness of the topic and its systematic integration into school education; (2) the summary of benefits of such research for professionals from architecture – urban planning and related disciplines, for teachers who have not yet dealt with the issue of landscape, and for the interested expert public; (3) and finally, limits of the research and opportunities for follow-up research were outlined.