Research shows that teachers and educators struggle to act when conflict appears in the classroom. This article argues that (political) conflict should not be avoided or eradicated. Teachers should enable conflict and attend to their pupils in the process, in order to enable further understanding of each other and their differences, as part of…

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…

Within the polarised political culture of the 1970s, in which political differences were emphasised instead of being played down, Dutch right-wing politicians frequently accused left-wing politicians and educators of indoctrination in educational settings. In this period of economic stagnation and an ongoing Cold War, peace education -- which was…

The construct of critical cultural awareness (CCA) is often regarded as an element pertaining to intercultural communicative competence (Byram, 1997, 2021). In this model, CCA is defined as the ability to "evaluate, critically, and on the basis of a systematic process of reasoning, values in one's own culture and other cultures" (Byram,…

This study reports five Dutch expert history teachers' approaches to multiperspectivity in lessons on three topics varying in moral sensitivity (i.e., the Dutch Revolt, Slavery, and the Holocaust) and their underlying considerations for addressing subjects' perspectives in different temporal layers. The lessons were observed and videorecorded, and…

A boundary is a metaphor for an experience of discontinuity wherein a socio-cultural difference is perceived as a challenge or obstacle in action or interaction. This case study explores eight student teachers' perceptions of boundaries during an international teaching internship to identify where experiences of professional learning originate. We…

Moral competence is important for soldiers who have to deal with complex moral dilemmas in practice. However, openly dealing with moral dilemmas and showing moral competence is not always easy within the culture of a military organization. In this article, based on analysis of experiences during a train the trainer course on military ethics, we…

The notion of complexity--as in "education is a complex system"--has two different meanings. On the one hand, there is the epistemic connotation, with "Complex" meaning "difficult to understand, hard to control". On the other hand, complex has a technical meaning, referring to systems composed of many interacting…

In the mid-1950s the head of the Dutch Provincial Psychiatric Service of Groningen, Dr H. Kuipers, became involved in a fierce dispute with Mr J.J. Zuidema, the headmaster of the local school for children with mental disabilities. Both the psychiatrist and the headmaster claimed authority over the testing of children's intelligence as part of the…

Classroom management is a topic of enduring concern for teachers, administrators, and the public. It consistently ranks as the first or second most serious educational problem in the eyes of the general public, and beginning teachers consistently rank it as their most pressing concern during their early teaching years. Management problems continue…