Democratic education and the teaching of controversial issues in polarising times: Students’ views and experiences

• Teaching controversial issues in schools is relevant for addressing ‘fake news’ and social media dis-misinformation. • There are gaps between policy prescriptions on the teaching of controversial issues and actual practice in schools. • Citizenship education in schools is limited in engagement with critical aims of democratic education. Recent legislations in some US states and other democratic nations that move towards banning or limiting the teaching of controversial issues in schools calls to question the educative function often associated with controversy in the classroom. Drawing on student views in group discussions undertaken in English secondary schools, this study assesses the relevance of, and the pedagogical issues associated with the teaching of controversial issues within a wider pedagogical context of democratic education. As end-users of education, students ascribed both intrinsic and instrumental values to the teaching of controversial issues: Intrinsically, learning about controversial topics facilitates students’ intellectual and personal development for counteracting the growing phenomena of ‘fake news’ and social media mis-disinformation. Instrumentally, discussing controversial issues contributes to students’ acquisition of political and civic competencies for future engagement with politics. The study finds that while the instrumental value of teaching controversial issues has long been recognised as significant, the evolving techno-global context of contemporary society marked by information saturation and distortion gives the intrinsic justification a renewed importance. For the UK context, the study also reveals there are implementation gaps between government policies that expressly encourage the teaching of controversial issues and actual practice in schools. Based on this, the study recommends that democratic education be given a more critical focus both in curricular and extra-curricular spaces by addressing issues pertaining to social iniquities and global injustice.