Purpose: This study investigates teachers' professional judgement about Russia's war on Ukraine as an unplanned, controversial classroom issue. Design: It employs 26 interviews with Russian teachers collected during the invasion's first month. Findings: The analysis identifies six situations and five teaching approaches that emerged in response to…

Sexual health education is mandatory in South Korea. However, gender equality, and the rights of sexuality and gender-diverse people are contentious issues in Korean society. This study describes school health teachers' experiences delivering sexual health education especially in relation to gender equality and the rights of sexuality and gender…

Teachers' instruction is influenced by a multitude of factors, such as state standards, curriculum materials, student needs, world events, and district or school policies. Since spring 2021, some teachers have had to consider a new factor: state policies that limit instruction about social and political topics, such as those related to race,…

The state of democracy facing expanding political division and pervasive racial and social inequalities. Discussing and deliberating controversial social and political issues functions help foster students' civic contribution. I conducted a qualitative case study and recruited 14 participants, with whom I conducted interviews, self-reflection,…

Teaching about gender-based violence involves dealing with a form of difficult knowledge and as such calls for substantial emotional, political and pedagogical labour on the part of educators. In this paper, we discuss how we have drawn on theoretical perspectives offered by Judith Butler, along with the Deleuzian notion of affective assemblages…

As a settler colonial state, Canada has used education to advance colonialism in an effort to erase the experiences of Indigenous peoples. Today, education has a critical role to play in advancing the truth of our shared history just as it has played a role in enacting colonial practices and violence on Indigenous peoples. This action research…

This article first describes and then proposes a practical solution to the professional dilemma between the duty of impartiality and the duty of human rights advocacy that many teachers experience when teaching and talking about politically sensitive issues with students. The article begins by presenting an analysis of the source and signification…

Part of media education is showing students other ways of being, knowing, and making change away from social media. Such experiences can allow youth to reflect not only on the benefits and drawbacks of social media, but how they change the flow of our lives. They are then better positioned to choose when to use, or not use social media. Educators…

This study explores how political discussions among diverse youth can support students' open-minded political engagement. For this study, we collaborated with two teachers to adapt and enact instruction aimed at supporting students' discussion of controversial issues across political, geographic, and cultural boundaries. During an instructional…

The study explores the challenges English teachers in Oklahoma's secondary schools face when including diverse perspectives in their classroom literature selections. There is a disconnect between state standards that encourage inclusivity and the pressures from the local community, including conservative opposition to DEI initiatives, increasing…

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…

Policy makers increasingly call on higher education to prepare learners for challenges such as global health emergencies or ecological crises. These can be understood as 'wicked problems', which are unbounded, complex and resist simplistic definition. Wicked problems involve stakeholders with incompatible value positions and attempted solutions…

"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,…

This forum article focuses on the instruction of an interpersonal communication course. Interpersonal communication courses are widely included in undergraduate communication curriculum and can be fundamental to student development. The authors provide foundational material and various content areas generally included in such a course. The authors…

This qualitative study examines the pedagogical potential that a Cartography of Controversy (CoC) approach has in enabling secondary school students to unravel the complexity of socioscientific issues and to communicate about them. The aim was to examine the types of knowledge and the ways in which students approached uncertainty when asked to…