Negotiating Dissonance and Safety for the Common Good: Social Education in the Elementary Classroom

Abstract

Effective education requires a balance between cognitive dissonance and emotional safety. This relationship is particularly important in the social studies, where the broad goal of societal improvement necessitates the contemplation of sensitive social and personal issues. Nonetheless, dissonance and safety are often unbalanced or isolated in classroom practice. For many teachers, these goals are viewed as mutually exclusive. Emotional safety is given greater priority, and the dissonance that does occur is often decontextualized, unintentional, offered without adequate support, or unidirectionally applied to some situations but not others. This paper draws from a variety of sources, including data from a recent investigation of the social studies in the state of Delaware, to analyze existing imbalances between cognitive dissonance and emotional safety in the elementary classroom. I explore the relationships needed to promote social development for the common good within our pluralistic society and suggest that an affectively safe classroom environment can and should serve as a necessary backdrop for addressing controversial social issues even in the earliest of grades.