Democracy and Controversial Issues: Preparing students to become global citizens

Abstract

In an attempt to make tomorrow's generation more democratic and critically aware, Skolverket has given clear instructions of including discussions related to controversial issues in classroom teachings. The thesis has both teachers’ and students’ perspectives of how conscious they are about using this tool. Inclusion of controversial issues in teaching democracy has many advantages. But what about limitations?

Controversial issues have in common that they can lead to disagreement, strong feelings, and opinions. Politics, religion, different traditions, racism, honour killing, sexuality, discrimination, violent extremism, and equality are some examples of controversial issues mentioned by Skolverket (2022).

Our study aims to understand how democracy can be taught to students using controversial issues and if Swedish school teachers are equipped to do this. We have used a number of previous studies and some unstructured interviews with both students and teachers to compare and investigate the expected outcomes and the ground realities.

It can be said that Swedish students, to a certain extent, are aware about the importance of democracy in today's world and that their voices, especially when it comes to controversial issues plays a crucial role. However more research needs to be done to see how every subject teacher can include teaching of ‘controversial issues’, which are inseparable part of human lives, and which promotes critical thinking an aspect much needed for an all-round development of students.