A Framework for Controversial Issue Gatekeeping within Social Studies Education: The Case of Japan

This article addresses how social studies teachers in Japan might employ a framework for addressing controversial issues. This framework recognizes multiple and overlapping contexts for curriculum and instruction decision making, including the classroom, community, and society. It also categorizes the state of topics among five levels, ranging from deeply taboo, silenced and unknown to student, taboo, controversial, free discussion and deliberation, and settled with little or no disagreement. Finally, we submit recommendations for pre- and in- service teachers, teacher education departments, and educational policy makers to reconceptualize how they think about controversial issues in light of the essential democratic normative mandate to teach them.