SPANISH GEOGRAPHY ON THE CHALLENGES OF CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY INTERNATIONAL GEOGRAPHICAL UNION SPANISH COMITEE SPANISH GEOGRAPHY ON THE CHALLENGES OF CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY XXX IGU Congress Spanish Contribution Glasgow 2004 TABLE OF CONTENT SPANISH GEOGRAPHY ON THE CHALLENGES OF CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY1 PREFACE . 457 1. GEOGRAPHY TEACHING IN SPAIN . 461 The state of geography in the spanish university. Eugenio Burriel de Orueta. 463 Geography terciary education in non-Geography degree programs in Spain. José Sancho Comíns. 487 Geography in Spanish Primary and Secondary schools (1990-2003). Xosé Manuel Souto González. 499 Geography Doctoral Courses in Spanish Universities (1983-2004). Manuel Valenzuela Rubio. 517 2. RESEARCHING IN GEOGRAPHY . 535 Incorporating new technologies into Spanish geographical research. Joaquín Bosque Sendra y Emilio Chuvieco Salinero. 537 Spanish University Geography Departments and their Scientific Research. Elia Canosa Zamora, Manuel Frochoso Sánchez y Julio Muñoz Jiménez. 547 Spanish geographic journals. Changes and adaptations in editorial quality controls. Jorge Olcina Cantos y Adelaida Román Román. 567 3. THE ACTIVITY OF GEOGRAPHICAL INSTITUTIONS . 597 The “Centro Geográfico del Ejército”. Mariano Abril Domingo. 599 Geography at the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (Higher Council for Scientific Research). María Isabel Bodega Fernández y María Asunción Martín Lou.611 The Spanish “Real Sociedad Geográfica”. 125 years of history. Joaquín Bosque Maurel. 617 Geographers and Cartographic Institutes. Carmen Montaner García. 639 The Asociation of Spanish Geographers. “Asociación de Geógrafos Espanoles” (AGE). Ricardo Méndez Gutiérrez del Valle. 647 1 Abstracts in Spanish, English and French appear only in the Spanish version – 455 – The “Societat Catalana de Geografía”. Francesc Nadal Piqué. 657 4. SPANISH GEOGRAPHY`S INTERNATIONAL PRESENCE . 667 The Internationalization of Spanish Geography Exchanges with Geography and geo- graphers of Latin America. Miguel Panadero Moya. 669 Spanish Geography’s growing ties to Europe. Juan Ignacio Plaza Gutiérrez. 679 Geography and development in Spain. María Prats Ferret. 691 The Internationalization of geography in Spain. Pilar Riera, Maria Dolors García Ramón, Laia Oliver-Frauca y Ferrán Lavall. 701 5. PROFESSIONALIZATION IN THE SPANISH GEOGRAPHY . 717 Geography's job profiles in Spain. David Mongil y Alex Tarroja. 719 Geography and Society in Spain: Its Presence (and its Absence). Pedro Requés Velasco. 737 The profession of the geographers in Spain. Fermín Rodríguez Gutiérrez. 751 The College of Geographers of Spain: an Institution for promoting the social utility of Geography as a profession. Alex Tarroja. 775 – 456 – PREFACE SPAIN’S GEOGRAPHY BEFORE CURRENT SOCIAL CHALLENGES IGU’s Spanish Committee has decided to present to IGU 30th Congress, to be held in Glasgow, this collection of papers entitled La Geografía española ante los retos de la sociedad actual (Spain’s Geography before Current Social Challenges). Question that has deep roots in our country. When I was looking through some issues of the Boletín de la Institución Libre de Enseñanza, I thought I had found those roots in Peastalozzi’s clear influence and in Rousseau’s darker vision, as shown by the Hegelian geographer, Karl Ritter, and his basic work Allgemeine Vergleinchende Erdkunde . A work that so much impressed the Spanish Krausist crowd. The key essay to understand all of this is likely to be the work by David Gibbs, Una ojeada histórica a los métodos de enseñanza de la geografía, the Spanish version of which -translated by Ángel do Rego and published by one of the Institución Libre de Enseñanza-related publis- hing houses- explains the relationship . The Real Sociedad Geográfica helped in establishing a context where this strong influence by the Institución Libre de Enseñanza could house, a building whose upper vertex was to be generated by an University Geography School. The issue was put forward with full details by the Boletín de la Real Sociedad Geográfica, as they attempted to alter former Facultad de Filosofía y Letras’ curricula. The final and complete changes thus propounded would take some time to come. One of the main personalities working on this line was Eloy Bullón, as his essay published in 1933, Estudios de Geografía de la Universidad de Madrid shows. His was also the essay El valor educativo de los servicios geográficos. All of this took place around seventy-five years ago. Spain’s current reality is presented by Eugenio Burriel de Orueta in the opening article, to be comple- ted by José Sancho Comins’ paper, Los estudios de geografía en titulaciones uni- versitarias distintos a la licenciatura de Geografía (Geography Tertiary Education in Non-Geography Degree Programs in Spain), and by Professor Valenzuela’s excellent presentation, La Geografía en los estudios de Tercer Ciclo en las Universidades españolas (1983-2004) (Geography Doctoral Programs in Spanish Universities (1893-2004)). While no teaching aspects are ignored in this section on La enseñanza de la Geografía en España (Geography Teaching in Spain). Naturally, scientific research must go on in Geography, helped by new tech- nologies, such as Remote Sensing or Information Systems, and we are to know and be critically informed about what is going in Spain thanks to Joaquín Bosque Sendra and Emilio Chuvieco Salinero. Getting to know University Geography Departments’ scientific production and its publication in specialized geographic journals complements the section on La investigación geográfica (Researching in Geography). – 459 – All our endeavours could have fallen down if it were not for the activities performed by several institutions that can not be praised highly enough. We only mention a few of them: the Centro Geográfico del Ejército; the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas; the ancient Real Sociedad Geográfica, founded in 1876 and very much related to the History of Spain since the begin- ning of the Spanish Restoration; the Institutos Cartográficos; the Asociación de Geógrafos Españoles, where a large number of Geography professionals are integrated, and the Sociedad Catalana de Geografía. We come now to the scientific links with experts and researchers from other regions presented in section La presencia internacional de la Geografía espa- ñola (An International Presence of the Spanish Geography): for many reasons that do not need much explanations, with experts from Ibero-America; followed by the paper on the scientific links with Europe -I have already referred to Germany but, what about our links with French or British geographers?-; and we can not ignore that Spanish geographers must research for any developing coun- tries, as María Prats Ferret did. This section is completed with a very interes- ting paper by Pilar Riera, María Dolores García Ramón, Laia Olivert-Frauca and Ferrán Lavall, on opening to foreign researchers. If development is blinded by autarchy, it comes true relentlessly in any science, and geography is not an exception. The tale of how Spanish Geographic Science was opened is really valuable. The last section refers to the process of Spanish Geography professionaliza- tion with four papers, that are also very useful to understand the changes suffe- red by the Spanish society in the last fifty years. These accounts when properly made, as is our case, always present a credit and a debit. Our balance, however, is so positive that I wish to point out that it is worth of such a scientific platform as is IGU’s 30th Congress, where by mee- ting our foreign colleagues we will also re-assess our credit and debit. This collaboration will result in our working with a new drive that ought to make our Geographic credit exceed so much our debit that Spanish geographers will be able to attend any future IGU Congresses really proud of their efforts. Madrid, 16th July, 2004. Juan Velarde Fuertes – 460 – I GEOGRAPHY TEACHING IN SPAIN THE STATE OF GEOGRAPHY IN THE SPANISH UNIVERSITY EUGENIO L. BURRIEL DE ORUETA INTRODUCTION Within the last decade, the teaching of geography in Spanish universities has under- gone enormous changes, placing the discipline in a position very different from that before the 1990s1. It was then that a university degree in geography was first offered as an independent program in Spain, and that geography was recognized for its "genuine and independent character and its own features within the scientific universe" (López Ontiveros, 1992, 12). This meant designing new Curricula, not only with new geography courses (4 to 5 academic years of geography), but also aiming at introducing new sub- ject matters. At the same time, the initial high increase in both the supply and demand for university-level geography programs -both in terms of the number of students, and territory covered –, was followed few years later by a quick drop. This paper attempts to analyze these changes, focusing on the challenges that geography is facing today in the Spanish university context. Two factors are studied: on the one hand, supply and demand for university degrees of geography and, on the other hand, the most significant characteristics of present Curricula2. 1 A. López Ontiveros, in an analysis prepared for the Spanish Contribution to the 27th IGU Congress held in Washington DC (1992), pointed out the important process of re-structuring that was just then underway, saying "it will mean not just partially adjusting but changing the current model entirely" (Lopez Ontiveros, 1992,