This qualitative study explored teachers’ construction of ideas about controversial issues in the United States mid-West high schools and in Kenyan high schools. Apart from examining teachers’ controversial issues pedagogical practices, I explored teacher perceptions and construction of ideas about local and global controversial issues. This study investigated the connections between teachers’ ideologies and their teaching practices. Also, I examined how teachers’ ideology and practices impacts the development of democratic, local and global citizenship education.
Theoretical frameworks of critical theory and postcolonial theories informed this study. The works of postcolonial scholars were discussed in view of how they spoke to the research as well as how these theories inform and are informed by controversial issues pedagogy in the two regions. These theoretical frameworks were utilized because they are derived from the marginalized perspectives within which critical controversial issues pedagogy lie, as opposed to the mainstream canon that is advanced in the public conception of controversial issues.
A decolonizing research framework was adopted. Decolonizing research practices are grounded in “culturally responsive research practices” and seek to empower the knowledge of marginalized communities (Denzin et.al. 2010, p.6). Therefore this methodology intended to bring to the fore practices and philosophies of the marginalized and to deconstruct the imperialist notions that have for centuries described those on the periphery. It sought to understand the epistemologies, experiences, their way of knowing, and activities of participants in my research regions (Smith, 1999). I employed qualitative research approaches since such approaches tend to give voice to and reclaim the marginalized discourses, in an attempt to liberate themselves from Western research frameworks. Western frameworks have been problematized for prescribing the indigenist in popular anthropological ways that inferiorize those in the margins. Moreover, the Western canon in the US has veiled and fractured counter arguments on hot-button issues further marginalizing those maintaining non-popular viewpoints and orientations. Thus as I engaged in this qualitative study, derived from subjugated ways of knowing, this inquiry shed light on the experiences of participants in both regions.
I collected data through interviews of eight social studies teachers’ classroom observations and document analysis and triangulated findings to generate theory. One of the major findings was that teachers’ epistemology and conception of effective controversial issues pedagogy did not always translate to reality in the classrooms. Another finding revealed that teachers avoid teaching controversial issues that are considered extremely touchy issues in their community. It was apparent from the study that when teachers receive training in teaching controversial issues they were more confident in their practices. Therefore, this study suggests a need for teacher education programs to facilitate training in controversial issues pedagogy.
This study is significant because it departed from simply examining teaching practices to looking into teachers’ epistemologies and ideologies as an important part in why and how they do what they do in social studies classrooms. Significantly, teachers’ pedagogical practice through controversial issues explicated possibilities and hope for a transformative democratic and citizenship education.