DISCUSSING CONTROVERSIAL TOPICS IN THE CLASSROOM - CREATING A CONTEXT FOR LEARNING

Efforts to initiate classroom discussions of controversial topics often provoke either uncomfortable silence or unthoughtful responses from students. In this research, we focus on one factor that makes discussions of controversial topics difficult: students' assumption that they will suffer negative repercussions from any discussion of controversial topics. We outline an exercise that encourages students to analyze from a sociological perspective the classroom dynamics, including their own discomfort, which make discussion of these issues difficult. The exercise addresses the problem by demonstrating to students that their world will not fall apart if they join class discussion, and that their assumptions are rooted in traditional middle- and upper middle-class expectations and norms. By clarifying the roots of their fears and the factors involved in their past experiences, we begin to construct alternative expectations and interaction patterns that will guide future group discussion in our class.