Teachers’ Thoughts on Contentious Issues Instruction

• In Event: Thursday Roundtable Session 12:40 pm
  In Roundtable Session: Critical Theory and Teacher Research (Table 11)

Abstract

Public schooling—particularly history and English language arts—is under attack again. Teachers across subjects grapple how to serve their students with materials that reflect their lived realities and builds civic dispositions without risking their jobs in politicized climates. From a survey of ten teachers in the U.S. Midwest and overseas, culturally sustaining collections of materials appear to be above reproach. Fostering civic skills and engagement by teaching contentious issues about how we should live together, however, is not. Respondents have little recourse in areas where laws vaguely constrain what can and cannot be taught—‘rules’ are loose and repercussions may be sweeping. This survey precedes a design-based research project about using student-driven inquiry to teach contentious issues.

Author

• Bianca Schamberger, University of Iowa