Journal of Social Science Education (JSSE - Universität Bielefeld)
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What’s disturbing about power? Reflections on teaching US-Arab encounters in the Middle East
Full text linkHighlights:
– Culturally relevant pedagogy can be an effective tool for decolonising educational practices.
– The experiences of learners and teachers in the classroom are defined by the outside world.
– The case study method is a valuable tool for understanding classroom dynamics.
Purpose: The paper aims to illustrate some of the challenges and outcomes of teaching courses addressing the politics, culture, and history of the US in the Middle East. In doing so, it contextualises an application of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy and describes its implementation.
Methodology: A case study method is applied to qualitative records to illustrate the experiences of both the learners and the teacher, as narrated by the latter.
Findings: Narratives suggest that a curriculum of US import, taught in a context that bears the new and old scars of colonialism, makes US-Middle East encounters capable of deepening students’ understanding of their condition in a world still dominated by ‘others’.
Implications: The findings of the current study bring to the surface the need for decolonising educational practices that allow for imagination of life in dignity and pluriversity
Toward a decolonial shift in citizenship education: Empirical insights into German classrooms
Full text linkHighlights:
– Empirical insights into students’ ideas on globalisation in Germany.
– Colonial and decolonial ideas in their ambivalences as the starting point for decolonial education processes.
– (De-)coloniality is not only about the past but also about the present and the future.
– (De-)coloniality is already in the classrooms but is rarely conceptualised in educational processes.
Purpose: This paper highlights some insights into the results of the study on decolonial citizenship education (Kleinschmidt, 2021) to contribute to the decolonisation of citizenship education in Germany.
Design/methodology/approach: The research is built on a sample of 44 interviews with students from the 9th grade in German schools, Hauptschule and Gymnasium. The interviews are interpreted using qualitative content analysis.
Findings: In the students’ concepts of globalisation, migration, and culture, several different and entangled colonial and decolonial patterns were found.
Research limitations/implications: The study is a solid starting point for discussions of citizenship education and provides fruitful insights. Nonetheless, at least in Germany, the research on this topic is at a very early stage.
Practical implications: The findings are a starting point for discussing decolonial approaches to citizenship education, aiming for both a radical re-invention of the concept of the disciplinary field of citizenship education and contributing to the conceptualisation of citizenship educational practices advocating for a more just and less colonial world
Decolonising education for sustainable development (ESD): The case of the German conceptual framework for secondary schools: Orientierungsrahmen Globale Entwicklung: Bildung für nachhaltige Entwicklung in der gymnasialen Oberstufe
No full textHighlights:
– A progressive reading of ESD offers opportunities to decolonise SSE.
– SDG4, highlighting quality in education, should define the centre of gravity of the SDGs because it has a global and decolonial DNA.
– ESD, in its genuine form, should be interpreted as a revolutionary paradigm change for rethinking schools as whole institutions and consequently for decolonising teaching.
– Attempts in Germany to reform schools are in jeopardy due to the priority for comparative approaches to education, e.g., PISA.
– To facilitate ESD within given system constraints, global justice offers an appropriate leitmotif to expand and globalise horizons and decolonise teaching practices in SSE.
Purpose: The article offers a progressive reading of ESD with a teaching example to decolonise SSE despite constraints set by the school system.
Design/methodology/approach: The article presents ESD’s idea of thought within ‘the big picture’ of global education. After that, a description of an expert group is given, tasked with developing a conceptual framework for SSE, commissioned by the school administration in Germany and critically reflected on amidst system constraints.
Findings: Full-fledged reforms to rethink schools in the 21st century from scratch to efficiently decolonise and integrate ESD are required.
Research limitations/implications: The last part of the article is limited in its description and critical reflection of the federal German example.
Practical implications: It is recommended that the big picture in terms of promoting global and decolonial dimensions of ESD and facilitating a sustainable transition of schools for achieving the SDGs is kept in sight
Pre-service teachers’ attitudes toward citizenship education in Israel
Full text linkHighlights:
Civic education in Israel is used as a political tool, neglecting broader citizenship education.
Study examines attitudes of 235 pre-service teachers (PSTs) towards citizenship education.
PSTs value citizenship education but are confused about teaching methods, goals, and implementation.
Factors contributing to confusion: resistance to citizenship education, fear of political issues, and curriculum pressure.
Emphasizes the need for comprehensive citizenship education across schooling levels, fostering active democratic citizenship.
Purpose: Reviewing civic education in Israel reveals that it has been used as a political tool, while the broader field of citizenship education has hardly been examined. This study addresses the gap in the literature regarding PSTs’ (PSTs’) attitudes towards citizenship education.
Methodology: Questionnaires among 235 PSTs in two colleges were used to examine the significance and value of citizenship education in Israel.
Findings: PSTs recognised the importance of citizenship education but also conveyed confusion regarding teaching methods, long-term goals, and curriculum implementation. This confusion may stem from a reluctance to integrate citizenship education into various subjects, fear of addressing political issues, and pressure from curriculum guidelines.
Research implications: The study emphasises the need for an expanded focus on citizenship education in educational institutions and the integration of citizenship education across different levels of schooling, which can equip students with the knowledge, values, and skills necessary for active citizenship in a democratic society
Russian teachers dealing with the full-scale invasion of Ukraine as a classroom issue
Full text linkHighlights:
Despite external pressure, there was a space for political discussion in the class, at least in the first weeks of the invasion
Teachers’ approaches differed based on their priorities: emotional support, democratic civic education, teacher-student relationships, political proselytism, or avoidance.
Attending to students’ private emotions came into conflict with postering their political passions
High professional status and strong school community support teachers in taking responsibility in times of crisis
Purpose: This study investigates teachers’ professional judgement about Russia’s war on Ukraine as an unplanned, controversial classroom issue.
Design: It employs 26 interviews with Russian teachers collected during the invasion\u27s first month.
Findings: The analysis identifies six situations and five teaching approaches that emerged in response to these, with varying degrees of student voice and political commitment. The inclusion of student voice is limited by perceived student passivity, lack of skill, and political disagreement with students. Satisfaction with the status quo, lack of social status, and fear of harming students were obstacles to pursuing political commitment.
Research implications: By exploring the dynamics of depoliticisation in the classroom, this article adds to the literature on the co-construction of authoritarianism in Russia. It also highlights practices of resistance and ‘everyday politics’ stemming from teacher professionalism as a function of individual and structural factors
Citizenship education after Ukraine: Global citizenship education in a world of increasing international conflict
Full text linkHighlights:
Global citizenship struggles to make sense of recent developments in international politics, such as the Ukraine war.
Theories of international politics offer tools to make sense of the current international situation.
Global citizenship ought to provide a comprehensive understanding of the international situation.
Didactical implications of broadening the perspective of global citizenship.
More research is required on the didactical implications.
Purpose: Following globalisation, a rich literature on global citizenship education developed (Akkari & Maleq 2020; Goren & Yemini 2017). However, recent developments in international politics prompt us to ask whether global citizenship education gives young people a grasp of the international world. We argue that global citizenship education theory must be supplemented because it does not provide much guidance to help young people understand international politics properly.
Design/methodology/approach: We discuss how theories of global citizenship education conceptualise international conflicts and how three theories on international politics offer supplementary conceptions and perspectives.
Findings: Global citizenship education should be supplemented with theories of international politics.
Research limitations/implications: Our analysis only indicates some implications for global citizenship education, and further research on the didactical implications is required.
Practical implications: Global citizenship education must rely on a wider set of theories to prepare the students for understanding global issues
Trust as subject content: Advancing students’ reasoning on democracy through displacement
Full text linkPurpose: The article explores how the tension between embracing and scrutinising democracy can be productively overcome through social science teaching about democracy that focuses on trust as a subject content.
Design/methodology/approach: Empirical materials were collected through focus group interviews before and after an inquiry-based teaching segment on trust, and the materials were analysed qualitatively through three grounded themes.
Findings: It is argued that working with the displacement of subject content in inquiry-based teaching about democracy enhances the possibilities for students to deepen their knowledge about democracy, while enabling them to scrutinise the democratic system critically.
Research limitations/implications: The article reports from a small-scale study of four classes in two upper secondary schools in Sweden, and the study provides tentative observations and conclusions that should be investigated further in future research.
Practical implications: The article shows how trust as a subject content can contribute to problematising students’ understandings of democracy, and how the displacement of content can be important in formulating compelling questions and in designing inquiries on democracy
Challenges for European teachers when assessing student learning to promote democratic citizenship competences
Full text linkHighlights:
There is a lack of resources and examples of good practice in citizenship education and relevant assessment tools for the teachers to transform and use in their practices.
The teachers experience a lack of pedagogical approaches to work with designing learning activities to enhance normative changes and values relevant to citizenship education.
Teachers experience a lack of time to foster student citizenship competence
When personal opinions are at stake, some teachers find it difficult to give appropriate feedback to non-democratic values and attitudes.
School systems’ and parents’ expectations of high-stakes summative feedback influence teachers’ hesitation to perform formative assessment in citizenship education.
Purpose: This study investigates the challenges faced by European teachers when assessing student learning of democratic citizenship competences by asking about their experiences and opinions in their teaching practices.
Design/methodology/approach: Through focus group interviews conducted with the teachers, we investigate the underlying reasons for teachers’ choices of using certain forms of assessment methods while excluding other methods. This paper presents the analysis of interviews with 82 schoolteachers from lower secondary schools in eight European countries (average 19 years of teaching experience) participating in an Erasmus + project
Findings: The teachers’ responses uncover a need for teachers to be better equipped with relevant knowledge, tools and approaches to practice formative assessment to develop students’ democratic citizenship competences. The current common understanding of the summative assessment of knowledge using simple and standardised tools poses one of the main challenges for teachers to use formative assessment methods.
Practical implications: The focus on summative assessment significantly limits the teachers’ room to work on democratic citizenship competence. There is a need to strengthen this as a democratic citizenship education as a cross-curricular element in education, with an emphasis on formative assessment, to monitor and support students’ democratic values and attitudes
"If not even the school listens to us…”: Echos of climate justice on the ground
Full text linkHighlights:
Youth and other vulnerable groups have limited opportunities to participate in decision-making processes on climate politics.
Distributive and intergenerational dimensions of climate injustice are particularly present in youth discourses.
Recognitional and distributional climate injustice is mainly perceived by inland-rural young people.
More knowledge about climate change at the local level needs to be disseminated.
Climate justice concept needs further empirical and nuanced exploration with diverse social and political actors.
Purpose: This article brings into debate young people’s meaning-making of climate justice in different geographic regions, and explores the roles of political, social, economic, and education actors in supporting youth’s climate agency in their communities.
Design/methodology/approach: After selecting two schools located in Northern Portugal – in countryside/rural and in coastal/urban contexts – we conducted two focus group discussions with young students (aged between 16 and 18) and sixteen interviews with local stakeholders (policy-makers, economic agents, activists, and scientists). We performed content analysis, using climate justice’s dimensions as analytical axes.
Findings: The data analysis reveals that young people do not feel heard in schools or in policy-making processes on climate. In contrast, adults unanimously recognize the importance of having more youth voices but fail to identify opportunities for youth participation in local climate policymaking. In addition to procedural and intergenerational dimensions, issues of recognitional and distributional climate injustice are identified by youngsters in their regions
