Master defense in Tourism Studies

On Thursday 1 September Deisi Trindade Maricato, master’s student at the Department of Rural Tourism defended her M.Sc. thesis, titled "The Interdisciplinarity of Tourism Education as an Opportunity for Emancipation". 
This thesis discussed a Case Study carried out in a teaching experience with the NoFri Masters Course at the University of Hólar in Iceland during autumn 2021. The aim of the research is to promote reflection and critical thinking about the contribution of using methods of teaching based on critical pedagogy for the enrichment of pedagogical practices in higher education in tourism. Based on Freirean Pedagogical Theory, which sees education as the main democratic tool for building awareness of reality and its emancipatory power. Thus, through the methodology of Critical Theory and Freirean Pedagogical Theory, the research sought to answer the following questions: What methodologies are used (or should be developed/extended) that build autonomy, emancipation and critical thinking skills in the student? And how might the interdisciplinary nature of tourism studies allow for opportunities for developing a more ethical tourism studies curriculum? The findings, found through the thematic analysis method, indicated the contribution of critical pedagogy to the construction of curricula in higher education in tourism at the service of a transformative education capable of promoting the socio-transforming power of tourism and training more aware and engaged professionals about their ethics and their social importance in the world around them.

Supervisor: Jessica Aquino, Assistant Professor, Assistant Professor, Department of Rural Tourism, Hólar University
Thesis Committee Member: Laufey Haraldsdóttir, Assistant Professor, Department of Rural Tourism, Hólar University
Examiner: Gunnar Þór Jóhannesson, Professor, Faculty of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Iceland.
Chairman of the Examination Committee: Ingibjörg Sigurðardóttir, Assistant Professor, Assistant Professor, Department of Rural Tourism, Hólar University

We are very pleased to announce that Deisi passed her MA defense and will graduate on October 7^th.