The Duty of Impartiality in Teaching and the Criteria of “Controversial Issues”

Abstract When do teachers need to deal with sociopolitical issues impartially and when are they justified in taking a stand? In the academic literature, attempts to answer this question have centered on the relative merits of four criteria of controversial issues : the epistemic criterion, the behavioral criterion, the politically authentic criterion, and the political criterion. In this paper, Bruce Maxwell first presents a critical survey that details the limitations of these criteria as heuristic methods for reliably distinguishing controversial from uncontroversial issues for pedagogical purposes, and then advances and defends a more promising approach. This approach prioritizes students' rights and teachers' responsibilities at stake and hence aligns with the standard decision procedure that professionals gravitate toward when faced with a problem of professional ethics. The paper concludes with a discussion of the practical value for educators of focusing on teachers' responsibilities and students' rights in the context of professional decision‐making about impartiality, rather than referring to the descriptive criteria of controversial issues.