Education Commons^™

Using Controversial Or Difficult Topics In The Classroom As A Means For Civil Discourse: Are Pre-Service Teachers In Tennessee And Three Of Its Neighboring States Prepared And Confident?, Stacie Shanks

Ed.D. Dissertations

Sixty percent of college freshmen entering American colleges and universities were unprepared for college level discussion and analytical skills. Though the many researchers I detailed in the literature review showed how effective the use of controversial or difficult topics in the classroom as a means for civil discourse was for imparting the missing skills, they also found teachers largely avoided them. The purpose of this basic interpretive qualitative study was to investigate if pre-service teachers training at public colleges in Tennessee, Alabama, Kentucky, and North Carolina were given the opportunity to learn the pedagogy of and practice using controversial or …