In a highly polarized political environment, political discourse on divisive topics is all the more important. Heeding the many calls for higher education to teach political discourse skills, this study investigates the impact of political discourse lessons in a college-level, political science classroom. Further, it explores the effectiveness of…

A diverse democracy brings together people whose differences include partisan leanings, life experiences, histories, religious beliefs, racial identities, and sexual orientations to address common problems and build a shared future. Social studies educators can help prepare youth to pursue this goal by advancing core commitments to respectful and…

The present study aimed to determine the views of classroom teachers on the inclusion or exclusion of current issues in classroom instruction, to investigate these views based on the definition of current issues, the methods and techniques employed in the instruction of current issues, the analysis of the instruction, and the positive and negative…

This chapter shares reflections from two university housing administrators on using dialogic practices to build skills for addressing issues of social justice and equity that surface in residential community living settings.

The aim of this study is to determine the opinions of pre-service classroom teachers about academic controversy, from the cooperative learning methods, implemented in social studies teaching course. Using the action research pattern from the qualitative research approaches, the study group for the research comprised 42 preservice teachers in third…

Improving the ability of young people to construct arguments about controversial science topics is a desired outcome of science education. The purpose of this research was to evaluate the impact of an argumentation intervention on the socioscientific issue of climate change with Year 10 students in a disadvantaged Australian school. After…

This study explores the views of Indonesian junior high school pre-service science teachers (PSTs) towards teaching based on socio-scientific issues (SSIs). Questionnaires were analyzed qualitatively and descriptively. The PSTs (N=62) acknowledged that student competencies ranging from personal to socially relevant skills as well as character…

If schools are to prepare students to participate more productively in civic life, schools will need to ensure that they have opportunities to practice the skills of civic reasoning, argues Carol Lee. Yet schools are challenged by the limits in the curriculum and the difficulty of addressing the different types of prior knowledge that students…

Purpose: Unprecedented global challenges of the twenty-first century have highlighted the need for novel programs to train students in the skills necessary to address increasingly complex controversial science issues. Issues-360[TM] was developed as an innovative year-long co-curricular, issues engagement initiative designed to address this need.…

Effective sexual health education plays a critical role in adolescent pregnancy and HIV and STI prevention. This article describes the formative research conducted to design, and then pilot-test, SkillFlix®, a streaming video training created to improve educators' skills in delivering sexual health education to youth by modeling Microskills®.…

This article explores the ways in which the quantitative and qualitative tools used by risk managers can help students think critically about issues. In particular, it identifies some of the quantitative skills used for risk assessment that can be taught and used in mathematics and science classes. It also examines the qualitative knowledge of…

Scholars and journalists alike have pointed out the poor state of political discourse in contemporary American politics. Younger generations echo these concerns, reporting that they choose to avoid engaging in political discussion because it is too partisan and riddled with rhetoric to be productive. While many offer little hope that the level of…

Academic freedom means that both social studies educators and students have the opportunity to engage in intellectual debate without fear of censorship or retaliation. Academic freedom gives both social studies educators and students the right to express their views--in speech, writing, and/or through electronic communication without fear of…

The aim of this study was to examine the quality of the written argument of pre-service science teachers on certain socio-scientific issues (SSI) and their opinions about the process of something. The study group consisted of 26 pre-service science teachers (18 females and 8 males) studying in their 3rd year of a state university. The purposeful…

The present research aimed to analyse the perception of science teachers on socio-scientific issues and teaching them. The study group of the research consists of 22 science teachers (14 females, 8 males) working in 7 secondary schools in Sinop, who were determined according to the convenience sampling method. The case study as one of the…