Scholars in the field of education for sustainable development argue that it is vital that educators take emotions into account when teaching about global problems such as climate change. How to do this in the best way is still debated, however. This article aims to contribute to this discussion by arguing for the importance of critical emotional…

"Divisive concepts" legislation, which seeks to restrict teaching about topics like race, gender, and sexuality, for example, has proliferated across the United States, creating confusion and challenges for students, teachers, and teacher educators who want to include discussion of complex topics in their classrooms (Ervin & Gannon,…

Popular educators are encountering students' past trauma and dealing with how to engage ethically with social issues through "difficult knowledge" (Britzman 1998). The force of their curriculum provides the education community the ability to learn from their social conditions and share in the difficult knowledge experienced among them.…

This study examined secondary science teachers' conceptions of democratic citizenship and their beliefs about how citizenship relates to science education. These beliefs and conceptions were studied through a framework comprised of theories of belief, citizenship education, and civic engagement with science. Data were collected from 10 teachers…

Building on sociocultural theories of literacy learning, in this article, we think at the intersection of reader response theory and multimodal literacies to examine how 13 preservice teachers in the course Teaching Social Sciences Through the Arts remediated responses to Francisco Jiménez's "The Circuit: Stories From the Life of a Migrant…

Critical Race Theory (CRT) has recently been positioned as a serious problem requiring urgent policy response among partisan media outlets. Making a case for pressing policy demands, several policy makers have proposed federal, state, and local level legislation and other measures to restrict how race, racism, or American history in general can be…

Friction in the classroom may create useful tension for teachers when they attempt to discuss sensitive topics as part of democratic learning. Due to the openness and indeterminacy of these topics, students can experience what it is like to be (political) subjects in a diverse society and become aware of other people's subjectness in a charged…

Required undergraduate diversity courses often expose students to topics and worldviews which may push them out of their comfort zones and prompt dissonance and even resistance. This paper reports on interviews with 68 faculty members across 16 humanities and social science disciplines at five predominantly white institutions in the Southern…

The 2018 "English Journal" young adult honor list selections are an amazing mix of truth and fiction, fact and fantasy. The protagonists, five females and one male, all demonstrate what it means to follow your heart and speak your truth. Consideration of young adult books for inclusion in the 2018 Honor List begins in January and…

In this historical study, the author traces the contents of classroom materials and methods textbooks published between 1916 and 1966 that endorsed the discussion and deliberation of social issues to demonstrate how these materials consistently evaded racial justice as a social issue. As a result, the materials designed to inspire classroom…

This study investigated three teachers and their students at International School in Guatemala as they engaged with social issues through and with art. Student and teacher experiences were examined using critical theory, concerned with ideological conflicts that shape the curriculum and how knowledge is legitimated within schools and communities…

Controversial issues characterise life in democratic societies and they often arise unexpectedly in the classroom, without being planned for by the teacher. However, controversial issues are rarely addressed beyond a mandatory curriculum and are often avoided. The aim of this exploratory study is to investigate what teachers identify and address…

As Social Studies teachers with decades of combined experience and as teacher educators at a predominantly white midwestern university, the authors center their curriculum around teaching challenging and whole histories, analyzing primary sources, and creating classroom community spaces where difficult dialogues can safely happen. While the…

Post-method era has been hailed in second language teaching, although a few practitioners have been able to use the tenets of critical pedagogy. Critical pedagogy aims to raise sociopolitical issues to emancipate both teachers and learners from power-centric ideas. The practical use of critical pedagogy has been the participatory approach that…

All modern nation-states have periods of difficult history that teachers fail to address or address inadequately. The authors present a framework for defining difficult histories and understanding what makes them difficult. These events 1) are central to a nation's history, 2) contradict accepted histories or values, 3) connect with present…