To fulfil its third mission and equip students with the appropriate competencies to address complex societal issues, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU) offers undergraduates the chance to learn about issues that transcend the confines of their own discipline through the cross-disciplinary Broader Mind Course (BMC). This study investigates to what…

This qualitative study explored how a group of preservice elementary teachers conceptualized social issues and social action and how their conceptions were reflected in their ideas for teaching about social issues and action. This study utilized individual and focus group interviews, class observations, and class artifacts as data points. Using a…

In addressing contemporary socio-ecological challenges it is imperative to engage individuals with the moral dilemmas in the human-nature context. A socioscientific-issues (SSI) approach to secondary biology education can contribute to engaging students in moral dilemmas and reflecting on their values. Following a design research methodology, we…

The research mode that has gained prominence under the designation "transdisciplinary research" (TDR) has given rise to a multitude of definitions and critiques. While some posit that this research mode enables the sciences to address the mounting societal expectations to confront and potentially resolve significant societal challenges,…

Purpose: To analyze the effects of debates on social entrepreneurship (SE) in physical education teacher education students (n = 38) from an urban university. Participants discussed the role that society, social class, gender, race, and violence play in sports. Method: A convergent parallel mixed-methods design with methodological triangulation…

Survey interviewers can negatively affect survey data by introducing variance and bias into estimates. When investigating these interviewer effects, research typically focuses on interviewer sociodemographics with only a few studies examining the effects of characteristics that are not directly visible such as interviewer attitudes, opinions, and…

Given the profound social implications of climate change, this subject is increasingly important for a broad range of sociology classes. Sociology instructors who address the subject of climate change face a dilemma. Presenting too grim of a portrait risks fostering psychological distress and withdrawal from action to address climate change,…

Domain perspective reasoning refers both to students' recognition of authors' domain perspectives during reading and students' abilities to draw on varied domain perspectives to reason about and understand a complex social issue. Two instructional manipulations were examined in this study. First, students were asked to identify authors' domain…

The current College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) framework lacks spaces to practice civic discourse. Afterschool clubs, however, could be spaces where discourse could flourish. Scholars have argued that afterschool clubs are one way to augment civics education (Kirlin, 2002; Neild et al., 2019). Clubs offer an innovative way to integrate the C3…

An important consideration in the design and development of numeracy-focused coursework is ensuring that one meets students where they are with respect to both their mathematics background and their existing numeracy practices in relation to public issues. The latter consideration is especially important, given that students already think about…

Purpose: This article's purpose is to examine the manifestations of the evolving modern society and what we now identify as civics or other contemporary social issues in the final examination questions from 1914 to 1937 at four teacher education institutions in Uppsala, Falun, Lund, and Landskrona. Design/methodology/approach: The method can be…

This essay is written as an urgent call for collaboration. It is a provocation for academics in non-crisis environments to proactively reach out to our academic colleagues in Ukraine and other severely disrupted crisis environments around the world to work together to create and extend knowledge and understanding about interpersonal and…

In this study, we approach Mathematical Modeling from a socio-critical perspective. Our aim was to achieve reflection and criticality in discussions about prostate cancer in the context of the Blue November campaign, which started in November 2011, hapenning every year from then and is dedicated to raising awareness about prostate cancer. Since…

Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) refers to aggressive behavior that occurs within current and former intimate relationships and leads to physical, sexual, and/or psychological harm (Robertson et. al., 2024). Harmful behaviors may be physical aggression, sexual coercion, psychological abuse and controlling actions (World Health Organization (WHO),…

There has been sustained research interest in the role of early career researchers in advancing the field and the challenges that they face. However, efforts to document lived experiences of researchers working in a specific research area within science education have been scarce. This paper considers the meaning of innovation in the context of…