This article has been updated, expanded and moved.
If you’re looking for what Concept Cartoons are, how to use them and lots of examples, go here:
If you’re looking for a short analysis of some Swiss Social Studies learning materials, read on.
It seems concept cartoons aren’t widely used in geography education yet. This can be seen e.g. by looking through the two new student text books for social studies (RZG) in Switzerland – Durchblick 1 + 2 and Weltsicht 1 + 2. Weltsicht came out in 2018 (book 1) and 2019 (book 2), Durchblick in 2016 (book 1) and 2017 (book 2).
I didn’t see a single concept cartoon in either of the two Weltsicht books.
In Durchblick 1, page 65 has several ovals, labeled A-K, with short opinions for a discussion about the Catholic church and reformators from different perspectives (e.g. someone who believes in ‘saints’ and someone who doesn’t). It doesn’t have a ‘cartoon’ element.
In Durchblick 2, page 63 has several speech bubbles labeled with name and age (14-15 years) about ‘What is home? (German: Heimat, which can also be translated as e.g. homeland or native country).
Page 71 has 4 short news headlines in rounded rectangles about the asylum debate.
Page 262 has four rounded rectangles each with a name, age (25-69 years), photo and statement by the person about ‘What is human dignity?”. In the middle there’s a photo with “Human dignity is inviolable” (translated).
Page 284 has a photo of 6 young people. Each person has one or two speech bubble(s), stating everyday things s_he is doing to be sustainable. They thus don’t show different conceptions.
Another example is Zebis. Zebis is a platform where teachers, institutions and others can share CC-licenced learning materials. Its search function doesn’t return a single hit for “Concept cartoon”. There aren’t any results for the German versions “Konzept Cartoon” or “Konzeptdialog” either.
