Tackling Controversial Issues in Primary Education: Perceptions and Experiences of Student Teachers

Richard Woolley

doi:10.3390/rel11040184

Abstract

This paper considers the nature and definition of controversial issues in primary education, exploring how they may be deemed controversial in different ways according to context. Drawing on research undertaken with student teachers in their final year of study at universities in England, it explores the issues that they feel apprehensive about facing in their first teaching post and those that they feel it is important to explore with children. It identifies issues relating to relationships, religion and belief and bereavement as being of significant concern, suggesting priorities for teacher training courses and contrasting these with research undertaken a decade earlier.

Highlights

It is timely to review how those training to be teachers are equipped to explore potentially controversial issues with the children in their care
Of the 87 respondents identifying issues they anticipated finding difficult to address in school, 91% identified one or more issues relating to relationships, allied to relationships and sex education; while 57.5%
They certainly have apprehensions about some of these issues, those relating to relationships, whether at points of transition, tensions relating to culture or ethnicity and relationships education

Summary

Introduction

It is timely to review how those training to be teachers are equipped to explore potentially controversial issues with the children in their care It is over thirty years since the introduction of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNHCHR 1989), the first legally binding international instrument to incorporate the full range of human rights—civil, cultural, economic, political and social. It must be noted that these ‘isms’ and phobias can, at times, be used to stifle discussion, where particular groups use them to label others as, for example, “racists” in order silence opponents In this article they are used to identify attitudes that can be divisive and undermine the appreciation of diversity and equality issues in society

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion