Since the early 1990’s sub-Saharan Africa has undergone a process of increased, if also flawed and incomplete, political democratisation. South Africa, in particular, has committed itself through its new constitution to the creation of and maintenance of a democratic state and society. Democratic values and skills are not genetic, they are learned and the South African Department of Education has set about exploring how all aspects of education can contribute to a more democratic society. However, formal education has not necessarily played a significant role in the development of democratic dispositions. Many teachers have seen school knowledge as factual, safe and uncontested and shied away from values and controversies, even though these are a key aspect of life in a democratic society and can occur in any subject on the curriculum, moreover, it appears that teacher education has not been in a sufficiently strong position to contribute to this via the training of teachers with the necessary skills.

South Africa provides a good basis for comparison with England both because it is a new democracy as opposed to England as a more established democracy. South Africa is of particular interest, given the nature of the proposed project, because overall education policy is more overtly and explicitly geared towards education for democracy than is the case in England. However, the realities of practice in teacher in teacher education in both countries may depart significantly from policy. The research builds on existing work resulting from the Principal Investigator’s role as an academic in South Africa between 1995 and 1999 and a series of subsequent projects.  These were concerned with: producing comparative resources on teacher education for democratic citizenship in England and South Africa (Carter, Harber and Serf 2003; Harber and Serf 2004); investigating the views of student teachers in England and South Africa about education for democratic citizenship (Harber and Serf 2006) and providing reflective, critical and academically grounded study visits for British teacher educators to South Africa in 2005 and 2007 (Harber and Serf 2007).

This study begins to explore the issue of how teacher education prepares student teachers for teaching controversial issues. It would involve a small-scale, exploratory pilot study based at two universities in England (Birmingham and Wolverhampton) and two in South Africa (KwaZulu Natal and Cape Town).

The study entails content analysis of teacher education curricula and guidebooks in use in the institutions and interviews with both tutors and student teachers in order to examine the following research questions:

• Do students and tutors feel that it is important to learn how to teach controversial issues in the classroom?
• Do they have experience of such activities?
• What are the obstacles to teaching controversial issues, both in teacher education and the school classroom?
• What, in the opinions of the students and teachers, would help to overcome these obstacles?
• What might good practice look like in this regard in teacher education?

Four academic staff – one from each university – are involved in the research at each university. Each interviews one tutor concerned with initial teacher education at each university (16 interviews in all) and each carries out one group interview with students at each university (16 group interviews with approximately 64-80 students in all).

The study will be carried out in three phases. The first will involve the development of two schedules of interview questions necessary to carry out the interviews described above. This will take place electronically between the four institutions involved. Each schedule will then be piloted in each of the four institutions and the suitability of the questions discussed electronically. Second, during a one week visit by two academic staff from England to South Africa which took place in August 2009 and then, third, a ten day visit by two South Africa to England in January 2010.

Reflections on the pilot study during the last three days of the visit to England will also form the basis for the development of a larger research bid on the role of teacher education in preparing student teachers to handle controversial issues in the classroom. The final report on the pilot research will be produced after the three phases are complete.

Please contact Clive Harber for further information

Email:  C.R.Harber@bham.ac.uk

Tel: 0121 414 7364