PERSPECTIVE article
Front. Educ.
Sec. Teacher Education
Volume 10 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/feduc.2025.1556966
Integrating perspectives on reasoning about controversial issues: Mapping research directions for secondary education. Authors
Provisionally accepted
- 1Centre for Instructional Psychology and Technology, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
- 2Research Institute of Child Development and Education, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands
- 3Radboud Teachers Academy, Radboud University, Nijmegen, Netherlands
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Reasoning about controversial issues is an essential skill for navigating the complexities of modern society, making its inclusion in secondary education vital. While each discipline and its corresponding school subjects approach controversies through unique content, traditions, and epistemological foundations, significant commonalities also exist. This article builds on insights from a two-day workshop involving five disciplines that explored how controversial issues and related reasoning processes are understood across these fields. Despite disciplinary differences, multiperspectivity emerges as a unifying principle in teaching and learning about controversial issues. The discussion highlights disciplinary approaches to controversial issues and introduces a research agenda inspired by the workshop's findings. This agenda calls for the development of shared vocabulary, a comparison of design criteria, and deeper insights into the roles of emotions, values and student experiences. By fostering interdisciplinary collaboration, the aim is to enhance teaching strategies and equip students with critical thinking and reasoning skills to address controversial issues effectively.
Keywords: Scientific reasoning and argumentation, Social controversies, Science denial, scientific controversies, Secondary education
Received: 07 Jan 2025; Accepted: 15 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Vandecandelaere, Savenije and Stoel. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Machteld Vandecandelaere, Centre for Instructional Psychology and Technology, KU Leuven, Leuven, 3000, Belgium
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