Résumés
Abstract
Many teachers and education scholars are quick to endorse discussing controversial issues in classrooms, especially in the context of “divisive concept” legislation that proposes bans or limitations on how contentious matters are taught in schools. This approach, however, may not be the best choice in a post-truth and populist setting that challenges the values of liberal democracy and the norms of discussion that are endorsed in deliberative democracy. Rather than recommending doubling down on traditional approaches in this new context, this article proposes a form of pragmatist inquiry as a better pedagogical method. Pragmatist inquiry shares some tenets with aspects of populism and post-truth, yet heads off some of their worst tendencies. It offers a more suitable pedagogical approach than the liberal democracy approaches more closely aligned with typical classroom discussion and related forms of deliberation and debate.
Parties annexes
Bibliography
- Allen, D. (2004). Talking to strangers: Anxieties of citizenship since Brown v. Board of Education. University of Chicago Press.
- Allport, G. (1954). The nature of prejudice. Addison-Wesley.
- Baehr, J. (2021a). Deep in thought: A practical guide to teaching for intellectual virtues. Harvard Education Press.
- Baehr, J. (2021b). Democracy, information technology, and virtue epistemology. In N. E. Snow & M. S. Vaccarezza (Eds.), Virtues, democracy, and online media (1st ed). Routledge.
- Barton, K. C. & Ho, L. C. (2023). Collaborative deliberation in the classroom. Phi Delta Kappan, 104(5), 44–49. https://doi-org.uc.idm.oclc.org/10.1177/00317217231156229
- Barton, K. C. & Levstik, L. S. (2015). Why don’t more history teachers engage students in interpretation? In W. C. Parker (Ed.), Social studies today: Research and practice (2nd ed.). Routledge.
- Ben-Porath, S. (2006). Citizenship under fire: Democratic education in times of conflict. Princeton University Press.
- Callan, E. (2016). Education in safe and unsafe spaces. Philosophical Inquiry in Education, 24(1), 64–78.
- Cambridge Words. (2017, November 29). Cambridge dictionary’s word of the year 2017. Cambridge Dictionary. Retrieved August 23, 2022, from https://dictionaryblog.cambridge.org/2017/11/29/cambridge-dictionarys-word-of-the-year-2017
- Clark, A. & Grever, M. (2018). Historical consciousness: Conceptualizations ad educational applications. In S. A. Metzger & L. McArthur Harris (Eds.), The Wiley international handbook of history teaching and learning. Wiley-Blackwell Publishers. https://doi-org.uc.idm.oclc.org/10.1002/9781119100812.ch7
- Delgado, R. & Stefancic, J. (2012). Critical race theory: An introduction. New York University Press.
- Dewey, J. (1954). The public and its problems. Swallow Press.
- Dewey, J. (1998). Propositions, warranted assertibility, and truth. Journal of Philosophy, 1941. In The essential Dewey (vol. 2). Indiana University Press.
- Dewey, J. (2008a). Logic: The theory of inquiry. In J. A. Boydston (Ed.), The later works of John Dewey (vol. 12). Southern Illinois University Press.
- Dewey, J. (2008b). The collected works of John Dewey, 1882–1953, edited by Jo Ann Boydston. Southern Illinois University Press.
- Dewey, J. (2008c). The problem of method. In J. A. Boydston (Ed.), The later works of John Dewey (vol. 2). Southern Illinois University Press.
- Dewey, J. (2008d). The quest for certainty: A study of the relation of knowledge to action. In J. A. Boydston (Ed.), The later works of John Dewey, 1925–1953 (vol. 4). Southern Illinois University Press.
- Dewey, J. (2008e). Theory of valuation. In J. A. Boydston (Ed.), The later works of John Dewey, 1925–1953 (vol. 4). Southern Illinois University Press.
- D’Olimpio, L. (2018). Trust as a virtue in education. Educational Philosophy & Theory, 50(2), 193–202.
- Duong, M. T., Mehl, C., & Jany, C. (2023). Building bridges in the context of inequality. Constructive Dialogue Institute. https://constructivedialogue.org/assets/Building-Bridges-in-the-Context-of-Inequality.pdf
- Garrett, H. J., Segall, A., Crocco, M. S. (2020). Accommodating emotion and affect in political discussions in classrooms. Social Studies, 111(6), 312–323.
- Geurkink, B., Zaslove, A., Sluiter, R. & Jacobs, K. (2019). Populist attitudes, political trust, and external political efficacy: Old wine in new bottles? Political Studies, 68(1), 247–267.
- Hannah-Jones, N. (2019, September 4). The 1619 Project. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/1619-america-slavery.html
- Hess, D. & McAvoy, P. (2014). The political classroom: Evidence and ethics in democratic education. Routledge.
- Hodgin, E. & Kahne, J. (2019). Judging credibility in un-credible times: Three educational approaches for the digital age. In W. Journell (Ed.), Unpacking fake news: An educator’s guide to navigating the media with students. Teachers College Press.
- Jacobsen, R., Halvorsen, A. L., Frasier, A. S., Schmitt, A. Crocco, M., & Segall, A. (2018). Thinking deeply, thinking emotionally: How high school students make sense of evidence. Theory & Research in Social Education, 46(2), 232–276.
- James, W. (2002). The meaning of truth. Dover Publications.
- Kakutani, M. (2018). The death of truth: Notes on falsehood in the age of Trump. Crown.
- Kauppi, V. M. & Drerup, J. (2021). Discussion and inquiry: A Deweyan perspective on teaching controversial issues. Theory and Research in Education, 19(3): 213–234.
- Kawashima-Ginsberg, K. (2013). Do discussion, debate, and simulations boost NAEP civics performance? Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning & Engagement. https://circle.tufts.edu/sites/default/files/2020-01/discussion_debate_naep_2013.pdf
- Keegan, P. (2021). Critical affective civic literacy: A framework for attending to political emotion in the social studies classroom. Journal of Social Studies Research, 45, 15–24.
- Keegan, P. (2022). Teaching critical affective civic literacy through social studies inquiry. In N. Keefer & T. K. Flint (Eds.), Mindful social studies. Rowman and Littlefield.
- Laclau, E. (2005). On populist reason. Verso.
- Lin, C. & Jackson, L. (2019). From shared fate to shared fates: An approach for civic education. Studies in Philosophy & Education, 38, 537–547.
- Lynch, M. P. (2016, April 24). Teaching in the time of Google. Chronicle of Higher Education. http://chronicle.com/article/Teaching-in-the-Time-of-Google/236180
- McAvoy, P., Hess, D., & Kawashima-Ginsberg, K. (2014). The pedagogical challenge of teaching politics in like-minded schools. In T. Misco & J. De Groof (Eds.), Crosscultural case studies of teaching controversial issues: Pathways and challenges to democratic citizenship education. Wolf.
- McAvoy, P. & McAvoy, G. E. (2021). Can debate and deliberation reduce partisan divisions? Evidence from a study of high school students. Peabody Journal of Education, 96(3), 275–284.
- Misak, C. (2008). Pragmatism on solidarity, bullshit, and other deformities of truth. Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 32(1), 111–121.
- Monte-Sano, C. & Reisman, A. (2015). Studying historical understanding. In L. Corno & E. M. Anderman (Eds.), Handbook of educational psychology (3rd ed.). Routledge.
- Mouffe, C. (2018). For a left populism. Verso.
- Mudde, C. & Kaltwasser, C. (2017). Populism: A very short introduction. Oxford University Press.
- New Jersey Education Association. (2021, February 28). Discussing controversial topics in the classroom. https://www.njea.org/discussing-controversial-topics-in-the-classroom
- Nguyen, C. T. (2018, April 9). Escape the echo chamber. Aeon. https://aeon.co/essays/why-its-as-hard-to-escape-an-echo-chamber-as-it-is-to-flee-a-cult
- Oxford English Dictionary (online edition), s.v. “post-truth,” adj. Retrieved January 20, 2023, from https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/58609044
- Oxford Languages. (n.d.). Word of the year 2016. Retrieved August 23, 2022, from https://languages.oup.com/word-of-the-year/2016
- Pace, J. L. & Journell, W. (2021, November 2). Why controversial issues must still be taught in U.S. classrooms. EdSource. https://edsource.org/2021/why-controversial-issues-must-still-be-taught-in-u-s-classrooms/663103
- Porter, S. L. & Baehr, J. (2020). Becoming honest: Why we lie and what can be done about it. In C. B. Miller & R. West (Eds.), Integrity, honesty, and truth seeking (pp. 182–206). Oxford University Press.
- Reisman, A. (2012). Reading like a historian: A document-based history curriculum intervention in urban high schools. Cognition and Instruction, 30(1), 86–112.
- Ridley, D. (2021). The method of democracy: John Dewey’s theory of collective intelligence. Peter Lang.
- Saetra, E. (2021). Discussing controversial issues in the classroom: Elements of good practice. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, 65(2): 345–357. https://doi-org.uc.idm.oclc.org/10.1080/00313831.2019.1705897
- Saetra, E. (2022). An empirical moral philosophy perspective on classroom discussions of controversial issues. Educational Theory, 72(5), 1–22.
- Sant, E. (2021). Political education in times of populism: Towards a radical democratic education. Palgrave Macmillan.
- Schwartz, S. (2023, February 3). Map: Where critical race theory is under attack. Education Week. https://www.edweek.org/policy-politics/map-where-critical-race-theory-is-under-attack/2021/06
- Teachers College of Columbia University. (2021, March 19). Hearing the other side of the story. https://www.tc.columbia.edu/articles/2021/march/a-new-webinar-series-on-teaching-controversial-topics
- Tryggvason, A. (2018). Democratic education and agonism: Exploring the critique from deliberative theory. Democracy & Education, 26(1), 1–9.
- VanSledright, B. (2015). What does it mean to think historically… and how do you teach it? In W. C. Parker (Ed.), Social studies today: Research and practice (2nd ed.). Routledge.
- Waisbord, S. (2018). The elective affinity between post-truth communication and populist politics. Communication Research & Practice, 4(1), 17–34.
- Warnick, B., Yacek, D. & Robinson, S. (2018). Learning to be moved: The modes of democratic responsiveness. Philosophical Inquiry in Education, 25(1), 31–46.
- Wineburg, S. S. (2002). Historical thinking and other unusual acts: Charting the future of teaching the past. Temple University Press.
- Yacek, D. (2018). Thinking controversially: The psychological condition for teaching controversial issues. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 52(1): 71–86.
- Yacek, D. (2019). Should anger be encouraged in the classroom? Political education, closed-mindedness, and civic epiphany. Educational Theory, 69(4), 421–437. https://doi-org.uc.idm.oclc.org/10.1111/edth.12378
- Zembylas, M. (2020). The affective grounding of post-truth: Pedagogical risks and transformative possibilities in countering post-truth claims. Pedagogy, Culture & Society, 28(1).
- Zembylas, M. (2021). Affect and the rise of right-wing populism: Pedagogies of the renewal of democratic education. Cambridge University Press.
10.7202/1070555ar