School Geography under COVID‐19: Geographical Knowledge in the German Formal Education

This paper aims to explore some of the changes affecting the teaching and learning of secondary geography as a result of the COVID‐19 pandemic. In doing so, it sets a focus on geographical knowledge and its alteration in times of extraordinary measures to diagnose its challenges. Against the background of current debates on competence‐ and standard‐based education from the sociology and history of education as well as from geography education, problem‐centred interviews served to explore the perspectives of 15 German secondary school teachers on the alterations their Geography teaching suffered since the COVID‐19 lockdown. Analytical categories were general challenges, communication with stakeholders, educational media usage, and the role of COVID‐19 in geographical knowledge acquisition. The results uncovered, along with systemic challenges, two main areas in need of consideration to redefine subject‐specific knowledge in times of competence‐based education, namely geography teachers' professional identity and perspectives on the role of geographical competencies.