Abstract
In Hard Questions: Learning to Teach Controversial Issues, Judith L. Pace asked, “What do we know about how teachers of the future are being prepared to take up this demanding pedagogical practice” (xv)? To answer this question, Pace conducted observations and interviews with university professors and their students in three countries (Northern Ireland, England, and the United States). The book is organized in a series of paired chapters where the author first describes class sessions taught by teacher educators on the topic of controversial issues, illustrating what they taught, the methods that were used, and the preservice teachers’ responses. The second chapter in the pair profiles the preservice teachers in each research site and recounts interviews with those teachers in which they relay the most important lessons they took away from the courses on teaching controversial issues. These chapters also describe the classroom experiences of those teachers (either preservice or in their first year) and highlight the supports, challenges, constraints, and questions they experienced. The final chapter of the book provides the author’s synthesis of the research and offers conclusions and recommendations for preparing educators to teach controversial issues.
Recommended Citation
Frenkiewich, J.
(2022).
Containing Risk. A Book Review of Hard Questions: Learning to Teach Controversial Issues.
Democracy and Education,
30
(1), Article 7.
Available at:
https://democracyeducationjournal.org/home/vol30/iss1/7