Michael Hand has defended the "epistemic criterion" for "directive and nondirective teaching" in his 2008 "Educational Theory" article, "What Should We Teach as Controversial? A Defense of the Epistemic Criterion," as well as subsequent pieces. Here, John Tillson defends use of the epistemic criterion in the…

This study examines teachers' justifications for addressing unplanned controversial issues in the classroom. It builds on the premise that controversial issues arise unexpectedly in the classroom context and that some teachers actively choose to address such issues rather than avoid them. Through a series of semi-structured interviews with…

What are controversial issues? Who decides whether something is controversial, and how does it affect how a subject is taught whether a topic is presented as either controversial or not so? Although there has long been a lively debate within educational research on what criteria should be used to determine whether or not an issue is controversial,…

Drawing from data from a multicase study, I examined how teachers teach current racial violence and for racial justice in rural school spaces in the U.S. South. Using abolitionist teaching and trauma-informed pedagogy as theoretical lenses, I argue that racial violence and racial justice can be taught well even in schools in complex political,…

As the school National Science Curriculum in Turkey includes topics such as human reproduction, hormonal growth and adolescent health, elementary school science teachers (ESTs) are required to teach sexuality-related topics to their students. However, studies have shown that teachers in Turkey, like their counterparts in many other countries, have…

American politics today is the culmination of historical, political, social, geographic, and economic events that have significantly impacted this country. Over the last year, America and the world have been tested to political, social, and economic extremes not seen in over a century because of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Both the 2020…

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…

In the first half of 2021, 26 states introduced--and 12 passed--bills colloquially labeled "critical race theory (CRT) bans." The bills introduced to date can be grouped into three categories: prohibitions against compulsion, against inclusion, and against promotion. The prohibition against promoting CRT, first introduced in the North…

The controversy surrounding trigger warnings has highlighted a mystifying confound in post-secondary education. Faculty, students and school bureaucracies are divided. While trigger warning proponents emphasise the value of protecting students with trauma histories from unscaffolded exposure to content related to sexuality, violence, race and…

Teacher educators who seek to advance social justice perspectives and promote equity-oriented dispositions often engage with challenging and controversial issues relevant to schooling, the lives of students, and the work of teachers. Addressing equity issues and controversial topics can be challenging and fraught with tensions for both students…

Educators have been increasingly concerned with what can be done about "post-truth" problems--that is, threats to people's abilities to know what is true--such as the spread of misinformation and denial of well-established scientific claims. The articles and commentaries in this special issue present diverse perspectives on how…

The author discusses what it means to be a "good" citizen in a democracy, whether schools are teaching children to be good citizens, and ways to implement citizenship education in schools.

Difficult histories expose learners to historical suffering and victimization that constitute a collective trauma. The difficulty stems from the strong emotional reactions or ethical responses learners may evince, undermining their trust in security and morality of this world. However, difficult histories may also expose learners to instances in…

During an age when many adults struggle to hold civil discussions about contentious issues, authors Kristina J. Doubet and Jessica A. Hockett argue that educators are in a prime position to teach civility. In this article, Doubet and Hockett outline three approaches for teaching students to take part in civil discourse, each approach with its own…

Teachers at a, mostly white, independent school met monthly for a year, discussing how to talk with children from pre-K through eighth grade about race. They looked at interactions that arose spontaneously in the classroom, from younger children's comments about skin color to racially tinged remarks in the older classes. Faculty members, who all…