Umeå University's logo

Purpose: This study seeks to gain an understanding of the complexities involved in real-life classroom teaching. The aim is to trace values and tensions displayed in what the teachers regard as successful and unsuccessful.

Design/methodology/approach: Teachers were interviewed to explore their perceptions of success and failures in their teaching about controversial issues. Data was analysed thematically and cross-analysed to find underlying didactic values and tensions.

Findings: Successful and unsuccessful are mainly related to the students’ learning, teachers’ efforts, and reactions of parents, not to specific issues. Values included concern for students’ well-being and a desire for less polarisation. Tensions concerned students’ level of commitment and how to deal with students’ own opinions. Successful teaching is not only about achieving curriculum goals but also must be understood in relation to teachers’ task perceptions.

Practical implications: Results of the study can provide teachers with a ground for didactical reflection.

This study explores the practical implications of the paradox of moral education, focusing on how Swedish social study teachers (civics, geography, history, and religious education) navigate conflicting responsibilities to convey values and facilitate critical thinking when addressing controversial issues in their classrooms. Through qualitative interviews and observations, teachers were found to often lead by example, maintaining neutrality and presenting diverse perspectives. This approach appears to foster students towards embracing liberal values, promoting independent decision-making and personal responsibility, but it may come at the cost of critically evaluating these very ideals, norms, and values. The absence of official guidelines in the Swedish school system underscores the significance of understanding how teachers balance these conflicting responsibilities in their pedagogical practices. The study sheds light on the practical strategies employed by teachers, contributing valuable insights to a discourse traditionally centred on theoretical solutions to the paradox of moral education.

Kapitlet reder dels ut vad identitet kan vara och betyda, och dels hur identitet kan göras kontroversiellt i olika situationer i ett klassrum. Baserat på lärares egna erfarenheter visar kapitlet hur flera olika värden behöver balanseras i undervisningen. Exempelvis kan elevernas behov av ett säkert rum där deras identitet inte blir ifrågasatt ställas mot behovet av ett öppet debattklimat där många olika synpunkter i politiska frågor som tangerar identitet diskuteras. Gränsen är ibland glasklar, men i andra fall mer svårdefinierad, exempelvis på grund av identiteters mer eller mindre framträdande koppling till politik på olika sätt.

I det här kapitlet behandlas hur versamma lärare i samhällsorienterande ämnen (årskurs 7-9) tar sig an kontroversiella frågor, vilket aktualiserar balansgången mellan de potentiellt motstridiga uppdragen att förmedla och kritiskt granska värderingar. 

Controversial issues are often regarded as abundant in history education. Most topics can be regarded as controversial in one way or another. The purpose of this article is to analyse the way history teachers in Swedish lower secondary schools relate controversial issues to a particular view of the nature of the subject of history. By analysing statements from six teacher interviews which centred on the risks and opportunities associated with teaching about controversial issues, the authors were able to see a clear relation between views on controversial issues and views on the nature of history as such. The teachers’ reactions to the introduction of controversial issues, whether introduced by the teacher or by the students, was in many cases directly related to a specific view of the subject itself and its epistemological nature.

Teachers in the non-confessional Swedish subject religious education have conflicting responsibilities to convey values and facilitate critical thinking. The research regarding these responsibilities has often been considered a theoretical problem and the discussion has concerned theoretical solutions. However, the problem is not only theoretical. It is in fact also a practical problem that many teachers frequently encounter. The overall aim of this paper is thus to draw attention to these conflicting responsibilities as a practical problem that teachers face and are expected to solve in their pedagogical practices. In line with this aim, a number of qualitative research interviews were conducted with experienced religious education teachers, who are considered to have a particular responsibility for moral education in the Swedish school system. The purpose of the interviews was to investigate how they relate to their sometimes conflicting responsibilities and consequently make an empirically informed contribution to the debate. This is an important task since there are no official guidelines on how teachers are to balance these responsibilities in their pedagogical practices. 

A recurring idea in the educational debate is that we live in a time of polarization, where people hold radically different beliefs, which makes it difficult for us to communicate with each other (e.g., Noddings & Brooks, 2017; Lukianoff & Haidt, 2018; Boghossian & Lindsey, 2019). It is, however, the teachers’ responsibility to address the controversial issues that tend to divide individuals or groups. Such issues may, for example, include moral dilemmas, extremism, terrorism, politics and religion (e.g. Moore & Kyser, 2014; Sjöborg, 2015; McDonough, 2016; Revell & Christopher, 2021). 

There is no generally accepted definition of controversial issues in the research literature. Most definitions, however, contain what we describe as emotional, cognitive and evaluative elements. Hence, controversial issues are matters about which individuals or groups tend to get upset and disagree, about which individuals or groups tend to hold conflicting explanations, and about which individuals or groups create solutions based on different values (e.g., Cooling, 2012; Hand, 2008; Ljunggren et al., 2015; Stradling, 1984; Lindström & Sullivan, 2021). Which aspects of controversial issues researchers emphasize seem to rely on a variety of factors, however, we argue that it depends on how they perceive the principal aim of education.

In this paper, we will provide a division of three educational approaches to controversial issues, which are prevalent in the research literature and among teachers in their pedagogical practices. If the principal aim of education is:

• that students should develop without being disturbed by unsettling or threatening content, it is important that the teachers can create safe learning environments, which is characteristic of an emotional perspective of controversial issues (see: Stradling, 1984; Hickey, 2016; Cush, 2007; Lukianoff & Haidt, 2018 ).
• to develop the students’ ability to think and act rationally, they should be provided with opportunities to review arguments from different points of view and learn how to make well-grounded assessments, which is characteristic of a cognitive perspective of controversial issues (see: Hand, 2008; Boghossian & Lindsay, 2019).
• to contribute to the pupils’ ability to feel empathy, look beyond people´s differences and work for a fair community, they must be exposed to specific personal stories that can facilitate their understanding of others (see: Stradling, 1984; Cooling, 2012; Noddings & Brooks, 2017).

In this paper, we will provide examples of these positions and discuss to which extent they are attainable and valuable ends to strive against in an educational practice.