Journal of Social Science Education (JSSE - Universität Bielefeld)
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Open classroom in a closed society: Effects of patriotism and ideological diversity in the Russian school
Full text linkPurpose: This study investigates the relationship between political discussions and ideological composition in the classroom.
Design: The effects of class patriotism and within–class differences in it are analysed using the Russian data from the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study.
Findings: Students in more patriotic and like–minded classes perceive the classroom climate as more open, but it does not change its effect on knowledge. There is a negative relationship between ideological diversity and civic knowledge. These effects in Russia are neither unique nor the strongest among the ICCS participants. The reality of an open classroom might be far from the idealised notion of balanced deliberation, and its diversity remains a challenge rather than an opportunity.
Research limitations and implications: The study makes no claims about the directionality of the relationships due to their correlational nature. More research is needed on the quality of reasoning in social studies classrooms in times of polarisation and political turmoil
Moral and political dimensions of critical-democratic citizenship education: Enhancing social justice, a global orientation, and equity in schools and society
Full text linkWiel VeugelersLeiden: Brill, 2023, pp. 257, ISBN: 978-90-04-68544-4 (e-book), 978-90-04-68543-7 (Hardback Publication), 978-90-04-68542-0 (Paperback Publication
Editoral
No full textIn this autumn issue of the JSSE, we are pleased to present five original articles. These contributions deal with social science education in different contexts and from different educational settings, reminding the reader of the heterogeneity of our common research field. Two of the articles deal with teacher training, two with considerations and understandings of teachers and one focusing on young peoples’ understanding of social issues. However, the similarities in the research contributions are also evident. All of the articles focus on the importance of inclusive, critical and balanced social science education in different ways and with different outsets. In times when democracy and human rights are being contested, it is important to highlight the role of democratic and civic education and what it can contribute with
Between compassion, anger, resignation, and rebellion: Vocational civics teachers and their struggle to fulfil the intentions of the civics subject
Full text linkHighlights:
– Civics teachers face challenges in offering male vocational students quality citizenship education.
– Civics teachers perceive this student group as vulnerable and in need of extra support.
– When unable to offer desired civics education, teachers feel angry and resigned.
– Civics teachers are willing to bend certain rules to support this particular student group.
– If this student group lacks better civics education, their future and Sweden\u27s democracy are at risk.
Purpose: This paper examines how vocational civics teachers navigate structural constraints and their understanding of the challenges involved in preparing vocational students for democratic citizenship.
Design/methodology/approach: Using a discoursive psychological approach to analyse interview material, the study discusses identified discourses about critical policy analysis and street-level bureaucracy theory.
Findings: The findings reveal that the structure of vocational upper-secondary education significantly constrains civics teachers. Teachers oscillate between feelings of compassion, anger, resignation, and rebellion as they attempt to manage these challenges.
Research limitations/implications: The study highlights the need for further ethnographic research on teaching practices.
Practical implications: A significant number of Swedish upper-secondary students receive a limited civics education that inadequately prepares them for democratic citizenship
Delearning capitalism: Is degrowth a decolonial perspective in social science education?
Full text linkHighlights:
– Capitalism is part of the colonial system, and growth is one of its ideological principles.
– Critical views on growth and capitalism are related to more critical PBL projects.
– Supporters of Degrowth are closer to decolonial perspectives in education.
Purpose: We aim to locate degrowth approaches within decolonial social science education and to establish relationships between economic beliefs in the social representations of future teachers and their educational projections.
Design/methodology/approach: Theoretical approaches are developed to pinpoint the topic and focus on teachers’ imaginaries concerning economic notions such as growth and degrowth. The social representations of teachers in training are analysed to explore their epistemological, formal, and decision-making implications.
Findings: Critical views on growth and capitalism are related to acknowledging alternative economic paradigms and to a more critical, complex, action-oriented and justice-oriented projection of educational PBL. Supporters of degrowth are closer to decolonial perspectives in education.
Practical implications: We should revise teacher training programmes to better train future teachers in decolonial perspectives. More emphasis on colonial and structural cause-effect complex dynamics of capitalism in socioenvironmental problems is required. The hegemony of neoliberal collective imaginaries should be questioned through social, historical and economic narratives
Becoming a disagreeable citizen – disagreement orientation and citizenship education: A multilevel analysis of Norwegian adolescents’ disagreement orientation
Full text linkHighlights:
The findings support viewing disagreement orientation as multidimensional, with debate seeking and conflict aversion being twodistinct dimensions of disagreement orientation
There are different factors that impact debate seeking and conflict
Characteristics of citizenship education has impact on conflict avoidance, but not debate seeking.
Debate seeking is related to individual background variables, such as political interest, political conversation, and news-consumption
Purpose: This study explores debate seeking and conflict avoidance as dimensions of disagreement orientation, and how factors such as citizenship education and individual background may impact how young people engage in situations with conflicting political perspectives. The aim is to study whether how we facilitate citizenship education may affect young people to be more comfortable with political disagreement.
Design/methodology/approach: Multilevel modelling and factor analysis is performed using a survey among a selection of Norwegian fifteen-year-olds.
Findings: Citizenship education characteristics impact conflict avoidance but not debate seeking. Debate seeking is rather related to individual background factors such as political interest and attention paid to the news. Finally, the dimensions form basis of a potential typology of young people’s disagreement orientation
Research limitations/implications: Further research is needed to establish causality, however the results have implications for the role of disagreement in teacher education and classrooms
Citizenship education in teacher training: A systematic review
Full text linkHighlights:
– Research on citizenship education in teacher education is a broad and complex field.
– There is a need for systematic reviews of the studies developed at the international level in which areas they are being deployed.
– The results of this review (years 2017-2022) indicate five thematic dimensions in the studies.
– The most frequent are those linked to teaching strategies and resources or teacher conceptions.
Purpose: The aim of this article is to present a systematic review of empirical research developed in the field of citizenship education in teacher education.
Design/methodology/approach: This study performs a systematic review, descriptive and critical in nature, of 62 studies present in the Web of Sciences and Scopus after a comprehensive analysis, using a decision tree, of what was published in the years 2017-2022.
Findings: The results show five major thematic dimensions in the selected studies: teaching strategies and resources; teachers’ conceptions; teaching content; teacher education programs; and design of teaching resources. The studies are unevenly distributed in the dimensions described, with the majority focusing on teaching strategies and resources.
Practical implications: This research offers an analysis of the issues addressed in research on citizenship education and teacher education, which allows us to know the field of research in-depth and to outline the less explored topics
Decolonizing social sciences education at the limits of the archive: A response concerning “postcolonial” social science
Full text linkHighlights:
– Differentiates ‘postcolonial’ from ‘decolonial’ social science.
– Defines decolonial strategies of double translation, reverse tutelage, double and decolonial repair.
– Theorizes using South Africa as a theoretical limit and political test case.
– Provides examples of a taught Masters curriculum in Social Theory and a global open educational resource.
– Critiques the limitations of performative decolonization and gestures towards alternatives.
Purpose: This article responds to the topic of ‘postcolonial social science education’ by exploring strategies for decolonizing the social science ‘archive’.
Design/methodology/approach: The paper takes a decolonial-critical social science approach to explore the limit and test cases for decolonizing social science education, using two examples: a Social Theory course in Ireland and a global open educational project, Connected Sociologies.
Findings: It explores three decolonial strategies for social science education: double translation, reverse tutelage, and double repair. It theorizes beyond these by thinking with a more expansive, speculative South African project of decolonial repair.
Research limitations/implications: While the practical strategies for decolonizing social theory and broader, speculative ambitions for decolonial repair are not directly comparable, the contrasting loci enable critical, but hopeful reflection on possibilities for decolonizing social science education more broadly, responding to the limit case imposed by neoliberal academic restructuring
Teaching higher-order thinking in social studies: The role of content coverage and intellectual challenge
Full text linkPurpose: The study aimed at investigating the prevalence and characteristics of classroom practices geared at promoting higher-order social studies thinking, and the potential dilemma for teachers between focusing on explaining knowledge to and intellectually challenging students.
Design/methodology/approach: A comparative design using data from naturalistic classroom observations of 80 social studies lessons in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. We deployed the PLATO observation system to systematically measure intellectual challenge and the conceptual complexity of teacher explanations across the three countries.
Findings: We found evidence that many teachers promoted higher-order thinking to varying degrees within and across the three countries. Furthermore, Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish teachers seemed to focus on different teaching practices related to higher-order thinking.
Practical implications: These findings provide important empirical knowledge about naturally occurring classroom practices in the Nordic context that may be relevant for teachers to reflect on higher-order thinking in social studies
Situationality in teaching controversial topics: (When) does controversial equal difficult?
No full textMost teachers in the Netherlands do not report difficulty in discussing the most controversial topics. Anti-muslimism, COVID vaccination, and integration of ethnic minorities are perceived as relatively difficult topics to discuss.
High teacher self-efficacy and school support are related to reported ease in discussing all controversial topics.
Specific controversial topics are considered more challenging to discuss in diverse classrooms in terms of SES and ethnicity.
Controversial topics are perceived as more difficult to discuss in vocational educational tracks.
Purpose: This study examines what controversial topics teachers in the Netherlands perceive as difficult to discuss and if and how this difficulty is related to teachers’ background characteristics and context characteristics.
Methodology: 1034 secondary school teachers filled in an online questionnaire, and structural equation modelling (SEM) was used to explore the relationships among variables.
Findings: The findings indicate that recent topics with a direct large impact on students’ lives and society, like COVID vaccination, are perceived as most difficult to discuss. With more perceived school support and high self-efficacy teachers report more ease to discuss controversial topics. Yet, reported difficulty to discussing controversial topics is also partially context- and person-specific, involving (among others) classroom composition, school subject and teacher’s age.
Practical implications: This study can inform the development of subject and context-specific teaching materials and training programs in civic and democratic education