Teaching controversial issues in a fragile democracy: defusing deliberation in Israeli primary classrooms

Abstract

Teaching through controversial, politically charged issues is promoted in Anglo-American democracies as a key means for cultivating active citizenry and democratic values. However, the challenges of discussing controversial issues in the classroom may differ in younger, deeply divided democracies that lack common ground and institutional stability. In this study we ask, what approaches to the teaching of controversial issues do Israeli teachers adopt while enacting a curricular unit concerning Israel’s founding fathers? The data were collected in an ethnographic study in two primary schools during the 2012–2013 school year. We use linguistic ethnographic methods to analyse the curricular materials and their enactment in four video-recorded lessons in three classrooms. We argue that while the curriculum addresses deeply controversial content, it is designed to inculcate a shared national ethos and therefore avoids controversy. In practice, teachers and students engaged with controversial issues, but in ways that defused their volatility. We highlight two heretofore undocumented approaches to controversial issues: (1) sidestepping controversy by stripping it of real world complexities, and (2) scholasticizing the discussion by focusing on literacy practices. Finally, we discuss the rationales for using these two approaches to defuse controversy in the classroom, and their limitations.

Keywords:

• Civic education
• controversial issues
• deliberative democracy
• Israel
• elementary education
• literacy

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Itay Pollak is a doctoral student in the Department of Education, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev; email: [email protected]. His research interests centre on pedagogy and the epistemic climate in primary classrooms.

Aliza Segal is a research fellow at the Laboratory for the Study of Pedagogy, Department of Education, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev; email: [email protected]. She researches issues of identity, culture and power relations within classroom discourse and teacher professional discourse, with close attention to their pedagogical ramifications.

Adam Lefstein is an associate professor in the Department of Education, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev; email: [email protected]. His research explores the intersections of pedagogy, classroom interaction, teacher learning and educational change. His book (with Julia Snell), Better than Best Practice: Developing Teaching and Learning through Dialogue, was published in 2014 by Routledge (http://dialogicpedagogy.com/).

Assaf Meshulam is a lecturer in the Department of Education, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev; email: [email protected]. His broad research interest is the relations between education and power, focusing on education for democracy and social justice. His co-authored book (with M W Apple, L A Gandin, S Liu and E Schirmer) The Struggle for Democracy in Education is expected to be published in 2018 by Routledge.

Notes

1. High levels of participation do not necessarily reflect acceptance of democratic values such as tolerance and respect for human rights (e.g. Tzameret-Kertcher, 2010).

2. While the case was more complicated, the public perception was that Verete was removed on account of his controversial political views (Skop, May 26, 2014).

3. A pseudonym, as are all personal names of research participants in this article.

4. Classroom data is in Hebrew. In the transcript we have added punctuation for readability. See appendix for transcription conventions.

5. We also found scholastizing in Shlomit and Anat’s lessons, but have opted to focus only on Liora’s lessons due to length limitations.