Landscape in classroom: a survey of the educational paths in Italian secondary school

The purpose of this contribution is to explore how the subject of landscape is proposed and treated in Italian middle and high school, also in view of the normative documents concerning the teaching of geography and the reflections that geographical knowledge has had on the concept of landscape. With this aim in mind a reasoned selection of geography textbooks has been analysed, including both orders of school, and covering the time span from 1990 to the present. The analysis is conducted on two levels. Firstly, a semantic analysis is carried out to detect the presence of the word landscape in texts in order to understand the meanings assigned to it. Secondly, the data collected are read through some interpretative criteria derived from the geographical literature on landscape. The obtained results allow us to outline the prevailing trends followed by schools when proposing and building educational activities on landscape, as well as on education on and through landscape, providing useful information to understand critical issues and suggest the most appropriate actions.