Enhancing young learners' knowledge about appropriate and inappropriate sexual behaviour is crucial for the protection of children's rights. This article discusses teachers' understandings of their practices and approaches to the topic of child sexual abuse in Norwegian upper secondary schools, based on phone interviews with 64 social science…

Conducting discussions on controversial political issues is an important vehicle to promote students' democratic values and critical thinking in schools. This schoolwide task cuts across all disciplines and different subject matter. Israeli civics and social studies teachers are often required to touch upon such issues and manage the situations…

This article focuses on how civic agency is taught or not taught by a social studies teacher to the children of soldiers in a largely conservative community and, as a result, how it was learned or not learned. Taken from a larger study investigating individual teacher curricular and pedagogic choice around teaching war near a military base, this…

Safe space, used in educational settings as a metaphor, stresses the importance of the classroom being a learning environment characterised by respect and safety. Based on examples from Swedish and Norwegian classroom research, this article problematises and discusses the complexity in the discourse on safe space by asking the critical questions:…

In our forum contribution to Federica Raia's manuscript (2012) on learning at the boundaries, we propose that using radical listening in the science education classroom, especially when contentious issues such as evolution are discussed, helps stakeholders learn from each other's values and viewpoints and contributes to bridging divides.

In this article, the author argues that questions about race should be raised in elementary social studies teacher education in order to better prepare teachers to enter their classrooms. In this study she explores how elementary pre-service teachers situate race within the social studies curriculum and how prepared they feel about discussing race…

This paper draws on feminist new materialist, poststructuralist and post-human theories to rethink discomforting moments when engaging with sensitive topics in teacher education. It is argued that the common approach to such events--as instances of student resistance or pedagogical failures--is both simplistic and problematic, and that a more…

In recent years, counter-terrorism measures have become incorporated into the UK education system, with the latest 2015 "Counter-Terrorism and Security Act" expanding on previous government policy by making it mandatory for schools to be actively involved with counter-terrorism measures [Clause 21, H.M. Government 2015.…

By highlighting the critical thinking that (1) analyzes and evaluates arguments for claims about vaccinations and autism, and (2) engages in a form of methodological skepticism that systematically and continuously asks Critical Questions, a philosophical approach is introduced to deal directly and systematically with students' (and publicly…

Higher levels of civic and community engagement in higher education are positively associated with students' academic performance and they also build upon citizenship skills such as informed voting. Yet, while these are worthy and important outcomes of higher education, students from disadvantaged backgrounds can have more difficulty navigating…

If the authors have learned anything working with schools across the United States, they've learned this: When it comes to educational equity, the trouble is not a lack of multicultural programs or diversity initiatives in schools. Nor is it a lack of educators who appreciate and even champion diversity. The trouble lies in how so many diversity…

Introduction: This study concerns students' criteria in the evaluation of Internet sources for a school assignment requiring reflections on a controversial issue. The findings are elaborated by analysing students' discursive accounts in justifying the use or non-use of sources. Method: The interview data was collected in a Finnish upper secondary…

"Controversial Issues in Social Studies Education in Turkey: The Contemporary Debates" consists of different research. Each chapter analyzes a controversial topic that is significant to understand the social and political dynamics of Turkish society and culture. One of the purposes of this volume is to analyze and discuss how various…

There are few topics more engaging, polarizing, controversial, and relevant than the issue of race relations in the United States. As race and racism are enduring issues of importance and popularity, it seems fitting to explore the topic through one of the more engaging and divisive eras in U.S. history; the Civil War. National and state standards…

Due to its direct approach and its detailed analysis of race, the "A More Perfect Union" (AMPU) speech makes for a likely primary source to be included in a lesson addressing Obama's racial significance. As social studies teacher-educators who draw from critical perspectives on race and racism, the authors hope to see Obama's speech used…