Sex and sexuality are complex, multi-faceted topics. Sexuality educators and practitioners often face challenging dilemmas with few ethical decision-making models available. While there are professional codes of ethics for sex educators, there are no practical models to inform an educator's ethical decision-making in professional situations. This…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to discover topics in history education in Estonia that are perceived to be controversial, and to analyse how teachers' epistemic cognition is reflected in the teaching of issues perceived to be controversial. Design/methodology/approach: Qualitative research based on group and individual interviews with 12…

This research aimed at improving sexual education in a society where it is held as a taboo. The study explored parents' and teachers' views and practices related to sex education. Thirty individual interviews were conducted among twenty parents and ten teachers using a convenient sampling approach. We developed the "Views & Practices in…

This article draws from primary and secondary historical sources such as public policy documents, speeches, and media reports to trace attempts made by the Kentucky legislature to ban controversial topics in public school curriculum--evolution in 1922 and critical race theory in 2022. Kingdon's multiple streams framework (MSF) serves as the model…

Many libraries and archives have recently released statements about harmful material in their collections and the descriptions of these collections. However, these types of statements are not required for any professional accreditation or membership, nor are there specific guidelines to follow. This study collected and analyzed statements from…

In Georgia, the recent "Protect Students First Act," or GA HB 1084, states that curricula and training programs should refrain from judging others based on race or advocate for divisive concepts such as "One race is inherently superior to another race," or that "the United States of America is fundamentally racist."…

At this juncture, I find myself orientating towards the unruliness of doing arts-based praxis-oriented research with primary school-aged children (aged 5-12) on the topic of LGBTQI+ lives. As I prepare for what feel like disruptive research directions that will chart what many still consider to be forbidden territory with children, I attempt to…

Dialogic talk affords students opportunities to share ideas and co-construct knowledge while developing various literacy skills such as perspective taking, text comprehension, and argumentative reasoning. In this study, we examine how seventh- and eighth-grade students in four classrooms discuss a controversial topic about changing a National…

Controversial scientific issues, or socioscientific issues (SSIs), demand the consideration of more than scientific content when constructing decisions. The Justification for Knowing framework (JFK) was developed to categorize the information sources drawn upon when making SSI decisions within the academic domain of natural sciences. These…

The goal of this research is to gain an understanding of how Arab civics teachers in Israel teach material that is inconsistent with their beliefs and aspirations. To this end, I conducted qualitative research employing interpretative phenomenological analysis. The findings show that different teachers find different ways to deal with the…

The public debate regarding problematic ideas and personal autonomy has cascaded into classrooms over the last two years, as families and politicians demand more control over what youth are learning. One approach to limiting exposure to perceived harmful or controversial content has been to remove it completely. In this paper, the authors present…

In a polarized society, it is a university's responsibility to offer courses that explore highly controversial issues. Traditional forms of debate may create barriers to knowledge and entrenchment of perspectives, with students self-limiting their ability to develop informed opinions. We describe an active learning, double-blinded approach to…

Since its inception, schools' primary function has been to educate youth and adolescents to encourage a prosperous society. Educational institutions serve as an immediate community where leaders foster and nurture principles of standard behavior. The notion of these practices served as the framework for academic institutions and complemented…

Although teachers make frequent decisions about whether and how to address difficult topics, they typically do so with minimal support. This article reports a case study of an inquiry community of 20 educators who engaged in practitioner inquiry as professional learning for addressing the difficult topics that they teach within their curricula or…

Sexual health education in the United States is seeing increased attention and is often viewed as a controversial topic. To better understand young adolescents' experiences within an LGBTQ+ inclusive sexual health education program ("Get Real"), we utilized Situated Expectancy-Value Theory to investigate 53 responses from 30 students…