Teacher practices and controversial issues in citizenship education in 24 countries

• In Event: ICCS Panel 2: Gender, Citizenship, and Educational Practices

Proposal

Teaching practices within the classroom are key for fostering critical citizenship (Aguila, 2019). In recent decades, the literature has emphasized the agency of teachers and their perceptions regarding citizenship and its instruction for enhancing citizenship outcomes among students (Malenkov, 2021; Reichert et al., 2021). However, research has identified challenges in relation to the pedagogical approaches teachers use in citizenship education, such as diversity approaches, peace education, human rights education or addressing controversial issues (Bickmore et al., 2017; Kerr, 2015). Among these, the treatment of controversial issues is recognized as one of the most effective pedagogical strategies for developing citizenship competencies (e.g., Cox et al., 2023), which is the focus of this study.

This study aims to explore how teachers perceive the importance of topics, such as gender issues, cultural, social and economic perspectives or global issues in civic and citizenship education. While the literature on controversial issues in the classroom offers valuable insights, it is primarily based on single-subject or single-country studies. By using data from the ICCS 2022, this study aims to answer the following research question: What controversial issues do teachers across different countries address? To answer the question, we use latent class analyses to classify teachers according to their stance on controversial issues.

The findings reveal varying teacher profiles depending on the country and the subjects taught in schools, with a general tendency to focus on global issues rather than specific controversial topics. The article concludes with a discussion of the results from a comparative perspective.

Authors

• Catalina Miranda-Riquelme, KU Leuven

• Ellen Claes, KU Leuven