Changes in the Sense of Place in the School Spaces through Emotional Mapping Project Lessons in Social Studies

The purpose of this study is to explore the effect of emotional guidance project classes on elementary school students’ sense of place. To this end, it was designed to recognize and express the emotions and meanings that students give to the space, focusing on emotional guidance activities that visualize individual emotions on a map. The 11th class was applied to one class (20 students) in the fourth grade of a public elementary school in Seoul, and pre- and post-questionnaires, reflections, interviews, and observation records were collected and analyzed according to the mixed research design. As a result of quantitative analysis, statistically significant positive changes were found in the cognitive and behavioral areas, and the affective areas were limited in quantity, but the deepening of place-specific attachment was confirmed in the qualitative data. Throughout the course of the class, students’ willingness to participate and learning commitment were high. These results suggest that the emotional guidance project class is a valid teaching and learning model that cultivates a sense of place in elementary social studies. On the other hand, this study has a limitation in the absence of a comparative group based on the case of a single class, and a comparison of multiple classes and multiple regions and a long-term follow-up study are required for generalization. Nevertheless, this study empirically suggested the possibility of educational use of emotional guidance by showing the process by which emotions experienced by students in school spaces lead to geographic perception and practice.