Teaching controversial issues when democracy is under attack," by J. L. Pace, E. Soto-Shed & E. Yeager Washington

To grasp just how profoundly democracy is under attack, look no further than states taking measures to limit the franchise, the right to vote, as captured, for example, in this December 4, 2021 column in the New York Times titled, "Voting Battles of 2022 Take Shape as G.O.P. Crafts New Election Bills." Lady Liberty has taken a bruising. The fight in Ukraine reminds us of how this is not just happening in the U.S., but globally. 

In any case, the Brown Center provides some helpful thinking and resources for teachers who are on the front lines of this attack in their classrooms. I hope you'll find these helpful.

-Angela Valenzuela

BROWN CENTER CHALKBOARD

Teaching controversial issues when democracy is under attack

Judith L. Pace, Eric Soto-Shed, and Elizabeth Yeager Washington

Monday, January 31, 2022

A new poll released by the Harvard Kennedy School reports that 52% of young Americans believe our democracy is “in trouble” or “failing.” Conflicts over many issues, such as election outcomes, climate change, and police violence against people of color seem intractable.

Political divisions have erupted in education as well. Public discourse in school board meetings on critical race theory, transgender students’ rights, mask and vaccine mandates, and pandemic-related restrictions has become vitriolic. Attacks on critical race theory have driven bans on teaching about systemic racism, sexism, and other politically charged topics.

In this climate, discussion of controversial issues in classrooms seems more fraught than ever, and teachers are understandably fearful to engage. But exploring political questions from multiple perspectives is a cornerstone of democratic education. It cultivates civic reasoning and discourse, which embody the skills, understandings, and habits required of democratic citizens. Furthermore, research shows that discussion of issues in an open classroom climate generates increased political knowledge, interest, and engagement.

Classrooms are typically the only space where young people learn to exchange perspectives with peers from diverse backgrounds, identify credible sources, and weigh evidence to inform their thinking. As one of the authors (Pace) writes in her new book intended for use in teacher preparation and professional development, we know a lot about how to successfully explore controversial issues in classroom settings. In fact, a well-developed set of practices has been advocated by and for educators around the world.

We are former K-12 teachers who are now teacher educators, and we understand that teachers, especially now, are keen to avoid risks that may accompany frank discussions of volatile issues in the classroom. These risks could include loss of classroom control, recriminations from administrators, and attacks from parents and community members, among others. However, controversy often enters the classroom whether or not we plan for it. How are teachers to effectively address controversy during these intensely polarized times?

This research-based tool that Pace developed represents an approach to teaching controversial issues known as “contained risk-taking.” It encourages teaching controversy through inquiry and discussion while proactively addressing risks. This framework for reflective practice consists of eight elements:

1) Cultivate a supportive environment

Teachers first get to know their students and create a classroom culture of trust and respect. They spend time learning about their students’ identities and ideas, building group cohesion, and promoting collaborative learning. Their classes collectively establish and practice norms such as active listening, respectful dissent, sensitivity toward others, and evaluation of knowledge sources. These classroom practices are always helpful but are especially critical when charged topics are to be addressed.

2) Select authentic issues

Teachers select issues relevant to their subject matter and make judgments about which are open versus settled. Scholars explain that open issues generate critical examination of multiple perspectives underpinned by legitimate sources of knowledge. Teachers frame questions that generate inquiry and discussion on these perspectives. They start the school year with issues that are less contentious and gradually build to politically and emotionally charged issues. Empirically settled issues—for example, the reality of climate change—need to be studied but not framed as debatable questions.

3) Prepare thoroughly

Mindful lesson planning is essential. Opening up discussions on controversial issues without preparation on the part of teachers (and students) can lead to the reinforcement of uninformed opinions and potential harm. Teachers broaden and deepen their content knowledge on the issues they address to develop a robust purpose, rationale, and goals for lessons. They create developmentally appropriate curriculum based on knowing their students and school communities well.

4) Choose resources and pedagogies

Teachers select rich resources to stimulate thinking and provide entry points to discussion. They choose pedagogical approaches, such as structured discussion activities, that allow many voices to be heard and that align with the discussion issues and students’ identities. If the issue is highly charged and students from specific communities are directly implicated, then we recommend pedagogies aimed at surfacing, understanding, and analyzing different perspectives. If the issue is not highly charged and student identities are not implicated, then we recommend pedagogies such as role play or deliberation – as long as it doesn’t set up a “false equivalence” that normalizes what are plainly ill-informed or offensive viewpoints.

5) Think through teacher stance and roles

Teachers reflect on their own positions, the roles they adopt during discussion, and whether, when, and how to disclose their views. The ultimate purpose is for students to critically examine and discuss different perspectives, develop well-informed views, and understand that additional knowledge may prompt them to change their minds. Teachers take up roles to advance that purpose; for example, if students are stuck in groupthink, they may play devil’s advocate to introduce a competing perspective. Alternatively, if a student is expressing an important minority perspective, they may take up the role of ally. Scholars have deliberated on the question of teachers disclosing their own views. In the current political climate, disclosure is not advisable unless there is a clear and compelling purpose and potential consequences are considered.

6) Guide discussion

Teachers use questioning, discussion formats, and protocols to guide discussions. They facilitate exchanges among students rather than defaulting to teacher-student recitation-style interactions. Structured Academic Controversy (SAC) is a highly effective approach to deliberation. But as we note earlier, if issues are highly charged, implicate student identities, or set up false equivalences, we advise carefully facilitated, exploratory conversations instead of deliberations.

7) Communicate proactively

Teachers transparently communicate their curricular rationales to parents and administrators in advance. They make clear that the goal is not for students to take a particular stance on an issue, but rather to understand multiple perspectives and form their own views. They let students know the controversial issues they will be studying. If stakeholders understand teachers’ thinking behind their curriculum and practice, and lines of communication are open, they are far less likely to feel threatened and criticize them.

8) Addressing emotions

Teachers balance affective and intellectual engagement. They provide a space to process emotions, use de-escalation techniques when needed, and get students to think metacognitively about emotionally entrenched perspectives and social divisions. Teachers anticipate and acknowledge feelings of discomfort that may be part of the learning process, and they are careful not to demonize or alienate students.

A REAL-WORLD EXAMPLE OF TEACHING CONTROVERSIAL ISSUES

An example of the reflective practice framework comes from Pace’s cross-national research. In Northern Ireland (NI), a student-teacher she interviewed, Margaret, described her approach to the political controversy over who should quality for government compensation as a victim of violence during the Troubles—a period of violent conflict that rocked the country for decades during the 20th century. Margaret chose this question because it was debated by the two main political parties in the NI government: the right-wing Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), with roots in the Protestant community and loyalty to Britain; and Sinn Fein, the left-wing party that emerged from the Catholic community and wanted to join the Republic of Ireland. She decided to conduct a deliberation (SAC) after learning it was preferable to debate because it made students take up competing perspectives instead of trying to win a competitive argument.

Margaret prepared by researching the controversy within the Northern Irish Assembly and curating a packet of sources, including proposed legislation and excerpts from a question-and-answer session in which politicians argued over how to define a victim. She gave students a class period to examine the sources and prepare arguments for the deliberation, which took place the following session. For homework, she assigned students to find additional sources that expanded or supported their arguments.

Although the issue was not as emotionally charged for young people, she understood it was difficult for students at her Catholic school to argue on behalf of the DUP. Margaret listened as students expressed their feelings, and she assured the pupils that, while they didn’t have to believe these arguments, it was important to understand them as a source of ongoing division in Northern Ireland. This is just one example of how the contained risk-taking framework can be applied to many different types of issues and topics. It can also be used for situations in which teachers face unexpected controversy in their classrooms.

Schools play a crucial role in strengthening democracy through education, and school leadership also has a role in helping to support teachers when addressing these challenging questions. The framework for teaching controversial issues and related resources offer a sorely needed pathway for educators striving to fulfill their democratic mission while coping with the risks of teaching in our politically polarized reality.

---

To learn more about the contained risk-taking framework and the research that underpins it, read Pace’s new book, “Hard Questions: Learning to Teach Controversial Issues,” or visit: https://teachingcontroversies.com/.

Brown Center Chalkboard

The Brown Center Chalkboard launched in January 2013 as a weekly series of new analyses of policy, research, and practice relevant to U.S. education.

In July 2015, the Chalkboard was re-launched as a Brookings blog in order to offer more frequent, timely, and diverse content. Contributors to both the original paper series and current blog are committed to bringing evidence to bear on the debates around education policy in America.

Read papers in the original Brown Center Chalkboard series »

Does Teacher Diversity Matter in Student Learning? by Claire Cain Miller

This story was on the front page of the New York Times last Monday.  The jury is in: Students benefit from children who look like them, particularly minoritized boys.  When we speak of equity in schools it's clear that we need greater diversity in the teacher workforce.  To get there, we should consider growing our own educators by creating pathways into the teaching profession while also addressing the higher education teacher preparation curriculum to address issues of bias, prejudice, and institutionalized forms of racism, and oppression, as a whole.

Thanks to Pedro Pedraza for sharing.

Angela Valenzuela

Does Teacher Diversity Matter in Student Learning?

Research shows that students, especially boys, benefit when teachers share their race or gender. Yet most teachers are white women.

By Claire Cain Miller

• Sept. 10, 2018

• 

As students have returned to school, they have been greeted by teachers who, more likely than not, are white women. That means many students will be continuing to see teachers who are a different gender than they are, and a different skin color.

Does it matter? Yes, according to a significant body of research: Students tend to benefit from having teachers who look like them, especially nonwhite students.

The homogeneity of teachers is probably one of the contributors, the research suggests, to the stubborn gender and race gaps in student achievement: Over all, girls outperform boys, and white students outperform those who are black and Hispanic.

Yet the teacher work force is becoming more female: 77 percent of teachers in public and private elementary and high schools are women, up from 71 percent three decades ago. The teaching force has grown more racially diverse in that period, but it’s still 80 percent white, down from 87 percent.

There are many things that contribute to children’s academic achievement, including teachers’ experience and training; school funding and zoning; and families’ incomes and home environment. And teachers have long been predominantly white and female. But new educational opportunities for girls may mean that they can take more advantage of the benefits of female teachers. And studies show that teacher diversity can make a difference in students’ performance and their interest in school.

The effect is stronger on boys. Research has found that boys, and particularly black boys, are more affected than girls by disadvantages, like poverty and racism, and by positive influences, like high-quality schools and role models. Yet they are least likely to have had a teacher that looks like them.

“We find that the effect is really driven by boys,” said Seth Gershenson, an economist studying education policy at American University. “In the elementary school setting, for black children and especially disadvantaged black children, the effect of having even just one black teacher is fairly big and robust and a real thing.”

When black children had a black teacher between third and fifth grades, boys were significantly less likely to later drop out of high school, and both boys and girls were more likely to attend college, Mr. Gershenson and his colleagues found in a large study last year. The effect was strongest for children from low-income families. The study included 106,000 students who entered third grade in North Carolina from 2001 to 2005, and it followed them through high school. There was no effect on white children when they had a black teacher.

Teachers’ gender does not necessarily have a big effect during elementary school but seems to make more of a difference when children are older. Then, girls do better with a female teacher and boys with a male one, said Thomas Dee, a professor of education at Stanford.

When eighth graders had a female teacher instead of a male one, boys fell behind girls by the equivalent of three and a half months of learning, according to a well-regarded study he wrote, which compared the effect of two teachers of different genders on the same students. When students and teachers were the same gender, teachers also had more positive impressions of students, and students looked forward more to the subject. The study used Department of Education data on 25,000 eighth graders from 1,000 schools.

In high school and college math and science courses, studies have shown that when women have a female instructor, they get higher grades, participate more in class and are more likely to continue to pursue the subject.

Researchers say it’s not entirely clear why teachers’ gender and race make a difference; it’s likely to be a combination of things. Students tend to be inspired by role models they can relate to. Same-race teachers might be able to present new material in a more culturally relevant way. Also, teachers sometimes treat students differently based on their own backgrounds and stereotypes. Social scientists call this implicit bias, when stereotypes influence people’s thinking, often unconsciously.

A variety of research, for instance, has shown that teachers tend to assess black students differently from white students. Preschool teachers judge black children more harshly for the same behavior. White teachers are less likely than black teachers to assign black students to gifted and talented programs even if their test scores match those of white students. When black students had both a white and black teacher, the black teachers consistently had higher expectations for the children’s potential.

Teachers’ biases can end up becoming self-fulfilling prophecy, Mr. Gershenson has found. “The high expectations actually motivate kids to do better,” he said. “Black students are hurt by that lack of optimism that white kids get, and black kids with black teachers rise to meet their expectations.”

Sometimes teachers underestimate students of their race or gender, suggesting that they have internalized stereotypes about their own group and that white and Asian-American students may not experience negative effects from having nonwhite teachers.

Girls perform about the same as boys in math on average through eighth grade. By age 17, there is a meaningful male advantage in that subject.

A new study, not yet published, found that math teachers favored boys over girls, and white students over black or Hispanic students — and that female teachers were biased in favor of boys and that nonwhite teachers were the most biased in favor of white students.

“These results indicate that enduring cultural biases may have long residual effects on stigmatized groups,” said Yasemin Copur-Gencturk, one of the authors and an assistant professor of education at the University of Southern California.

Long term, the evidence suggests it would make a difference to train and hire more diverse teachers. But researchers say there’s also something that schools can do immediately, with the teachers they already have: teach them about their biases and stereotypes. It can lead to fairer treatment of students.

The research shows that no matter their demographics, teachers can overcome some of the effects of bias, Mr. Dee said. He summed up the interventions this way: “Signal to students your deep faith in their capacity to learn, coupled with your high expectations that they’ll do great things, full stop.”

It’s surprisingly effective and simple to do, social scientists have shown. One study found that merely informing teachers about their stereotypes closed gaps in grading. An hourlong online tutorial for teachers has halvedsuspension rates for black students, after training educators on how to value students’ perspectives and view misbehavior as a learning opportunity.

Another strategy is coaching teachers on how their language can unintentionally signal to students that they can’t excel. Teachers are taught to convey to students that intelligence is not fixed, but built through hard work, and to talk about each student’s value and belonging in the classroom.

Retaining current teachers is also important, researchers say. More qualified people would stay in the profession if the jobs had better pay, benefits and support. Nonwhite teachers in schools with poor resources are at particular risk of burning out.  

“It also matters just to have a really good teacher,” Mr. Dee said. “We don’t want to lose sight of that as we support diversity.”

Claire Cain Miller writes about gender, families and the future of work for The Upshot. She joined The Times in 2008 and was part of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2018 for public service for reporting on workplace sexual harassment issues. @clairecm • Facebook

A version of this article appears in print on Sept. 10, 2018, on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Students Thrive When Teachers Are Like Them. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe