Weighing In on the American Dream: Pedagogical Negotiations Around Teacher Neutrality

• In Event: Playing It Safe in Volatile Times: Teacher Neutrality When Teaching About Trump and Economic Inequality

Abstract

Purpose:
This paper identifies motivations that lead secondary social studies and language arts teachers in the United States and Canada to teach about economic inequality, paying attention to teacher interest in staying neutral. Using qualitative methods, we explore the following guiding questions:

1) What factors motivate teachers to teach about economic inequality?

2) How do teachers conceive of and negotiate neutrality when addressing complex issues such as economic inequality? 

Theoretical Framework:
Kelly and Brandes (2001) note that whereas earlier generations of teachers were required to foster patriotism and national unity through transmission of cultural traditions, teachers today are expected to enact a “liberal/pluralist” vision of democracy in which multiple perspectives compete on equal ground in a “classroom marketplace of ideas” (p. 438). As a result, teachers are eager to “assume the role of nonpartisan referee” (Kelly & Brandes, 2001, p. 438) occasionally abandoning neutrality, not by “lead[ing] students to particular conclusions” (Westheimer & Kahne, 2003, p. 2), but instead by building in students the capacity to reach their own conclusions.

Methods and Data Sources:
This investigation draws on 136 structured interviews with American and Canadian secondary teachers. Teachers were selected to ensure a politically, geographically, and economically diverse interview pool. Interviews were coded twice. Following a first session that identified passages speaking to a teacher’s motivations in teaching about economic inequality, a coding protocol was inductively developed to highlight common themes. Intercoder checking was used to ensure reliability (Lacy et al, 2015, p. 796).

Results
A key motivating factor for teachers to teach about economic inequality is to expose students to heterodox views on wealth and poverty. As one teacher explains: “They come into class with a basic set of beliefs. By the time we get to the spring they are able to dissect propaganda from the media.” As this suggests, teachers see themselves as (among other things) “deprogrammers” charged with freeing students from conventional ideas about economic inequality: “They have these opinions that they formulated, but it is because of ideologies that have been spoken to them from somewhere else, and they themselves have not thought through why they feel the way they feel.” In openly challenging orthodox economic views, teachers knowingly invite charges of partisanship, their defense being that many conventional beliefs about economic inequality should be challenged: “As much as I personally believe in the American dream but, we can't hide behind it. We can't just say, ‘Everyone has the same opportunity.’ It's much more difficult than that and I think it's just important that the kids understand that.”

Educational Importance of the Study:
As the first study to closely examine teachers’ motivations for teaching about economic inequality, our study has implications for understanding why teachers broach potentially controversial topics. Our research indicates that some teachers are sufficiently worried by students’ beliefs around economic inequality as to abandon neutrality. This finding hints at a need to include lessons on economic inequality in the formal curriculum, the alternative being that teachers create informal lessons on the topic.

Authors

• Matt Brillinger, University of Ottawa

• Michael Ishimoto, University of California - Los Angeles