Resumen de Interacting With Upset Parents/Guardians: Defending Justice-Oriented Social Studies Lessons in Parent–Teacher Conference Simulations
Christopher Andrew Brkich, April Cribbs Newkirk
: Providing middle-grades students the opportunity to engage meaningfully with controversial public issues (CPIs), socioscientific issues (SSIs), or a framework for social justice can be very dangerous work professionally. However, rather than encouraging teacher candidates to eschew controversy, ensuring they receive sufficient training in how to plan and defend their content and pedagogy choices in promoting social justice is critical. As a part of their regularly scheduled learning activities, teacher candidates participated in a sequence of exercises designed to develop their abilities in planning and defending justice-oriented social studies lessons using young adult fiction. This case study examines 8 participating teacher candidates’ experiences, answering the following question: When faced with a parent/guardian upset with content and pedagogy choices teacher candidates made in developing a justice-oriented lesson plan based on either Esperanza Rising or The Hunger Games, what positions do they take to defend these choices?
