Images of Francophone Countries and Francophone Images ofthe World

A sample of mental maps ofthe world drawn byfirst-year geo¬ graphy students of eight Francophone countries reflects their variations in geography education. In several countries the geography students are unable to place 30 countries on their Sketch maps ofthe world! The Francophone nations are not seen as the most important, for several large and wellknown countries appear more frequently than most Franco¬ phone countries on the sketch maps ofthe world from France and other Francophone countries of Europe, Africa and North America.

provided access to questions of identity and diversity, and to likely causes.Each national education System is responsible for the Student images, along with the other informal ways of learning about the world.This type of systematic enquiry provides a source of data which draws on the pioneering work of downs and stea (1973) and saarinen (1973).A first synthesis of this study was made by saarinen (1988).It illustrates the dominance of an Eurocentric image ofthe world, even after a quarter of a Century of decolonization; but Americentric and Sinocentric maps appear also, illus- trating other mental arrangements ofthe world.Several other papers based on the data set have been completed such as those dealing with the image of a Single country (saarinen andMacCABE 1989, walmsley, saarinen andMaccABE 1990, saarinen & MacCABE 1990), the use of sketch maps as Surrogates for geographie knowledge (saarinen, MaccABE and morehouse 1988), the com¬ parison ofthe world images ofthe Commonwealth coun¬ tries (1992) and a worldwide geographie education evaluation based on the sketch maps (saarinen & MaccABE 1993).
In this sample, the Francophone countries were dealt with separately so as to study the homogeneity or diver¬ sity of their students' representations ofthe world, in rela¬ tion to those ofthe students from the rest ofthe world.This yields the advantage of being able to compare the re¬ sults of French-speaking students regardless of where they live (Europe, America and Africa).Tallying the results of which countries were or were not present yields an aecounting for each sample country.The aggregate results can easily be compared between countries, groups of countries, or continents.In all, sam¬ ples from eight francophone cities were surveyed: Abidjan, Geneva, Lome, Ottawa, Paris, Rabat, Ruhengeri, and Tananarive (Table No. 1).The Canadian sample was from the University of Ottawa.Antoine S. Bailly, Prof. Dr., Departement de Geographie, Universite de Geneve, Uni Mail, 1211 Geneve 4, Suisse.

27713, USA.
Thomas Saarinen, Prof., Department of Geography and Regional Planning,The University of Arizona, Harvill Building, Box 2, Tucson, Arizona 85721, USA.This sample of eight countries will be compared to those ofthe rest ofthe world, namely 450 out of a total of 3568 maps.We will begin by analysing the image ofthe Franco¬ phone countries by the students ofthe rest ofthe world before looking at the Francophone image ofthe world.
2. The World's Image of Francophone Countries According to the total world sample, the frequency of Francophone (or partially Francophone) countries ap- pearing on the maps varies considerably by nationality of the sample (Table No. 2).
Canada is the country most often named, followed by France, and an astonishing third, Madagascar.The first two can be explained by their size or historic importance, and the third owes its place to its cartographie position and shape.The world sample shows that island conti¬ nents, like Australia, and maritime countries which are islands or have distinetive shapes or coastlines are better known (Italy, Spain, Saudi Arabia, Madagascar).The stronger image of countries "at a corner" or at the edge of a continent explains why Morocco and Algeria appear on close to a quarter ofthe maps, which is more than their international importance would lead one to ex- pect.Such is not the case with Switzerland, which is a small Continental country, but famous enough to be mentioned once in every four maps.Those foUowing demonstrate the Eurocentric nature of our images: a small Euro¬ pean country like Belgium and Luxembourg appears fre¬ quently, while much larger countries of Black Africa are poorly represented.Only '/io ofthe maps show Chad, Ivory Coast and Zaire, and the world sample has an even dimmer image of such large African Francophone coun¬ tries as Mauretania, Cameroon and the Central African Republic.
The primary result is the dominant position of Canada, a country of Continental dimensions.France holds a rea- sonable position due to its historic and cultural role and the Eurocentric emphasis of most ofthe maps.But it is only tenth in the world sample after Australia (91.1%), USSR (83.8%),Canada (79.9%), Great Britain (79.7%),USA (77.6%),India (76.1%),Japan (74.4%),China (71.3%) and Italy (61.6%).This result for France corresponds to its new position as a medium world power.Madagascar is in 16th place with the other countries far down the list.Without a doubt, the educational System is responsible for these rankings of Francophone countries.There are, apparently, significant Continental nuances too; as in African countries that know other Francophone African nations better, just as the Europeans know France, Switzerland and Belgium better.Geographie and cultural proximity undeniably is a factor in this.

Francophone Variations in World Knowledge
If we direct our attention to the sample in Table 3 of seven Francophone countries, we can see the frequencies of inclusion of various countries.The tendency is for the maps to be Eurocentric, even those of Canada, but the frequencies nevertheless vary from one sample group to another.The Francophone sample from Canada more frequently drew Eurocentric maps than the English speaking Canadian samples from Ottawa, Edmonton and Vancouver.Each of these samples contained some Americentric maps.The greatest proportion of Americentric maps were sketched by students in the sample from Vancouver, which is near the edge of the earth in a Eurocentric map ofthe world (saarinen 1988).
The Rwanda sample, like France and Switzerland, aver- aged more than 55 world countries.This encyclopaedic knowledge reveals an education of geographie nomenclature which is exceeded or equaled only by Hungary (76 countries), Germany (68), Spain (66), Kenya (63), USSR (60), Poland (58), and Norway (58).Three Fran¬ cophone countries and some countries of eastern and western Europe thus yielded the best Performance.For individual samples of such sketch maps see Figures 1 -4.
In contrast, many countries scored badly, which suggests a lack of geographie education in those places.In some cases it may be that the emphasis is on the teaching of geographie processes but not placenames.In the first case we have Madagascar which is on the same level as Brazil (18 countries), Turkey (21), Iran ( 22), one site in South Africa and Pakistan (23) and Bangladesh (24).
The second case is that ofthe Francophone sample from Canada (figure 4) which is comparable to several sam¬ ples from the USA (Fairbanks, Alaska 31 countries; Miami 33), Australia (Adelaide 32) and Italy (Milan 32).
Thus the countries which have emphasized most ofthe teaching of process-oriented geography, like Great Brit¬ ain and the USA, are found to be weak in their sketch map knowledge.This ignorance ofthe position of important countries ofthe world generates risks of ethnocentrism, since it is the neighboring countries that are most fre¬ quently mentioned.And how can one know and understand countries which one cannot put on the map?The knowledge ofthe names and the positions ofthe great countries ofthe worldby their size, culture, history and economyconstitutes a base for the learning of geo¬ graphy prior to the analysis of spatial processes.This knowledge provides the starting point for geographie study but not its final goal.Pedagogie Systems differ in the world in terms of what is taught in geography because of national ideologies and conceptions of the pedagogie role of geography.If it is possible to draw the line between different education approaches, then we suggest a demarcation between countries where geography students are incapable of placing 30 countries on the map and those where stu¬ dents place more.

A Fading Francophone World
To examine the relative importance of individual Franco¬ phone nations to selected samples we turn to Table 4.It tabulates the rank of representative Francophone nations in various samples.By using rank rather than raw percentages of inclusion we can better compare the relative importance even with samples of varying quality (saarinen, ballantyne and MaccABE 1992).
A sense of community is evident among the Franco¬ phone nations.They almost always rank the Franco¬ phone nations higher than the total world sample does.
The only exceptions are: in the case of Canada where the rank is tied at third, and in the case of Switzerland, a near tie.The world total ranks Switzerland thirty-fourth and the Francophone nations rank it thirty-fifth.Switzerland is well known all over the world not just in Francophone countries.
The less well known the country, the greater is the dif¬ ference between the world rank and the Francophone rank.Whereas Canada is the same in both rankings and France only two ranks higher; Rwanda and Ivory Coast are 48 and 57 ranks higher in the Francophone sample.The European countries France, Belgium and Switzer-   land are closer to the world rank than the African nations Madagascar, Algeria, Tunisia, Ivory Coast, Zaire and Rwanda..African nations are not generaUy well known in the world.
The Francophone rankings of various nations are not uniform throughout the sample.GeneraUy the home country is ranked near the top, always much higher than either the world rank, or the Francophone rank.Furthermore neighboring countries are also ranked well beyond the world or Francophone rank.Thus, Belgium and Swit¬ zerland are ranked much higher by France than by either the world or Francophone samples.France is also ranked higher by Switzerland than the other samples.In the most extreme case Zaire is ranked 4th by neighboring Rwanda, while the Francophone rank is 45th and the world rank 9Ist.The world sample does not give the Francophone coun¬ tries pride of place; nor does the total Francophone sample.There are not only numerous similarities but also some divergences, which lead us to ask ourselves about the cultural unity ofthe Francophone nations.
The great world powers have been substituted for the Francophone countries, illustrating the world domi¬ nance of some nations.From the results of the world sample, we obtain a vision of a world in which size is im¬ portant, and where economic and political factors outweigh cultural factors.First, none ofthe largest countries, the most important in terms of international role, or most geographically sa- lient, fail to be placed: the former USSR is always well rep- resented as are Australia, Great Britain, USA, and Canada.In a second group are China, France, Japan, Madagascar and India.Less well represented but still often mentioned are some European countries like Spain and Italy.
In other cases, the geographie dispersion ofthe results seems related to the place in which the map was drawn, because ofthe good ranking of their own country and its neighbors.This is apparent in the Rwanda sample.Zaire, a neighbor, is ranked fourth and African nations Rwanda, Algeria, Morocco and Madagascar are tied with Canada at ninth.
Thus, if the image of the Francophone community is diminished in a world of great powers, the Francophone nations remain linked, especially when there is a geogra¬ phie, historic, or cultural proximity.A similar pattern ap- peared in the study by gourley et al (1992) ofthe British Commonwealth countries.There, too, a fading image of the old British Empire and Commonwealth is found, with the African and Asian members on the verge of disappearing from the sketch maps of Commonwealth students.

Conclusion
The first lesson from the analysis ofthe mental maps of the students ofthe Francophone countries is that Francophonia is becoming more of a myth than a reality, with the political and economic weakening of France.The "baton is passed" to other world powers, Russia, Canada, USA, Great Britain, India, Japan, China, which have a stronger world image.With the cultural imperialism ofthe English language, the chances of a return ofthe former prestige of French are slim indeed.
The second lesson is that the role coneeived for the teach¬ ing of geography greatly influences the knowledge ofthe place-name localities ofthe world.In several countries, studentsof geography!areincapable of placing cor- rectly more than 30 countries...Such ignorance is dis- turbing because, how can one study the spatial processes without having a minimal apprenticeship in learning the basic "vocabulary" of geography, the names of places?And how can one avoid ethnocentrism if students are limited to only a local image ofthe world?Without it being the atm of geography, the knowledge of a minimal nomenclature constitutes the "point de depart" for the study of a geography and is used as the means to expand ones horizons.Teaching can then be directed to the study ofthe great geographie processes.This is the pattern in countries more open to the outside world, because of their cultural practices or geographie curriculum.The choiees for teaching geography will then depend on the individual national context vis-ä-vis the larger world and on the attitudes ofthe students towards it.A basic geogra¬ phie framework should precede the study of processes.
Fig.1Mental Map of a Kigali, Rwanda, Student.

Table No .
Level of Inclusion of World Countries by Origin of Samples 3

Table No .
Ranking of Francophone Countries by Selected Samples 4