On the second day of a 2019 high-stakes English Language Arts assessment, Massachusetts 10th graders faced an essay question that was based on a passage from the novel "The Underground Railroad" and publicly characterized as racially insensitive. Though the state excluded the essay responses from student scores, an unresolved public…

What are controversial issues? Who decides whether something is controversial, and how does it affect how a subject is taught whether a topic is presented as either controversial or not so? Although there has long been a lively debate within educational research on what criteria should be used to determine whether or not an issue is controversial,…

Discussions on immigration in the social studies classroom have often focused on the political ideologies that frame the debate. Often, the religious and ethical frameworks surrounding immigration are often overlooked. This article provides a rationale for exploring the teachings of the Christian scriptures in relation to immigration, particularly…

Drawing from data from a multicase study, I examined how teachers teach current racial violence and for racial justice in rural school spaces in the U.S. South. Using abolitionist teaching and trauma-informed pedagogy as theoretical lenses, I argue that racial violence and racial justice can be taught well even in schools in complex political,…

As the school National Science Curriculum in Turkey includes topics such as human reproduction, hormonal growth and adolescent health, elementary school science teachers (ESTs) are required to teach sexuality-related topics to their students. However, studies have shown that teachers in Turkey, like their counterparts in many other countries, have…

American politics today is the culmination of historical, political, social, geographic, and economic events that have significantly impacted this country. Over the last year, America and the world have been tested to political, social, and economic extremes not seen in over a century because of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Both the 2020…

Post-method era has been hailed in second language teaching, although a few practitioners have been able to use the tenets of critical pedagogy. Critical pedagogy aims to raise sociopolitical issues to emancipate both teachers and learners from power-centric ideas. The practical use of critical pedagogy has been the participatory approach that…

In the first half of 2021, 26 states introduced--and 12 passed--bills colloquially labeled "critical race theory (CRT) bans." The bills introduced to date can be grouped into three categories: prohibitions against compulsion, against inclusion, and against promotion. The prohibition against promoting CRT, first introduced in the North…

This case study examines the intersection of rural education, new leadership, and supervising teachers when a power imbalance exists. Using a real-life example of supervision and professional interactions, this case study focuses future administrators on the real-life conflicts inherent in supervision and employee rights. The case study examines…

The controversy surrounding trigger warnings has highlighted a mystifying confound in post-secondary education. Faculty, students and school bureaucracies are divided. While trigger warning proponents emphasise the value of protecting students with trauma histories from unscaffolded exposure to content related to sexuality, violence, race and…

This study focuses on teachers' perceptions of parental support for engaging in conversations about race and racial violence in the classroom. We draw on data from the Teacher Race Talk Survey (TRTS), an exploratory survey that examines pre- and in-services teachers' perceptions about discussing race and racial violence in the classroom. Our…

This article reports a seed corn pilot study that presents a moment of the collective consciousness of an RE department in the midst of curriculum change. It records their concerns about the impact of increased content on depth in a new exam course, and the particular consequence this has for the kind of learning happening around texts. It reveals…

Forty-two percent of LGBT youth say the community in which they live is not accepting of LGBT people (Human Rights Campaign). That's 4 out of 10. And lesbian, gay, and bisexual young people are almost five times more likely than their heterosexual counterparts to have attempted suicide. It is very, very hard for an LGBTQIA (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual,…

Teacher educators who seek to advance social justice perspectives and promote equity-oriented dispositions often engage with challenging and controversial issues relevant to schooling, the lives of students, and the work of teachers. Addressing equity issues and controversial topics can be challenging and fraught with tensions for both students…

Educators have been increasingly concerned with what can be done about "post-truth" problems--that is, threats to people's abilities to know what is true--such as the spread of misinformation and denial of well-established scientific claims. The articles and commentaries in this special issue present diverse perspectives on how…