Controversies in science are an essential feature of scientific practice: defined here as current problems that are unresolved because there are no accepted procedures by which they can be resolved or there are differing assumptions that affect the interpretation of evidence. Although there has been much attention in science education literature addressing socio-scientific and historical controversies in science, less has been paid to the teaching of contemporary scientific controversies. Using semi-structured qualitative interviews with 18 teachers at different career stages in (...) England, we investigated teachers’ social representations of scientific controversies using the discourse of the collective subject. We found a lack of controversy in teachers’ responses. Whilst scientific controversies were seen as an essential feature of how science works, they were not viewed as essential in science education and were represented as a distraction and dealt with informally, outside the planned curriculum and in response to students’ questions. Subject knowledge was considered a barrier. We argue that teaching about carefully selected scientific controversies has the potential to contribute to teachers’ and students’ understandings of science and the nature of science. There are perceived to be few opportunities for teachers to exercise this in the English context. We suggest how the collective subject discourses might be used to open up a discussion about teaching controversies in professional learning situations. Materials to stimulate discussion of scientific controversies could be useful in future curriculum development in science, but these would need to address the barriers of subject knowledge, access to literature and conflict with assessment-related priorities and a perceived need to advocate for trust in science. (shrink)

While some of Paulo Freire's readers understand his pedagogy as a rejection of any and all directive teaching methods, there are many scholars who do recognise Freire's emphasis on teacher directiveness in its appropriate form. In light of this tension between directiveness and dialogue, it seems that students of Freire must inevitably come to a crossroads: is Freire's pedagogy directive or is it not? However, even this question does not get at the more critical dilemma: if Freire's pedagogy is directive, (...) is such directiveness incompatible with Freire's overwhelming emphasis on egalitarian dialogue? This paper establishes three readings of the issue of directiveness in Freire and ultimately provides an exegetical defence of what is termed the compatibilist reading—that directive teaching, properly construed, is compatible with dialogic teaching in Freirean pedagogy. The question this paper seeks to answer is how Freire can have it both ways. In sum, Freire undeniably supports teacher directiveness and philosophically justifies directiveness as compatible with problem-posing education through his concepts of virtue education, utopia and criticality. (shrink)

While the teaching of controversial issues has generally been supported by schools and education scholars, new laws and public outcry have impacted whether and how controversial issues are taught. Calls to ban or limit teaching of controversial issues have largely been spurred by conservative parents, policymakers, and political groups. Some teachers and many education scholars are deeply concerned and want to preserve teaching about controversial issues. This situation suggests that inquiry is needed into changes in the educational aims held and (...) practices endorsed by various stakeholders. This article reconsiders the aims used to justify teaching controversial issues and situates them within larger understandings of good citizenship, revealing important differences in the explanations and values endorsed by opposing groups. It categorizes the aims more generally held by teachers, philosophers of education, and citizenship education scholars as: reasoning, engaging, communicating, and sustaining democratic communities. Then, those aims are compared to aims circulating within the discourse of opposing parents, policymakers, and political organizations. Finally, this article argues that pragmatic adjustments to educational aims held by many teachers and education scholars are both warranted and wise. It provides potential ways to better justify the teaching of controversial issues, including through approaches that more strongly ground teaching in American principles, historical examples, and a commitment to living together well. (shrink)

In times of increasing political polarization, the question of how teachers deal with controversial issues in their classrooms becomes more important than ever. Rejection, avoidance, or an overtly neutral stance on different positions on these issues can be detrimental to democratic education. In this study, we examine preservice teachers’ stances on different criteria for discussing controversial issues in their prospective classrooms and propose a specification of the approach of balancing different views on controversial issues that we call “committed balancing”: a (...) form of balancing that avoids according equal weight or importance to fundamentally unequal positions. To examine different stances that preservice teachers hold on controversy, we used a convenience sample of 162 German preservice teachers to develop the foundation for a standardized instrument that can be used to detect different ideas about the limits to controversial classroom discussions. We analyzed interviews with a subset of respondents to further examine their ideas about controversial issues in their future classroom practice. We found evidence of different strategies of (not) dealing with controversial issues as well as an emerging strategy of committed balancing. Our findings have practical implications for teachers and teacher educators in addressing controversial topics in the classroom. We suggest that “committed balancing” should be considered as a guide for how to approach these issues. (shrink)

In more than half of its states, the USA has recently passed or proposed legislation to limit or ban public educational curricular reference to race, gender, sexuality, or other identity topics. The stated justifications for these legislative moves are myriad, but they share a foundational claim; namely, these topics are asserted to be politically and socially divisive such that they ought not to be included within state-controlled schools. In this paper, we consider the claims of divisiveness regarding these topics and (...) explore whether, even if taken in good faith, the popular versions of these arguments and actions are epistemically defensible. We conclude that these bans are an epistemic injustice and therefore argue for their end. The article proceeds to consider the foundational claims of epistemic injustice, followed by the invocation of epistemic standards by which the arguments for these bans can be evaluated. The article then transitions to a close application of these standards, weighing the possible epistemic gains and losses. Before concluding, we consider objections and explore the social and epistemic significance of these issues. (shrink)

Journal of Philosophy of Education, EarlyView.