Assembly Day 2025: Navigating the space between conflict and curiosity

Exploring controversial issues in an educational setting can be a challenging task for educators. Highly emotive topics such as inequality, racism and climate change can draw upon deeply held beliefs and evoke strong feelings that can make discussions uncomfortable and even prompt defensiveness or disagreement. Learners bring a myriad of cultural, political, and personal backgrounds that shape their perspectives, making it easy for discussions to become polarised and debates to become heated.

Join us for a day of dialogue on teaching controversial issues where we will consider questions such as:

• How do we support pre-service teachers to broach discussions on contentious issues with confidence in the classroom? What pedagogical approaches might be effective when tackling controversial issues associated with GCE? What challenges arise for educators and students in engaging in this work?

• What role do the educator’s personal values, worldviews, and positionality play in teaching about emotive topics? How do we address the challenge of educator subjectivity?

• Can we support a culture of discussion and sharing of views in school? Does school/organisational culture and scripted curriculum influence what is discussed and more importantly, what is avoided? Does this impact on our capacity to create learning spaces that reflect democratic principles?

• How do we reconcile the values/ethos of a school or organisation with free speech and authentic exploration of controversial issues? How do we navigate the unclear boundaries between free speech, responsible speech and so-called political correctness?

• What theoretical/conceptual lenses are useful when building a broader understanding of this complex topic?

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For more information/if you have any questions, please contact our Nework Co-ordinator: deirdre.hogan@ul.ie