Contemporary literature reveals that many educators, especially those in elementary schools and in conflict-effected societies, are reluctant to engage in the teaching of current public issues, even more so social controversies. However, this qualitative study examined the successful experience and the perspectives of educators from two elementary…

The higher education learning environment has always been an ideological battleground. We must collectively interrogate how we holistically construct an educational learning environment that is reflective of our values.

College and university classrooms, curricula, and credentials have always been an ideological battleground of clashing values and perspectives that shift the answers to the question of what the learning environment should be. A crucible moment of legislative attacks on diversity initiatives, congressional interventions into university leadership,…

Politically neutral pedagogy is often the subject of both praise and condemnation. But treating political neutrality as a principle to be either embraced or rejected confuses the issue, because the permissibility of neutrality actually varies across educational contexts. Educational practice should not be evaluated on the basis of whether or not…

This interdisciplinary study seeks to explore the extent to which graduate students enrolled within a teacher preparation program associate the use of Controversial Public Issues (CPI) in the K12 classroom with broad principles of democratic education. The study also attempts to understand how twelve teacher candidates view the practicality of…

In September 2008, a new Ethics and Religious Culture programme was implemented in Québec's elementary and secondary schools. One of the main pedagogical challenges of this new course has been the requirement that teachers adopt a professional stance of impartiality. Teachers must refrain from sharing their points of view, so as not to influence…

Marginalized groups present part of our reality which we would prefer to forget about. Yet, the humankind remains (un)aware of the simple fact that there is merely a very tiny red line between the central and marginalized parts: any of us can at one point in life simply, unwillingly and abruptly wake up on the other side of this line!!!…

The University of South Africa (UNISA) has recently redesigned its honors degree in Gender Studies. The course design team members have been mindful of three key factors while redesigning this degree. First, we are aligning our course design with the demands of open and distance learning (ODL) and UNISA's institutional move to online delivery of…

While we agree with Cooling's argument from fairness, we argue that Cooling fails to give an adequate account of how fairness can be conceived, particularly because he does not decisively tackle the issues surrounding doing God in a plural context, or the contentious issues of compulsory collective worship and faith schools. In order to explore an…

Teaching heritage to a nation is important. The Israeli Arab curriculum on Druse heritage helps students connect religion with modern society. The textbooks that are still used were written in the end of the 1970s and do not reflect the changing reality of Druse women. This research shows that women must be portrayed in more diverse roles in…

This paper describes an ethics module developed by the author to engage marketing research students during the fall semester, when they are bombarded by political polls. The module matches ethically questionable polling practices to similarly troubling practices in marketing research. The goals are to show that ethical principles are not topic- or…

The move toward evidence-based practice has fortified, and continues to strengthen, the social work profession through accountability, greater support for social interventions, and linking research and practice. This article considers potential limitations in exclusively promoting evidence-based practice in social work programs and advocates for…

The purpose of this paper is to introduce and explain a cooperative learning technique, Academic Controversy (Johnson, Johnson, & Smith, 1996), also known as Cooperative Controversy, Structured Controversy and Structured Academic Controversy, that has potential for use in education and other areas, and has support in both research and theory.…

This report seeks to confront the contemporary political challenge to the academic community by exploring how free universities contribute to the common good even as they create political tensions between themselves and society that require the protection of academic freedom. At the same time, the report suggests ways that protection may be…

Generally we think it good to tolerate and to accord recognition. Yet both are complex phenomena and our teaching must acknowledge and cope with that complexity. We tolerate only what we object to, so our message to students cannot be simply, "promote the good and prevent the bad". Much advocacy of toleration is not what it pretends to be. Nor is…