Politisk mestringstro og kontroversielle spørsmål i samfunnsfag

Abstract

The ICCS 2016-study reveals that political efficacy is the most important variable for determining future political participation among Norwegian adolescents. This variable is in turn heavily influenced by the adolescents’ socioeconomic status, gender and use of a minority or majority language (Huang et al., 2017; Ødegård & Svagård, 2018). In this article we ask how Civic and Citizenship Education in Social Studies may contribute to a levelling of this impact on the adolescents’ political efficacy. Our analysis is based on interviews with 16 lower-secondary teachers, all teaching Social Studies at four different schools. Our conclusion is that working with controversial issues as part of the Civic and Citizenship Education in Social Studies may contribute to a levelling of the impact of the adolescents’ social background. Specifically, our research shows that the teachers who are able to break the pattern for how social background determines political efficacy approach the inclusion of controversial issues much more openly and consciously. Additionally, they have a higher level of tolerance when discussing controversial issues in the classroom, and tend to emphasize epistemic and political criteria for what makes an issue controversial. Teachers that are not able to break the pattern for how social background determines political efficacy severely limits the discussion of controversial issues in the classroom, and tend to interpret controversial issues as emotionally sensitive.