Teaching Controversial Issues

1. Teaching Controversial Issues Said Al-Badri Mohammad Alavi

2. Controversial Issues in Education Agenda: • Section 1: • Introduction of controversial issues • Relationship between (un)democratic political systems and (un)democratic educations • Case study: Citizenship in Iran’s school educational system • Section 2: • Why and how to teach controversial issues • Implications of teaching controversial issues • Gaps in the literature related to teaching controversial issues in the classroom • Section 3: • Activity • Discussion questions

3. Controversial Issues in Education • What issues are / are not controversial? • Do you think human rights and global citizenship belong to controversial issues? • Who defines what issues are controversial? • Are controversial issues the same across different societies and across different times?

4. Controversial Issues in Education • Controversial issues are “those that have a political, social, or personal impact and arouse feeling and/or deal with questions of value or belief” (Oxfam, 2006). • “Issues that deeply divide a society, that generate conflicting explanations and solutions based on alternative value systems, are considered controversial” (Stradling, 1990, p. 2). • Some examples of the contemporary controversial issues that might be discussed in the social studies classrooms include: child labor, domestic violence, global warming, racism, terrorism, money laundering, honor killing, nepotism, ethnic discrimination, the Arab0Israeli conflict, democracy, unemployment, co-education, internet privacy, and sex education (Abu-Hamdan & Khader, 2014).

5. (Un)democratic Political System and (Un)democratic Education (1/3) • Is there a relationship between the two? • Governmentality (Foucault, 1991) • The way governments produce citizens that are best suited to fulfill the policies of the very same governments • the organized practices through which individuals are governed Minimal Government vs. Maximal Government interferes rather in education, economy, and religion interferes visibly in as many social spheres as possible, e.g. in education, economy, religion.

6. (Un)democratic Political System and (Un)democratic Education (2/3) • State Apparatuses? (Althusser, 2011) • Repressive state apparatus functions by violence • Includes police, government, administration, courts, army, and prison system • Ideological state apparatus functions by ideology • Is manifested in a variety of institutions, such as religious, educational, family, trade-union, etc. • Is teaching democracy and citizenship, as two examples of a controversial issue, as much ideological as not teaching democracy? • Are controversial issues encouraged to enter into curriculum at all, and if yes, to what extent, and if not, why?

7. (Un)democratic Political System and (Un)democratic Education (3/3) • State Apparatuses? (Althusser, 2011) • Repressive state apparatus functions by violence • Includes police, government, administration, courts, army, and prison system • Ideological state apparatus functions by ideology • Is manifested in a variety of institutions, such as religious, educational, family, trade-union, etc. • Are controversial issues encouraged to enter into curriculum at all, and if yes, to what extent, and if not, why? • If not reflected in the curriculum, do you think teachers should reflect them in their teaching? If yes, why; if no, why? • Three forms of teaching citizenship (Westheimer, 2008) • personally responsible citizenship • participatory citizenship • social-justice oriented citizenship

8. (Un)democratic Political System and (Un)democratic Education: The Case of Iran (1/3) • Unification of religion and politics • Islamization of education (Ministry of Education and Cultivation) • Islamic education and Islamic citizenship • Commitment-based citizenship vs. right-based citizenship (Stein, 2007) • Citizenship values in elementary and secondary course books (Chanzanagh, Mansoori, & Zarsazkar, 2011) • Farsi: 14 units • Social ethics training: 4 units • Religious and Islamic cultural training: 2 units

9. (Un)democratic Political System and (Un)democratic Education: The Case of Iran (2/3) • Duty-based citizenship values • Respect • commitment to the society • commitment to work and social duties • Commitment to society and citizens • Defending society • Law obedience • Right-based citizenship values • Freedom • the right of social and political freedom • the freedom of expression and thought • The freedom of ideas and religion • Equality • Equality and indiscrimination based on gender, race, religion and language • The right of cultural and ethic minorities • Participation • Political participation • The right of objecting the government • Security

10. (Un)democratic Political System and (Un)democratic Education: The Case of Iran (3/3) Conclusion: “All citizenship values have been articulated whether directly or indirectly inside political Islam’s discourse, and that each of citizenship values should be found inside political Islam’s discourse in connection with present signifiers. The religious, Ideological nature of Islamic Republic of Iran’s elementary and secondary educational books is the main cause of attempting to socialize the students inside Islamic, social, political culture” (Chanzanagh, Mansoori, & Zarsazkar, 2011, pp. 3023).

11. Why Teach Controversial Issues? • Should teachers teach controversial issues? If yes, why? • Some arguments in favor of teaching contentious topics: • They are in the curriculum: Oxfam (2006) notes that curricula addressing contentious issues can make students aware of the complexity of these types of topics, and the necessity of discussion, in order to learn to co-exist and negotiate with people who have differing views. • Young people need to explore their values and develop their skills: Most ethics, social science, and citizenship curricula emphasize the need for students to discover their values, express their positions on controversial issues, and consider other people's positions (Oxfam, 2006). • These issues help develop thinking skills: (a) information-processing skills which help students manage pieces of information; (b) reasoning skills where students justify their opinions and actions; (c) enquiry skills which enable students to investigate different issues; (d) creative thinking skills which help students come up with a variety of ideas; (e) evaluation skills where students assess various values and actions (Oxfam, 2006).

12. How do you Best Handle Controversial Issues? (1/4) • Ground rules. Oxfam (2006) includes the following as examples of ground rules: • Only one person to talk at a time – no interrupting. • Show respect for the views of others. • Challenge the ideas not the people. • Use appropriate language – no racist or sexist comments. • Allow everyone to express his/her view to ensure that everyone is heard and respected. • Pupils should give reasons why they have a particular view. (p. 6)

13. How do you Best Handle Controversial Issues? (2/4) 2. Role of the teacher. Harwood (1997) has identified six possible roles for teachers when handling contentious topics in the classroom. These roles include: • Committed: a teacher expresses own view while attempting to be balanced. • Objective or Academic: a teacher presents all possible viewpoints without stating own position. • Devil’s advocate: a teacher adopts the most controversial viewpoint, forcing students to justify their own. • Advocate: a teacher presents all available points of view, then discloses and justifies own position. • Impartial chairperson: a teacher facilitates the discussion through pupils’ opinions and authentic resources, without stating own view. • Declared Interest: after registering every participants' viewpoint, a teacher discloses own position, which can help the students judge the teacher's own bias, and evaluating the shared information objectively.

14. How do you Best Handle Controversial Issues? (3/4) 3. Interactive activities for teaching controversial topics and their benefits: • Community of enquiry helps students develop listening skills and respect others’ views. In this approach, students are encouraged to listen to other people's ideas, think about their own views, express these opinions openly, and modify their views in regards to what they hear. • Thinking skills activities, such as mysteries, diamond ranking, and the values continuum (also called the happy/sad continuum) can develop students’ ability to justify their arguments and organize their ideas. In the values continuum, students have to investigate, think critically, and justify their own and other people's values and attitudes. • Activities which use photos can encourage students to question why and how certain images are used in a specific context. Therefore, they can discuss different global feelings and reactions regarding a particular issue. They can also explore bias and improve their analytical, enquiry, and critical thinking skills. (Oxfam, 2006)

15. How do you Best Handle Controversial Issues? (4/4) • Hess (2004) outlines four approaches teachers take when teaching controversy. These are: • Denial: When teachers do not believe an issue to be controversial, since there is a right answer to it, and therefore teach students to develop that answer. • Privilege: When teachers believe an issue to be controversial, but they think there is a clearly right answer to it, and therefore they teach students to accept their particular perspective. • Avoidance: When teachers believe an issue to be controversial, but they have very strong views about it, and therefore they do not think they can teach it without bias or do not want to teach such a topic at all. • Balance: When teachers believe an issue to be controversial and teach it without favoring a particular perspective, so that students will be exposed to various positions in a neutral way.

16. Implications of Teaching Controversial Issues (1/2) • Harwood and Hahn (1990) point that students who participate in controversial issues discussions often demonstrate more positive political attitudes and higher participation in political activities. • Patrick (1967) finds that people who took part in disputable issues discussions in schools outperformed their counterparts in measures of political efficacy. • Long and Long (1975) indicate that there is a positive relationship between contentious topics discussions in schools and students' interest in following present events in the media and discussing political issues with friends and family. • When students are provided with the right environment to state their opinions about various debatable subjects, there are usually positive effects on these students' feelings of political interest, efficacy, confidence, and trust (Hahn, Angell, & Tocci, 1988).

17. Implications of Teaching Controversial Issues (2/2) • Goldenson (1978) indicates that discussing controversial issues helps students develop a greater civic tolerance towards contrary points of view. • Harwood and Hahn (1990) argue that although social studies courses are often considered boring and irrelevant to the real world, Remy (1972) finds that students are very keen to attend social studies classes which include discussions about controversial topics. • Westheimer (2008) emphasizes that in order to solve social problems and improve society, students have to acquire thinking skills (Oxfam argues that these skills, namely inquiry, critical thinking and analytical skills are gained through controversial issues discussions) which would allow them to be democratic, politically-engaged, and ethical citizens.

18. Gaps in the Literature Related to Teaching Controversial Issues in the Classroom • There is not much research to demonstrate the importance of including teaching controversial issues in the teachers’ pre-service training program, which may account for teachers' reports of its lack. • There is little research on how parents can prepare their children to handle contentious subjects. Moreover, there is little work that has been done on assisting teachers in responding to parents' reactions to the content and methods used to teach their children about controversial issues.

19. Activity Q: Match each activity with its appropriate title, students’ age, and aim. Then, reflect on it. For example:

20. Discussion Questions • What factors encourage/discourage the inclusion of controversial issues in school curricula? • Do multiculturalism and the teaching of controversial issues stand at two opposite poles? • If not in the curriculum, would you consider approaching controversial issues in the class? Why? Why not? • Do you think the religious backgrounds of the teachers can be detrimental to discussing religiously controversial issues? • You think it is ethical to address controversial issues in your class. School authorities and/or some of your students’ parents do not agree with you and complain. How would you react to their complaint?

21. References • Abu-Hamdan, T., & Khader, F. (2014). Social studies teachers' perceptions on teaching contemporary controversial issues. American International Journal of Contemporary Research, 4(10), 70-78. • Althusser, L. ([1970] 2011) Ideology and ideological state apparatuses. In I. Szeman & T. Kaposy (Eds.) Cultural theory. An anthology. (pp. 204 – 222) Oxford: Blackwell. • Chanzanagh, H. E., Mansoori, F., & Zarsazkar, M. (2011) Citizenship values in school subjects: a case-study on Iran’s elementary and secondary education subjects. Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences, 15, 3018 – 3023. • Foucault, M. (1991) Governmentality. In G. Burchell, C. Gordon & P. Miller (Eds.) Studies in Governmentality. With two lectures by and an interview with Michel Foucault. (pp. 87 – 104). Chicago: Chicago University Press. • Goldenson, D. R. (1978). An alternative view about the role of the secondary school in political socialization: A field-experimental study of the development of civil liberties attitudes. Theory & Research in Social Education, 6(1), 44-72. • Hahn, C. L., Angell, A., & Tocci, C. (1988, June). Civic attitudes in five nations. Paper presented at the International Meeting of the Social Studies, Vancouver, BC.

22. References • Harwood, A. M., & Hahn, C. L. (1990). Controversial issues in the classroom. Retrieved from ERIC database. (ED327453) • Harwood, D. (1997). Teacher roles in world studies' democratic pedagogy. Evaluation & Research in Education, 11(2), 65-90. • Hess, D. E. (2004). Controversies about controversial issues in democratic education. Political Science and Politics, 37(2), 257-261. • Long, S., & Long, R. (1975). Controversy in the classroom: Student viewpoint and educational outcome. Teaching Political Science, 2(3), 275-299. • Oxfam. (2006). Global citizenship guides: Teaching controversial issues. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxfam House. • Patrick, J. J. (1967). Political socialization of American youth: A review of research with implications for secondary school social studies. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/64450798?accountid=14701 • Remy, R. C. (1972). High school seniors; attitudes toward their civics and government instruction. Social Education, 36(6), 590-597.

23. References • Stein, J. G. (2007) Searching for Equality. In J. Stein, D. Cameron, J. Ibbitson, W. Kymlicka, J. Meisel, H. Siddiqui & M. Valpy (Eds.) Uneasy partners: Multiculturalism and rights in Canada (pp. 1 - 22). Waterloo, ON: Wilfred Laurier University Press. • Westheimer, J. (2008). On the relationship between political and moral engagement. In F. Oser & W. Veugelers (Eds.), Getting involved: Global citizenship development and the sources of moral values (pp.17-30). Rotterdam: Sense.