Pre-service teachers and their navigation of controversial issues in the South African history classroom

Abstract

This dissertation offers a unique perspective on the teaching of controversial issues by pre-service history teachers during their WIL period by demonstrating that the teaching of controversies is not a stagnant or concrete practice but it is subject to change. It is proposed that the three categories of risk-taking presented in research by Kitson and McCully in 2005 can be expanded upon by two temporal categories that history teachers may select in their navigation of controversies that may emerge within their respective History classrooms. By drawing on ten reflective reports, referred to throughout this study as sea shanties, collected from final year B.Ed. History students at the University of Pretoria, clear navigational routes can be plotted when navigating the controversies that emerged in various manners within the environment that they found themselves in. In a South African context, many of the topics that are present within the current curriculum are rooted in some form of controversy on the lines of race, gender, or class, some being present from the offset and some emerging through the teaching and learning process. Often being brought up by external and internal factors that play a crucial role in the navigational routes of History teachers. A deeper insight into the beliefs and tools that the pre-service History teachers rely on when choosing a navigational route is proposed, allowing for a deeper understanding of how these factors influence their choices and how they handle the controversies that emerge whilst teaching. Through the use of the case study method I analyse the choices that have been made by the pre-service history teachers and the factors that played a crucial role in the choices that they had made along their navigational route. The findings show why and how the pre-service History teachers utilised Kitson and McCully ’s continuum as a navigational choice the pre-service teachers who selected the temporal categories, known as retreating idealists and sinkers, that I propose as a middle ground or halfway point when navigating controversies within the History classroom.