Jada Pinkett-Smith, Willow, and Gammy are hosts of the internationally renowned "Red Table Talk," where family members and A-List celebrities join the Facebook Live streamed conversation about personal and controversial issues. This proposed activity builds upon black feminist thought and utilizes the format of the "Red Table…

Democratic discussion in the classroom has been viewed as a way to increase consensus, however the spread of false and misleading information through social media and influencers can make classroom discussions problematic. This electronic text analysis study highlights the social media site of Quora and posts related to the Gulf War. Posts related…

Dealing with controversial issues is one of the most important tasks teachers perform. In this article, the author presents a few core concepts and research findings that are essential for understanding what teaching controversial issues is all about and why it is so important to develop capability in this methodology.

Purpose: This study investigates teachers' professional judgement about Russia's war on Ukraine as an unplanned, controversial classroom issue. Design: It employs 26 interviews with Russian teachers collected during the invasion's first month. Findings: The analysis identifies six situations and five teaching approaches that emerged in response to…

College classroom communication in the United States is linked to critical issues that are constructed in the larger sociopolitical and political background. As social conflicts and the unstable political environment in the U.S. continue to escalate, universities are caught in the midst of agitated public debates where identity politics continue…

This study is about a seventh-grade classroom in a predominantly White region in the rural northwestern United States where a White teacher led an interdisciplinary unit on African American narratives of enslavement and freedom fighting. Through the lenses of racial literacy, critical Whiteness studies, and discourse studies, authors use data from…

Discussions of power and privilege, oppression, and structural inequities in classrooms can produce complex understanding and critical analysis when facilitated effectively. In this article we present the critical conversations model for facilitating conversations that open up space for discussing such issues and encourage the development of…

This article calls for greater attention to the role of emotion and affect in classroom discussions where theoretical models of discussion and deliberation tend to emphasize the rationalistic elements called for in such pedagogical strategies. Using two examples drawn from secondary classrooms, the authors highlight the role of emotion and affect…

Classroom discussion is frequently proposes as an essential part of democratic citizenship education. Literature, however, pays little attention to what kind of discussion is most effective and how teachers can facilitate a discussion. This study aims to contribute to the development of a framework for analysing the characteristics of classroom…

The endorsement of anti-corruption norms is a normative assumption in legal systems with freedom of information acts, where citizens are expected to act as monitors of the public service. Tolerance of corruption counteracts this assumption. We studied tolerance of corruption among 8th graders from Latin-American samples of the International Civic…

To connect course material to executive MBA student workplace experiences and current events more clearly, we created an online space for students to bring up relevant workplace experiences or to post links to articles on domestic and international developments relevant to the week's course topics and materials. The activity has brought forth…

Past research has drawn attention to the unique challenges for students of color attending predominantly white colleges and universities, yet few have focused on the classroom as a micro-context in which race-related discussions often occur. Using a focus group methodology, 22 African American undergraduate students from a variety of academic…

In this article, we argue that teachers' epistemic cognition, in particular their thinking about epistemic aims and reliable processes for achieving those aims, may impact students' understanding of complex, controversial issues. This is because teachers' epistemic cognition may facilitate or constrain their implementation of instruction aiming to…

"The Most Reasonable Answer" is an innovative and comprehensive guide to engaging students in inquiry dialogue--a type of talk used in text-based classroom discussions. During inquiry dialogue, students collectively search for the most reasonable answers to big, controversial questions, and, as a result, enhance their argumentation…

Teachers find it difficult to conduct political controversial conversations in the social science classroom and due to an increased use of social media in educational settings new challenges and possibilities are raised. The use of social media causes fundamental changes to the role of the learner who becomes a producer and consumer--a…