The conflict between acceptance and disapproval of evolution has led to obstacles in its teaching and learning. Other difficulties, such as both teachers' and students' alternative perceptions, student maturity in the face of learning this complicated topic, and teachers' gaps in evolution knowledge, add to the difficulties in teaching and…

Teaching critically about politically charged topics in an affluent, suburban middle school requires a careful approach. Grounded in critical pedagogy theory and historical literacy pedagogy, the inquiry-based project described in this article is an attempt to help seventh-grade students analyze and understand the historic and modern conflict…

Evolution is one of the most controversial scientific issues worldwide, mainly because of the presumed conflict with religion, which also arises in school biology classes. Here, we surveyed biology teachers from different Jewish sectors in Israel about their experiences teaching evolution and their perspective on relating to students' religious…

Due to the controversies surrounding the topic of evolution among religious and non-religious people alike, the treatment of biological evolution in education--both teaching and learning--is a potential minefield. The goal of this study was to probe the insights of Israeli stakeholders in education regarding the revision of the Israeli science and…

This paper examines two research questions: How do teachers refer to historical figures when teaching difficult past events? Which approaches to teaching difficult past events are reflected in teachers' ways of talking about historical figures? The paper is based on an analysis of lessons by three 11th grade history teachers in Israel on the…

Recess, the bus ride home, the school corridor and other grey areas are ambiguous for both teachers and students and fall under less institutional regulation. The purpose of this study was to examine the ways teachers would react when they encounter students' informal political comments in the grey areas. We presented vignettes to 71 Palestinian…

The paper investigates the experiences, perceptions and responses of immigrants with a Palestinian background in relation to learning about the Holocaust and the Palestinian cause in Swedish schools and visiting Holocaust sites. Data were collected from 50 immigrant students using audio-recorded and open-structured interviews. The results indicate…

In this endeavour to examine teachers' willingness to discuss controversial political issues in class, we focused on four variables that received little attention so far: teachers' vested interest, knowledge, the topic of discussion, and teachers' ethnicity. 1130 teachers in Israel, 832 Jewish and 298 Arab, answered an online questionnaire that…

Purpose: Many argue for the benefits of controversial political issues (CPI) discussions but little is known about teachers', parents', and students' attitudes toward CPI. The present study explored these attitudes, as well as attitudes towards specific controversial topics, and how they relate to socio-demographic variables.…

Oslo Accords have stringently underscored that both rivalries, the Palestinians and the Israelis, must abstain from incitement to terror and violence. Their educational systems, consequently, have to refrain from convulsive, fundamentalist, and heinous skirmishes leading to stalled reconciliation. History school textbooks are deemed, from both…

This study analysed questionnaire responses from 309 history teachers who come from nine European countries and Israel. The open-ended questions explored their experiences of teaching Sensitive historical Issues (SI) from joint social psychological and history didactics perspectives. First data was analysed hermeneutically, it was then interpreted…

Conducting discussions on controversial political issues is an important vehicle to promote students' democratic values and critical thinking in schools. This schoolwide task cuts across all disciplines and different subject matter. Israeli civics and social studies teachers are often required to touch upon such issues and manage the situations…

The current study was set to examine the role of school principals in Israel in the professional development process of their teachers following the implementation of a new professional reform. 159 teachers and 13 principals responded to a questionnaire designed to collect data concerning the involvement of principals in initiatives developed by…

This article reports on the development of a theory-informed assessment instrument for use in evaluating environmental education programs. The instrument involves coding learners' brief reflective writing on five established educational and social psychological constructs that correspond to five important goals of environmental education:…

It has long been established that an effective citizenship education in a multicultural society must incorporate some exposure to a variety of views on different topics. However, the ability and willingness to deal with difference relating to controversial matters of national identity, narrative and conflict vary. This is not least the case in the…