“These Kids Are Ruthless With Their Politics”: Preservice Teachers’ Perspectives on Navigating Controversial Conversations

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Abstract

In order for secondary students to be democratically engaged, the skill must be modeled to them by their educators. As politicized topics become more sensitive and teacher censorship increases, it is important to understand how pre-service teachers (PSTs) are trained to navigate these conversations and engage students in civil discourse. This study will examine PSTs’ perspectives on how they feel prepared or unprepared to navigate political conversations with students, especially when teachers are expected to remain neutral. We will utilize questionnaires, PST lesson plans, and semi-structured interviews with willing participants to explore preservice teachers’ concerns about the field, their perceptions of political conversations in the classroom, their sense of preparedness to navigate such topics, their interpretations of and emotional responses to neutrality in the classroom, and their developing teaching identities. The results will be used to guide future changes to teacher education programs, ideally implementing practices that will better prepare PSTs for the difficult yet crucial task of teaching controversial topics in social studies classrooms.

Authors

• Anda Grace Pearson, Utah State University

• Edgar Díaz, Utah State University