As global challenges increasingly require an interdisciplinary approach, this study highlights the urgency of taking stock of the forces that guide how teachers navigate complicated concepts in their classrooms such as climate change. This study takes up science education more specifically and emphasizes that not only is it important that students…

Friction in the classroom may create useful tension for teachers when they attempt to discuss sensitive topics as part of democratic learning. Due to the openness and indeterminacy of these topics, students can experience what it is like to be (political) subjects in a diverse society and become aware of other people's subjectness in a charged…

Required undergraduate diversity courses often expose students to topics and worldviews which may push them out of their comfort zones and prompt dissonance and even resistance. This paper reports on interviews with 68 faculty members across 16 humanities and social science disciplines at five predominantly white institutions in the Southern…

Relations between Islam and the West have seldom been easy. Enmities and resentments date back centuries. So do cultural contacts, economic ties and periods of relative cooperation. Today, however, nothing symbolizes that unsteady and often tense relationship more than the events of 11 September, 2001 and the bloodshed that has followed in…

Focusing on the rationales and materials for teaching social issues in the English classroom, this thematic issue contains the following articles: "Introduction: Reflections of Society in Literature" (M. B. Fleming); "Addressing Social and/or Controversial Issues in the English Classroom" (S. Totten); "The Growing Threat to Quality Education: How…

While censorship pressures emanate from all points on the political spectrum at different times, the current censorship movement comes mostly from political conservatives. Censorship efforts by the Reagan administration include barring entry of foreign speakers whose views do not coincide with those of the administration, inhibiting the free flow…

Criticizes the recent practice of inviting white supremacists and Holocaust revisionists to speak at local classrooms. Maintains that, rather than expose racial hatred and fanaticism, the visits may create credibility and converts. Suggests alternate activities for teaching about the destructive nexus of racism, violence, and ideology. (MJP)

Discusses four major approaches to teaching about controversial issues frequently cited in educational literature: problem solving, public issues, decision making, and moral reasoning. Provides guidelines for structuring large-group discussions, small-group discussions, and debates within these approaches. Includes a list of instructional…

Examines the inherent dichotomy between the competing needs of maintaining emotional safety and exploring sensitive issues in social studies classrooms. Argues that an effectively safe classroom can serve as a necessary backdrop for addressing controversial issues even in the earliest of grades. Maintains that most teachers simply ignore these…

Social studies education in the United States has been viewed by many as a forum in which to socialize new citizens, to ensure that people of differing backgrounds have a history and ideals that they can share. Social studies also is perceived by some as a vehicle through which students can learn the value of conflict and difference, in the…