Open‐Mindedness and the (Un)Controversial in Classrooms

Abstract

ABSTRACTEducational‐theoretical discussions of open‐mindedness and closed‐mindedness focus on the moral benefits and hazards of these dispositions in pedagogical encounters with the new and hitherto alien. Such discussions often employ spatial metaphors of openness and rely on politically safe examples to illustrate ambiguous enactments of open‐mindedness and closed‐mindedness as epistemic or moral virtues and vices. This article explores how a shift in our metaphors and a change in attention from the new to the “inflammatory (un)controversial” may complicate current outlooks on open‐mindedness and politicize it differently. To illustrate this critique of virtue‐theoretic approaches to open‐mindedness, the article uses fictive classroom exchanges on Holocaust and genocide denialism as (un)controversial material that ignites minds.