Diagrams in Civic Education: Understanding Their Spatial Organization, Imagery, and Language

The three studies in this book address several dimensions of the conditions, possibilities, and pitfalls related to using diagrams in civic education. They do so by connecting to different philosophical and theoretical traditions. According to Peircean semiotics, diagram, image, and symbol are aspects of signs that, in the real world, are often combined in one and the same sign. Diagrams therefore often possess elements of images as well as letters, numbers, and other symbolic conventions. In this volume, Chap. 2 is focused on the purely diagrammatic aspects, the spatial organization of figures, and their foundations in spatial cognition. Chapter 3 puts greater focus on the image aspect of diagrams in maps and pictorial statistics. Finally, Chap. 4 focuses on the symbolic aspects of diagrams that have to be learned, the literacy of diagrams. What unites all three studies presented in this volume is that they stress that although diagrams are didactically necessary simplifications of reality, even the best diagram should not be mistaken for reality itself. We need simplified diagrammatic models of the world as an interface between our limited consciousness and a complicated universe. Although this is inevitable, we can at least benefit from becoming aware of it.