Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: Eurocentric portrayals of Africa remain entrenched in European educational systems, perpetuating stereotypes of poverty, primitiveness, and exoticism. This study investigates how such representations are mirrored in German students’ mental conceptions and how they are interpreted by future educators. Using an interpretivist qualitative design, the study analyzes open-ended responses from 41 Grade 5 and 7 pupils at a lower secondary school in Münster, Germany, and written reflections from 17 teacher trainees enrolled in a master’s course in geography education. Thematic analysis reveals five dominant pupil schemas: poverty and deprivation, environmental determinism, racialization and othering, infrastructural deficit, and the wildlife-tourism gaze, rooted in media, textbooks, teachers, and social networks. Teacher trainees’ reflections ranged from emotional discomfort to critical awareness, with many advocating pedagogical pluralism, the normalization of African modernity, and the cultivation of critical consciousness. However, most proposals remained reformist, lacking a deep epistemological critique. The findings highlight the urgency of integrating decolonial theory, postcolonial critique, and epistemic justice into teacher education. Without such structural reorientation, schools will risk reproducing the very global hierarchies they purport to challenge.
Source: Education Sciences
Authors: Emmanuel Eze, Natalie Bienert
Institutions: University of Nigeria, University of Münster
Language: English
Subfield: Geography, Planning and Development
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $2,172
OpenAlex ID: W7084043504