Learning to Teach Controversial Issues: Navigating Tensions Between University and Student Teaching Settings

• In Event: Marriott Roundtable Session 60
  In Roundtable Session: Policy and Practice in Social Studies Teacher Education

Abstract

Teaching controversial issues is key to democracy education and even more critical as sociopolitical, economic, and cultural conflict explodes in the U.S. and worldwide. Scholars and policymakers call for university-based teacher educators to prepare their students to teach controversial issues. Yet learning to teach controversy requires working against pervasive pressures in schools such as content coverage and classroom control and potential threats from students, parents, community members, and colleagues (Hess, 2009). What happens when STs attempt to teach CI? This paper uses activity theory to analyze these attempts and influences that shape them.

Author

• Judy L. Pace, University of San Francisco