Abstract
This study aimed to clarify the actual situation of children's regional representation of their local area and the formation and transformation of their regional representations through classroom practice,
using a case study of a third-grade elementary school social studies class in the local area studies. In
analysing regional representations, we focused on geographical concepts such as place, space, and scale.
We used quantitative text analysis to understand how the children constructed their regional
representations using these concepts. The results of this study can be summarised as follows.
First, we empirically demonstrated the characteristics and transformation process of children's
regional representations in an introductory social studies unit for third-year elementary school students
based on the relationship between classroom practice and children's learning. The relationship between
children's regional representations and classroom practices was clarified by visualising the cooccurrence
relationships and understanding their transformations through text mining. Children
transformed their regional representation through field observations, mapmaking, and reinterpretation
at different scales.
Second, the study empirically demonstrates the use of geographical concepts in children's regional
representations. Based on the regional representation the children retained before this study, they were
asked to reconstruct their regional representation based on geographical concepts such as place, space,
and scale, capturing the differences among places and focusing on the region's multifaceted nature. This
study clarified children's perceptions of their local areas during the transition from living environment
to social studies.
The task was to develop an improved teaching model based on this study, considering children in the
introductory social studies period, and to test it again. It is necessary to accumulate lesson practices in
a geographical environment different from the present practice. In addition, the validity of the
evaluation method for understanding children's regional representations should be examined and
refined.
