Teaching Controversial Issues: A Pragmatic View of the Criterion Debate

This article addresses the ongoing debate over which criteria should determine what teachers ought to teach as controversial. I argue that this debate rests on false assumptions. It is a mistake to assume that 1) there should be a context-transcending criterion, 2) such a criterion can be prescribed a priori and universally, and 3) this criterion can be utilised by teachers by means of deductivism. Instead, I argue in favor of a situationist stance in which the means and ends are both worked out from within the situation. This implies that a theory must begin from a practical starting point. In practice, the situation should be the foremost guide rather than a definite criterion.