Teachers' Controversial Issue Decisions Related to Race, Gender, and Religion During the 2008 Presidential Election

Abstract

Using the 2008 Presidential Election as a case of curricular controversy, the author describes how six high school government teachers responded to the racial, gender, and religious diversity included on the presidential tickets of the two major political parties. Teachers had to decide whether the issue of Americans challenging the tradition of electing White males to the federal executive branch would be deemed "open" or "closed" in their classes, and if they were deemed open, whether they would disclose their own opinions on the issue. The findings suggest that Obama's race was a closed issue in each of the classes in terms of his eligibility for the presidency; however, the teachers and their students implicitly recognized the openness of the issue within both a broader societal context as well as their own political decision-making. Similarly, Palin's gender was also a closed issue in terms of her eligibility for the vice presidency, but the sexist comments made by students and teachers at each school suggest that although they may not have found Palin's candidacy controversial, her gender was an open issue with respect to how they judged female politicians in comparison to their male counterparts. Finally, Obama's religious background was a largely closed issue, although individual teachers positioned it as an open issue in their classes and used it to justify their belief that non-Christians should not be elected president. These findings offer implications for the teaching of controversial issues that are contextualized within traditionally taboo topics of race, gender, and religion.

Social Studies Teachers’ Opinions and Practices Regarding Teaching Controversial Issues

“…Although the teachers stated that problems were mostly studentbased, the observation showed that there were also some teacher-based problems. Many international studies (Segall & Gaudelli, 2007;Busey & Mooney, 2014;Camicia, 2008;Hess, 2005;Journell, 2011;Harber & Serf, 2007) found that teacher-based problems were more common than student-based problems in the teaching of controversial issues. According to the results of the observation, a majority of the teachers were not able to manage the teaching of controversial issues and they did not have sufficient skills and experience in this field.…”

“…Similarly, Clabough, Philpott, McConkey and Turner (2010) found that one of the reasons that teachers avoided teaching controversial issues is that they did not think they were skilful enough to handle controversial issues. Many studies (Segall & Gaudelli, 2007;Busey & Mooney, 2014;Camicia, 2008;Hess, 2005;Journell, 2011;Harber & Serf, 2007) found that teachers faced problems teaching controversial issues and these issues arose from their academic and occupational inadequacies.…”

“…Many other studies (Hess, 2004;Seng & Jaffar, 2014;Zemblas & Kambani, 2012;Philpott, Clabough, McConkey & Tunner, 2011) have also found that teachers face parental and administrative pressures in teaching controversial issues, and that they fear losing their jobs. As a result, teachers hesitate to bring controversial issues into the classroom (Camica, 2008;Hess, 2005;Journell, 2011). During the observations, the teachers expressed their fears of losing their jobs due to the reactions of school management and parents.…”

Role of Social Studies for Pre-Service Teachers in Citizenship Education

“…12; 2002). Despite strong theoretical support for adding this method in classes (Hess, 2009;Journell, 2011), research continue to show that teachers are hesitant to broach it (Journell, 2013b). Previous studies indicate that the considerable majority of teachers report an emphasis on this method in their teaching hours (Allen, 2003;Crowe & Wilen, 2003;Kelly & Brandes, 2001;Parker & Hess, 2001).…”

Conception of controversial issues among social studies teacher candidates

“…in their classrooms (Wilson et al, 2002). Additionally race (Husband, 2012;Washington and Humphries, 2011), environmental issues (Weinberger and Dreyfus, 2013), Darwin (Swanson, 2010), same sex marriage (Diorio, 2011), war on terror (Kuthe, 2011), sexuality issues (Puncher and Klein, 2012), and race, gender and religion (Journell, 2011) are some of the issues found critical by the researchers.…”