UDTR Global Rights of Nature Radar

Drawing the Boundaries of Controversy: Justifying the Inclusion and Exclusion of Climate Change Perspectives in Geography Teacher Education

Identification

Public canonical key

doi:10.48088/ejg.j.enz.17.2.318.337

Authors

Janna Enzmann · Paula Jäger · Anne-Kathrin Lindau

Reported year

2026

Reported language

en

Source type

article

First detected

2026-11-09T19:10:41.403925+00:00

Last metadata observation

2026-11-09T19:10:41.403925+00:00

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Institutions reported by the source

Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg

Documentary abstract — original language

Teaching controversial issues is a central yet challenging task in geography education, especially regarding climate change, where scientific consensus on causation coexists with contested responses to addressing climate change. Although controversy is widely regarded as essential for fostering judgment and democratic engagement, empirical research on how teacher educators, as models of professional judgment, justify decisions about the inclusion or exclusion of perspectives in classroom discussions as a relevant part of planning the teaching of controversial issues remains limited. This study investigates how such decisions are justified and to what extent participants’ justifications can be analytically related to established theoretical criteria for controversy. Group discussions with teacher educators, in which participants engaged with materials designed to prompt discussion about the inclusion and exclusion of perspectives on addressing climate change, were analysed using qualitative content analysis. The findings reveal that participants' justifications are pluralistic and context-dependent, drawing on multiple considerations that can be analytically related to different theoretical criteria. By analysing these patterns, the study offers empirical insight into how the boundaries of controversy are drawn in practice and discusses implications for teacher education and classroom practice. It thus advances the “controversy over controversies” debate by demonstrating how theoretical criteria are reflected in situated justificatory practices through which inclusion and exclusion decisions are negotiated in context. The study indicates that geography education, particularly in times of socio-spatial transformation and uncertainty, can benefit from approaches that support reflective, criteria-aware professional judgment rather than prescriptive decision rules when addressing controversial issues.

Identifiers

OPENALEX

W7168174127

DOI

10.48088/ejg.j.enz.17.2.318.337

Documentary context

Documentary family

Scholarship

Source-reported types

article

Entity mentions are not evidence of legal recognition. Jurisdiction studied is separate from author affiliation country.

Sources

OpenAlex · Record 1 · Record 2

• DOI · https://doi.org/10.48088/ejg.j.enz.17.2.318.337
• OpenAlex · https://openalex.org/W7168174127

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