How free are classroom teachers? Understanding teacher academic freedom in the United States and Canada

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Teachers and Teaching
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How free are classroom teachers? Understanding
teacher academic freedom in the United States
and Canada
David I. Waddington, Bruce Maxwell, Tessa MacLean, Kevin McDonough &
Nasim Tavassoli
To cite this article: David I. Waddington, Bruce Maxwell, Tessa MacLean, Kevin McDonough
& Nasim Tavassoli (15 Nov 2024): How free are classroom teachers? Understanding
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10.1080/13540602.2024.2422859
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How free are classroom teachers? Understanding teacher
academic freedom in the United States and Canada
David I. Waddington
a
, Bruce Maxwell
b
, Tessa MacLean
c
, Kevin McDonough
c
and Nasim Tavassoli
d
a
Department of Education, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada;
b
Faculty of Education, Université de
Montréal, Montreal, Canada;
c
Department of Integrated Studies in Education, McGill University, Montreal,
Canada;
d
Centre for Learning and Teaching, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada
ABSTRACT
This paper presents the results of an international survey of tea-
chers’ perspectives on academic freedom. We surveyed 173 social
studies and science teachers from the United States and Canada
about the importance of academic freedom, their comfort level
broaching controversial topics in four broad areas (politics, eco-
nomics, health and safety, and science), and the factors that inu-
ence their decision-making around discussing controversial topics.
The study found that teachers value academic freedom despite
being aware of how limited their freedom is in practice.
Particularly controversial topics included safe injection sites, abor-
tion, prisons, medically assisted dying, and same-sex marriage.
Analysis via Mann-Whitney U tests was conducted to analyse
whether teachers’ individual dierences (e.g., experience, gender,
or job status) inuenced their pedagogical approach. Gender and
years of experience had little inuence, but teachers’ cautiousness
was signicantly inuenced by whether they have tenure and the
political climate of the area where they work.
ARTICLE HISTORY
Received 27 September 2023
Accepted 16 October 2024
KEYWORDS
Academic freedom; science
teachers; social studies
teachers; survey;
controversial issues;
professional autonomy
I don’t know what charge was made against you and I don’t care to know. I don’t care how
you teach. If you don’t please the Man Higher Up, out you go! [. . .] What you teachers need
to learn is that there is a man over you with a whip, and the sooner you learn that the better.
– School board chairman to unnamed teacher (as reported by Howard Beale (1936) in Are
American Teachers Free?). (p. 657)
Introduction
In 1936, Howard Beale, a prominent historian at the University of Wisconsin,
published a book, Are American Teachers Free? Beale’s answer, which sprawled
across 852 pages, was a resounding ‘no.’ American teachers of the 1930s, Beale
felt, were hemmed in across the board, and he regretted that there were many
subjects they were not permitted to address, including evolution, leftist economic
ideas, and pacifism. In their daily work, teachers struggled against sanitised
CONTACT David I. Waddington david.waddington@concordia.ca Department of Education, Concordia
University, 1455 de Maisonneuve Blvd. O., Montreal, QC H2L 3G4
TEACHERS AND TEACHING
https://doi.org/10.1080/13540602.2024.2422859
© 2024 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

textbooks, school libraries that had been picked clean of controversial materials, and
hostility towards progressive teaching methods. Teachers’ professional status was
low; Beale noted that they could be easily dismissed if they displeased school
administrators.
Beale, along with other progressive educators of the 1930s such as George Counts
(1932/1978) and John Dewey (1936/1987), was optimistic that a greater degree of teacher
academic freedom might soon become possible. Yet, almost 100 years later, exercising
academic freedom involves significant risks for teachers both in North America
(D. E. Hess & McAvoy, 2014; Maxwell et al., 2018) and globally (Cohen, 2020; Misco,
2011). Not only do teachers often have relatively few legal protections in this regard but
they must also negotiate potential criticisms from parents, administrators, and their
students in the context of an increasingly polarised political climate. Several qualitative
studies have indicated that these risks worry teachers, especially those new to the
profession, and that they change their classroom practices as a result (see Ho et al.,
2014; Oulton et al., 2004; Ozturk & Kus, 2019), but we still have little information about
how teachers feel about their freedom to address controversial issues in the classroom.
The research reported in this paper sought to get a more detailed picture of how North
American teachers feel about academic freedom, and how they use it in practice, by way
of an online survey involving nearly 200 social studies and science teachers from across
the United States and Canada. Taking inspiration from Beale’s original survey research,
as well as from more modern efforts from around the world, we sought to examine the
question of teacher academic freedom nearly 100 years on. To this end, we gather data in
relation to four critical empirical questions:
(1) How much do teachers value curricular academic freedom—or, in other words, do
they value a degree of protected professional autonomy within the bounds of the
curriculum?
(2) How do teachers broach controversial subjects with their students? What kinds of
postures (e.g. avoidance, neutrality, or disclosure) do teachers adopt with refer-
ence to these subjects? Which subjects are they most cautious about?
(3) How do teachers engage with key stakeholders within or outside the school? Are
there stakeholders that teachers particularly worry about offending?
(4) Do other factors (gender, job status, experience levels, local political climate) make
a difference in how teachers address the three previous questions?
Before proceeding, a point of clarification is in order. This study focuses specifically on what
one might call ‘curricular academic freedom,’ which we define as academic freedom that: (a) is
exercised within the school (in contrast to ‘extracurricular’ freedom, which is exercised outside
the school in the broader community); (b) is exercised with at least some justification from the
official curriculum (as opposed to topics that have no link or a tenuous link to the curriculum);
and (c) concerns specific curriculum topics, as opposed to evaluation methods (e.g. no-zero
policies) or particular instructional techniques (e.g. phonics vs. whole language). Clearly,
teacher academic freedom encompasses more than just concerns about freedom to address
certain subject matter in class. It embraces teachers’ freedom to speak about issues of public
concern in public and to select instructional and evaluative approaches in accordance with
their professional judgement as well. Be that as it may, the current debate about teacher
2D. I. WADDINGTON ET AL.

academic freedom tends to be dominated by concerns over curricular academic freedom. The
design of this study reflects this orientation.
Background and literature review
In undertaking this work, there were three main bodies of the literature that proved to be
especially useful: (1) historical and philosophical perspectives on teacher academic free-
dom or teacher neutrality; (2) non-survey-based empirical research on teaching con-
troversial issues in the classroom; and (3) survey-based empirical research having to do
with teacher academic freedom or with teachers’ strategies regarding controversial issues
in the classroom. These three bodies of the literature serve distinct purposes: the
historical/philosophical perspective offers critical context for our concerns about teacher
academic freedom, the non-survey research situates us generally in the current literature
on teaching about controversial issues, and the review of survey-based research shows us
what has been done in terms of the specific approach we are using in this study.
Historical, philosophical, and legal perspectives on teacher academic freedom
As Zimmerman and Robertson (2017) point out, in the early 20th century, the American
school system was undergoing major changes—between 1890 and 1918, one new high
school opened each day. Teachers in these new schools were restive about working
conditions—job security was non-existent, hiring was often nepotistic, and even in
large school systems, corruption and cronyism were rampant. In 1908, Henry Linville,
co-founder of the American Federation of Teachers, published ‘The Public-School
Teacher in a Democracy,’ in which he envisioned a new professional situation for
teachers. For Linville, the critical labour challenge for the teaching profession was not
pay but working conditions—specifically, he argued, the teacher needed to be given the
autonomy to act as a true professional who could ‘free the minds of the future citizens of
the republic’ (p. 419).
The agitations of labour union leaders like Linville, combined with the efforts of
progressive intellectuals and activists like Dewey and Counts, yielded lasting results,
including the addition of social studies to the curriculum and the widespread adoption of
teacher tenure. However, after the Second World War, as the Cold War intensified,
discussions of socialism became riskier for teachers, and after the 1970s, monitoring of
the schools by right-wing activists increased (Zimmerman & Robertson, 2017).
In addition to being historically significant, the question of academic freedom for
teachers has also sparked interest among philosophers of education and social studies
curriculum specialists. A major way in which this question has been approached by these
scholars is through an aspect of the debate on teacher neutrality, i.e. how teachers should
position themselves on controversial issues they address in the classroom. In an influen-
tial analysis of this point, Kelly (1986) created and analysed a taxonomy of four possible
positions that teachers could adopt regarding controversial issues: 1. Exclusive neutrality
(the teacher avoids controversial issues entirely). 2. Neutral impartiality (the teacher
presents all sides of an issue while remaining neutral). 3. Committed impartiality (the
teacher presents all sides of an issue fairly but discloses his/her view). 4. Exclusive
partiality (the teacher advocates for a particular position on the given issue). Of the
TEACHERS AND TEACHING 3

four positions, Kelly advocated for committed impartiality, arguing that it allowed
teachers model civic decision-making and be a committed civic participant. Since
Kelly, work on teacher neutrality has generally either adopted similar positions
(Cotton, 2006; Journell, 2016) or has advocated for a deliberately partial social justice-
oriented approach (Agostinone-Wilson, 2005; Applebaum, 2009; Bartolomé, 2008).
Finally, beyond the question whether teachers should be neutral or whether academic
freedom is normatively justified, scholars have also examined the question whether
teacher academic freedom is legally defensible. The legal outlook for teacher academic
freedom in the United States is gloomy, with a steady trajectory of mostly unfavourable
court cases since the 1970s, most notably the Garcetti v Ceballos (2006) decision which
limited the free speech rights of public employees (Eckes & Russo, 2021; Stuller, 1998;
Uerling, 2000). In Canada, the outlook is somewhat brighter—court decisions like Morin
(2002) and BC Public School Employers Assoc (2005) have carved out a precarious space
for teachers to explore legitimate curriculum objectives, but the scope for teacher free-
dom is still very limited (Clarke & Trask, 2006; de Britto, 2018). Regardless of the
jurisdiction concerned, however, academic freedom is circumscribed by four key legal
principles: (1) alignment with the state curriculum, (2) a commitment to even-handed
pedagogy, (3) age-appropriateness, and (4) avoidance of foreseeably inflammatory mate-
rial (Maxwell et al., 2018). Within these limits, teachers still have some discretion to act,
especially de facto, as well as some legal ground on which to stand. Outside of them,
however, their legal prognosis is poor.
Key empirical ndings on teaching about controversial issues in the classroom
Before proceeding to our review of survey-based research on teacher academic freedom,
we will offer a brief overview of what we feel are four key findings from the research on
teaching controversial issues in the classroom.
The first finding is that dialogue about controversial issues (and, in fact, dialogue,
period) does not happen in classrooms as much as one might hope. Nystrand et al. (2003)
searched for the prevalence of a pattern they called the ‘dialogic spell,’ which they
characterised as ‘a mode of discourse, somewhere between recitation and discussion,
characterised by engaged student questions and the absence of teacher test questions’
(p. 150). Out of 1,151-class observations, only 66 had at least one dialogic spell. Kahne
et al. (2000) found similar results. Having conducted 135 observations of 8
th
to 10
th
grade
social studies classes in Chicago, the authors found that only in 8.1% of the classes did
students have the chance to identify and discuss social problems, but none of these
discussions had significant depth. The authors remark, ‘in none of these cases did the
discussion include analysis of causes or solutions’ (p. 321).
A second finding, which is grounded mostly in qualitative studies, is that pre-
service teachers feel poorly prepared to teach controversial issues and are worried
about teaching these topics. Brkich and Newkirk (2015) found that pre-service
teachers were generally not ready to deal with possible parental challenges to peda-
gogical choices, and Nganga et al. (2020) found preservice teachers in
a predominantly white, conservative state to be highly apprehensive about possible
community backlash from teaching controversial issues. Tannebaum (2020) found
similar results even in liberal Massachusetts and further noted that the preservice
4D. I. WADDINGTON ET AL.

teachers did not include controversial issues ‘within their pedagogical decision-
making without explicit prompts to do so’ (p. 15). Similar results were observed
internationally. Ho et al. (2014) found that teachers in Singapore were hesitant to
broach topics related to sexual orientation, and Cohen (2020) found that Israeli
teachers were fearful to discuss sensitive political issues, with one teacher noting
that ‘The willingness to be open to opinions that are different than yours is close to
0%. People who voice critical views are perceived as enemies of the state’ (p. 7).
A third finding, again largely grounded in qualitative interview studies, is that practi-
cing teachers tend to endorse cautious strategies when dealing with controversial issues.
For example, Dahlgren (2008) indicated that his participants had a variety of strategies
they deployed to deflect possible criticism regarding discussion of controversial issues in
the classroom, which included hewing closely to the curriculum and maintaining pos-
tures of neutral impartiality. Philpott et al. (2011), in a study of Tennessee teachers, found
similar results, with teachers emphasising the importance of serving as ‘umpires’ and
‘referees.’ This finding is consistent with qualitative studies that focus on teacher pre-
ferences regarding teacher neutrality (D. E. Hess, 2004; Miller-Lane et al., 2006).
However, a fourth key finding is that while stances of caution and impartiality seem to
be widely endorsed by teachers, analysis of actual classroom practices shows that teachers
often deviate, sometimes unknowingly, from this posture. Niemi and Niemi (2007), in
their study of upstate New York teachers, found that while most of the teachers in their
study maintained a stance of strict neutrality, they frequently disclosed their political
opinions quite clearly, and Journell (2011b) found similar results among Chicago tea-
chers. The same patterns appear to hold true internationally at least to some degree—
Ozturk and Kus (2019) reported similar patterns among Turkish teachers, as did Cotton
(2006) among her British participants.
Survey work on teaching about controversial issues
In this subsection, we briefly review a handful of previous surveys of teachers and
administrators regarding their feelings about, and practices related to, teaching contro-
versial issues conducted since Beale’s initial work in the 1930s. The relative dearth of
studies using a survey methodology to investigate this issue may be due, at least in part, to
serious challenges in collecting the data. As Beale indicated, both teachers and adminis-
trators can be reticent on these matters. Furthermore, prior to the advent of the internet,
organising the necessary institutional permissions to administer such a survey to teachers
would likely have been challenging.
Misco and Patterson (2007) surveyed 27 social studies education teacher candidates to
ascertain their views about academic freedom and to determine their degree of comfort
in teaching various controversial issues. The respondents had surprisingly robust defini-
tions of academic freedom (they tended to define it as the autonomy to teach what and
how they wished), and most of them (65%) considered it ‘extremely important,’ but they
also generally felt (81%) that their freedom was limited by various factors, which included
the curriculum and community standards. Most of the respondents planned to teach
about controversial issues in the classroom, but there was substantial concern about
possible reaction from administrators and parents. Nonetheless, respondents indicated
TEACHERS AND TEACHING 5

moderate-to-high degrees of comfort with virtually every issue the authors asked them
about.
Byford et al. (2009) surveyed 67 high-school social studies teachers in two high schools
located in politically progressive communities in northern Indiana and central
Oklahoma. As with previous studies, teachers indicated that teaching controversial issues
was important. However, in contrast to Misco and Patterson (2007), many of the teachers
did not feel much of a sense of competence with respect to teaching about these issues.
Teachers indicated a strong commitment to examining all sides of controversial issues,
but they felt that textbooks and curriculum materials were unhelpful in facilitating these
sorts of discussions.
Most recently, Ozturk and Kus (2019) surveyed 646 Turkish social studies teachers.
Notably, using Kelly’s (1986) classification scheme, the authors asked about teachers’
preferred stance on teacher neutrality—they found that teachers (34%) professed to
prefer a stance of neutral impartiality (present all side of the issue without expressing
one’s own view), while a smaller but significant proportion (27%) preferred committed
impartiality (present all sides of the issue fairly and reveal one’s own stance). Stances of
exclusive neutrality (9%) and exclusive partiality (5%) were less popular. In addition, the
authors found no significant variation between teachers’ responses according to gender,
years of teaching experience, or geographic location in the country.
Synopsis
So what do these bodies of work tell us? In effect, we have some limited data on how some
select groups of practicing teachers and teacher preparation students wrestle with these
issues, but these analyses are restricted in scope. The qualitative studies that are available
of teacher decision-making give us valuable in-depth descriptions about how teachers
wrestle with specific questions of classroom autonomy, but they do not offer much in the
way of breadth; for example, we do not have an idea of how teachers might differentiate
their strategies depending on which controversial issue they are addressing, or how
differences between teachers (e.g. tenured/untenured) might make a difference. As far
as the limited previous survey work is concerned, Ozturk and Kus (2019) make
a particularly valuable and comprehensive contribution to teacher autonomy, but
much remains to be done. There is likely to be a lot of contextual variance in how
teachers around the world approach controversial issues, and hence, more survey
research on this question in a variety of international contexts would be useful. In this
study, we set out to shed light on the educational contexts within which we work the
most, namely the US and Canada.
Methods
Participants
The 173 participants (83% female, 17% male
1
) were Grade 7–12 social studies (28%) and
science teachers (66%) (6% of the participants taught both subjects) from 50 states and
provinces from across North America (65% American, 35% Canadian). Participants’
ethnic background (they could select more than one option) included White (93%), Black
6D. I. WADDINGTON ET AL.

(6%), Latin American (6%), Indigenous (5%), and South Asian (3%), with other available
categories receiving less than 2%.
The majority of participants were employed at conventional public schools (86%),
with other participants working at private schools (9%) and charter schools (5%). 9% of
the participants worked at schools with a religious affiliation. Participants had an average
of 12 years of teaching experience, and 55% were tenured, with 28% being non-tenured
and 17% having tenure unavailable in their state or province.
Data collection
Participants were recruited using paid Facebook advertising. This tool was chosen
because it allowed us to access teachers from across North America. To minimise
selection bias towards teachers with a particular interest in the issue of academic free-
dom, these advertisements were generically titled ‘Teacher Perceptions Project’ and
simply asked ‘Are you a Grade 7–12 teacher?’ while offering the incentive of a $25 gift
card. Importantly, these paid advertisements, which specifically targeted Facebook users
who identified as social studies and science teachers, were not standard Facebook posts—
participants were only able to access this information if they were shown an advertise-
ment directly in their news feed—in this way, only the potential participants in our
targeted groups were reached. We opted to target this sub-group of teachers because
social studies and science are curricular areas where controversial issues often arise.
We opted to target teachers in both the United States and Canada because we feel that
the curricular academic freedom questions facing teachers in the two countries are
similar. As researchers with extensive knowledge of the educational and political land-
scapes of both countries, including a thorough understanding of the legal challenges
teachers face in their respective contexts, we did not believe that there were enough
cultural or legal disjuncts to justify not surveying either Americans or Canadians, given
that North America-wide recruitment was possible using Facebook. As we detailed
above, legal protections for teacher speech are minimal in the United States and limited
in Canada. Furthermore, there is substantial continuity between both the history and the
current structure of K-12 schooling in both countries.
Ads were delivered to 14,690 Facebook users in the United States and Canada in the
spring of 2019. Of these users, 814 clicked on the ad to access the screening form, which
asked them to list their names, their subjects taught, as well as the school which currently
employs them. Notably, although this may seem like a low response rate to the ad, it is
high within the Facebook context, as the average click-through rate on Facebook ads is
0.90%, whereas the rate in this study was 5.54% (Wordstream, 2022). Prospective
participants who completed the screening form were then verified as being currently
employed using either posted school staff lists and/or school-based email addresses. Once
screened, a total of 173 participants completed the project’s consent form and the survey
instrument.
To assess political alignment, which we felt could make a significant difference to
teacher decision-making, the Congressional district of each American participant (N =
114) was determined by using the address of the participant’s school. Using projections
from a popular political projection website (270towin.com, 2020), these districts were
classified as Democratic or Republican. One participant was excluded because of an
TEACHERS AND TEACHING 7

invalid school address. Two additional participants were removed from the analysis of
political alignment due to belonging to ‘toss-up’ districts having no clear political lean.
Overall, 57% of the American participants were from Republicans and 43% from
Democratic districts. This procedure was not done for Canadian participants (N = 56),
as Canada’s five-party federal system prevents a straightforward left/right analysis.
Questionnaire design
The design of the survey questionnaire drew inspiration from several sources. General
questions about teacher academic freedom were adapted from Misco and Patterson
(2007), and the list of possible strategies (i.e. avoidance, neutrality, even-handed dis-
closure, and advocacy) teachers might use on a given controversial issue was adapted
from Kelly’s (1986) taxonomy mentioned above. The list of controversial issues was
developed using a review of previous surveys of views on specific controversial issues
(Beale, 1936; Koleva et al., 2012; Oulton et al., 2004) and the master list of Wikipedia
(2018) articles that are listed as particularly controversial. Drawing on work of D. Hess
(2009), a distinction was made between closed (e.g. racism) and open controversial issues
(e.g. animal welfare).
In addition to using insights from previous work, we were careful to use appropriate
principles of survey design while designing the instrument (Bradburn et al., 2004; Fowler,
1995). Initial drafts of the survey were vetted by colleagues specialising in psychology,
and prototype versions were tested by both a panel of psychology graduate students and
a group of in-service teachers. The questionnaire was revised considering their feedback.
Table 1. Teachers’ discussion strategies in reference to different controversial issues.
Controversial issues Avoidance Neutrality Disclosure Advocacy Not familiar
Politics Socialism 12.1% 65.3% 16.2% 1.7% 4.6%
Critical views of leader 16.8% 58.4% 22% .6% 2.3%
Conservative popular movements 17.3% 53.8% 22.5% 3.5% 2.9%
Liberal popular movements 13.9% 51.4% 26.6% 5.8% 2.3%
Immigration levels 12.7% 56.6% 22.5% 6.4% 1.7%
Affirmative action 17.9% 51.4% 16.8% 9.2% 4.6%
Same-sex marriage 21.4% 35.8% 20.8% 20.2% 1.7%
Economics Unions/workers rights 12.1% 51.4% 24.9% 9.8% 1.7%
Income inequality 11.6% 41.6% 26.6% 19.1% 1.2%
Rights of undocumented workers 20.2% 45.7% 21.4% 6.4% 6.4%
Taxation levels 15% 56.6% 20.8% 2.3% 5.2%
Government spending 11.6% 58.4% 24.3% 2.3% 3.5%
Science Climate change 1.2% 27.2% 33.5% 37.6% .6%
Deforestation/logging 2.3% 30.1% 38.7% 25.4% 3.5%
Vegetarianism for environment 9.8% 55.5% 26.6% 4.6% 3.5%
Fossil fuel extraction 2.3% 38.7% 39.3% 18.5% 1.2%
Fossil fuel transportation 2.9% 45.1% 36.4% 13.9% 1.7%
Evolution 9.8% 31.8% 22% 36.4% 0
Health and safety Medically assisted dying 22% 57.2% 14.5% 6.4% 0
Abortion 26% 49.1% 13.3% 11% .6%
Animal welfare 6.9% 45.7% 34.1% 12.7% .6%
Gun control 22% 38.7% 25.4% 12.7% 1.2%
Safe injection sites 32.4% 43.9% 16.8% 3.5% 3.5%
Prisons 27.2% 45.7% 19.7% 4% 3.5%
8D. I. WADDINGTON ET AL.

The survey consisted of 24 controversial topic items (see Table 1). These items had
a Cronbach’s Alpha value of α = .93. In addition, there were three questions assessing the
importance of academic freedom and two items assessing perceived academic freedom
with values for Cronbach’s Alphas of, respectively, .74 and .70. Finally, the survey
included 10 items assessing various sources of pressure to avoid controversial topics
(e.g. students, parents, etc.), with a Cronbach’s Alpha value of .93.
Data analysis and results
We will report our methods of analysis and results jointly using, as an organising
principle, the first three of the four key research questions mentioned in the introduction.
Again, the main themes we wished to explore in the study were as follows: (1) how much
importance teachers assign to academic freedom in their work; (2) teachers’ comfort level
in dealing with controversial issues and the kinds of pedagogical postures they tend to
adopt in relation to them; and (3) the sources of pressure in their work environment to
avoid dealing with controversial issues in class. The results linked to the fourth (4)
question—whether other factors (gender, job status, experience levels, local political
climate) make a difference in how teachers address the other research questions—will
be addressed concurrently with the other three questions.
RQ 1—how much do teachers value academic freedom?
The three questions regarding the importance of academic freedom were aggregated to
create an index. On a four-point Likert scale ranging from ‘not at all important’ to ‘very
important,’ teachers rated the importance of academic freedom quite highly (i.e. between
‘moderately important’ and ‘very important’, M = 3.41, SD = .62).
A series of Mann–Whitney tests were conducted to understand whether teachers’
individual differences, such as their gender, job status, the subject which they teach, or
the political climate of the area in which they live, influence how they evaluate the
importance of academic freedom. With regard to the importance of academic freedom,
the subject taught was a significant factor (U = 2051.50, p = .003). That is, social science
teachers rated the importance of academic freedom (M rank = 97.13) higher than science
teachers (M rank = 75.50). No other significant difference was found for gender (p = .86),
job status (p = .86), years of experience (p = .21), religious affiliation (p = .89), and local
political climate (p = .35).
RQ 2— how do teachers broach controversial subjects with their students? What
kinds of postures (e.g. avoidance, neutrality, disclosure) do teachers adopt with
reference to these subjects? Which subjects are they most cautious about?
General comfort with controversial topics
Teachers did not feel particularly comfortable raising controversial topics—they felt that
they had a low degree of curricular academic freedom (i.e. between ‘very little’ and ‘to
some extent’; M = 2.85, SD = .66). Regarding individual differences associated with tea-
chers’ perceived academic freedom, the results revealed a significant difference in the
local political climate (U = 1240.50, p = .04), as American teachers in Democratic-leaning
TEACHERS AND TEACHING 9

congressional districts (M rank = 64.68) felt they had significantly more academic free-
dom than teachers in Republican-leaning congressional districts (M rank = 52.08).
The analyses also revealed marginally significant differences in job status (U = 3164, p
= .09) and the subject of teaching (U = 2316, p = .07). Specifically, tenured teachers
(M rank = 92.54) said that they had more perceived freedom than non-tenured teachers
(M rank = 80.09) and social studies teachers (M rank = 91.73) felt they had more freedom
than science teachers (M rank = 77.82). No other significant difference was found for
gender (p = .3), years of job experience (p = .56), and religious affiliation (p = .97).
Specific strategies on controversial topics
To understand what discussion strategies teachers adopt with reference to controversial
topics, teachers were asked to disclose their strategies (avoidance, neutrality, disclosure,
and advocacy) about 24 controversial topics. The complete set of controversial issues is
indicated in Table 1. The four strategies available were adapted from Kelly’s (1986) classic
typology of conceptions of the teacher’s role when dealing with controversial issues in
class and were arranged on a spectrum of teacher disclosure based on degree of caution.
On one end of the scale were more cautious strategies like avoidance (‘I do not discuss the
issue at all’) and neutrality (‘I discuss the issue impartially and express no opinion),
points 1 and 2 respectively, to bolder strategies like disclosure (’I express favourable views
on one side of this issue but present both sides of the issue fairly”) and advocacy (‘I
advocate openly for one side of this issue’). The latter were, respectively, points 3 and 4.
In general and regardless of the specific issue addressed, teachers preferred somewhat but
not maximally cautious strategies (χ
2
(3, 173) = 125.34, p < .01), indicating that, out of 24
controversial topics, they adopted neutrality (M frequency = 11.35, SD = 7.06) and dis-
closure (M frequency = 5.85, SD = 5.56), more than avoidance (M frequency = 3.47, SD =
5.24), and advocacy (M frequency = 2.74, SD = 3.58). Regarding the specific controversial
topics discussed in class, teachers reported that they discussed climate change, deforesta-
tion, and evolution most openly. By contrast, topics such as safe injection sites, prisons,
critical views of leaders, medically assisted dying, conservative movements, abortion, and
socialism were approached cautiously (see Table 1). Same-sex marriage, notably, features
an unusual distribution of strategies in which a significant proportion of respondents
avoid it entirely (21.4%), while a relatively high proportion of respondents engage in
advocacy (20.2%).
These results were further analysed to better understand whether teachers’ individual
differences (e.g. gender, job status, etc.) influence the openness with which they discuss
controversial issues. In the following analyses, the type of strategy that teachers tend to
employ in discussing controversial issues was considered as a continuous variable,
ranging from (1) avoidance to (4) advocacy (i.e. higher numbers show more openness
in discussing controversial issues). To this end, a series of Mann–Whitney tests were
conducted.
Gender. The analyses indicated a significant gender difference for discussing socialism
(U = 1430. 50, p = .02); that is, male teachers (M rank = 99.02) discussed socialism sig-
nificantly more openly than female teachers (M rank = 79.87). No significant difference
was found between male and female teachers with regard to discussing other controver-
sial topics (ps > .05).
10 D. I. WADDINGTON ET AL.

Job status. The results showed that tenured teachers discussed a variety of contro-
versial issues significantly more openly than non-tenured teachers: critical views of
leaders, unions/workers rights, income inequality, rights of undocumented workers,
government spending, abortion, gun control, safe injection sites, and prisons (see
Table 2). Mean ranks of tenured and non-tenured teachers discussing controversial
issues are reported in Table 2.
Years of experience. The findings showed that teachers with more than 10 years of
experience (M ranks = 90.30, 92.18, 91.02, respectively) discussed taxation levels (U =
2420, p < .01), government spending (U = 2453, p < .01), and vegetarianism for environ-
mental reasons (U = 2624, p < .01) more openly than teachers with less than 10 years of
experience (M ranks = 70.31, 70.83, 73.26, respectively).
Religious affiliation. No significant difference was found in discussing controversial
issues in schools with or without religious affiliation (p > .05).
Local political climate. The analysis indicated significant differences in American
teacher cautiousness depending upon the political climate in which they taught. For
example, teachers in Democratic-leaning congressional districts tended to be less
cautious on a wide variety of topics than American teachers in Republican-leaning
congressional districts, including critical views of leader, conservative popular
movements, liberal popular movements, immigration levels, affirmative action,
same-sex marriage, unions/workers rights, income inequality, rights of undocumen-
ted workers, vegetarianism for environmental reasons, medically assisted dying, gun
control, injection sites, and prisons (see Table 3). Mean ranks of American teachers
in Democratic vs. Republican-leaning congressional districts discussing controver-
sial issues are reported in Table 3.
RQ3–how do teachers engage with key stakeholders within or outside the school?
Are there stakeholders that teachers particularly worry about oending?
Teachers were asked which actors placed pressure on their academic freedom and
gave responses on a four-point Likert scale ranging from ‘No pressure’ (1) to ‘A
lot of pressure’ (4). Overall, the participants ranked parents (M = 2.89, SD = .91),
Table 2. Mean ranks of discussing controversial issues as a function of teachers’ job status.
Controversial issues Mann-Whitney test,
p value
Mean rank
(Tenured teachers)
Mean rank
(Non-tenured teachers)
Critical views of leader U = 2813. 50, p = .01 92.38 75.52
Unions/workers rights U = 2808, p = .01 93.44 75.44
Income inequality U = 2823. 50, p = .01 94.09 75.65
Rights of undocumented workers U = 2727, p = .05 87.51 74.35
Government spending U = 2862.50, p = .03 90.05 76.21
Abortion U = 3041, p = .04 92.99 78.49
Gun control U = 2951, p = .03 92.94 77.33
Safe injection sites U = 2721, p = .01 91.36 74.29
Prisons U = 2717, p = .01 91.78 74.22
Only significant differences are reported in the table.
TEACHERS AND TEACHING 11

and public opinion (M = .249, SD = .96) as the most significant and school donors
(M = 1.33, SD = .74) and members of the business community (M = 1.39, SD = .75)
as the least significant source(s) of pressure on their academic freedom. Moreover,
to understand whether individual differences influence the sources of pressure,
a series of Mann-Whitney U tests were conducted. Only significant findings are
reported below.
The analyses indicated that female teachers significantly more than male teachers
ranked the principal (U = 1482, p = .01), parents (U = 1494.50, p = .01), public opinion
(U = 1633.50, p = .05), board members or trustees (U = 1624.50, p = .05), and school
donors (U = 1752, p = .05) as sources of pressure (see Table 4). Moreover, junior high-
school teachers ranked (U = 3103.50, p = .05) parents as a source of pressure signifi-
cantly more than high-school teachers, whereas high-school teachers ranked public
opinion (U = 3092, p = .04) and students (U = 2689, p < .01) as sources of pressure
significantly more than junior high-school teachers (see Table 4). Additionally,
science teachers more than social studies teachers ranked parents (U = 2180.50, p
= .02) and board members or trustees (U = 2133, p = .01) as sources of pressure (see
Table 4).
With regard to the school religious affiliation, teachers who work in schools
with religious affiliation ranked religious groups (U = 665, p < .01), and school
donors (U = 838.50, p < .01) as sources of pressure more than teachers who work
in schools without religious affiliation. On the other hand, teachers who work in
schools without religious affiliation ranked local politicians (U = 870.50, p = .03) as
a significant source of pressure much more than teachers who work in schools
with religious affiliation (see Table 4). Moreover, teachers in Republican-leaning
congressional districts ranked the principal (U = 1244, p = .04) and public opinion
(U = 1255, p = .04) as sources of pressure significantly more than teachers in
Democrat-leaning congressional districts. Finally, the sources of pressure did not
significantly differ based on the job status (p > .05).
Table 3. Mean ranks for discussing controversial issues as a function of the local political climate.
Controversial issues Mann-Whitney test,
p value
Mean rank
(Democratic-leaning
districts)
Mean rank
(Republican-leaning
districts)
Critical views of leader U = 1211.50, p = .03 63.26 51.43
Conservative popular movements U = 1114, p = .005 65.29 49.91
Liberal popular movements U = 1182, p = .02 63.88 50.97
Immigration levels U = 1092.50, p = .003 65.74 49.57
Affirmative action U = 999.50, p = .001 67.68 48.12
Same-sex marriage U = 1029.50, p = .002 67.05 48.59
Unions/workers rights U = 1176.50, p = .02 63.99 50.88
Income inequality U = 1164, p = .02 64.25 50.69
Rights of undocumented workers U = 1047, p = .003 65.69 48.62
Vegetarianism for environmental
reasons
U = 1195, p = .04 61.60 50.77
Medically assisted dying U = 1175.50, p = .007 66.01 51.08
Gun control U = 1089, p = .004 66.81 49.62
Injection sites U = 1136, p = .03 61.83 49.62
Prisons U = 1100, p = .01 64.60 49.69
Only significant differences are reported in the table.
12 D. I. WADDINGTON ET AL.

Table 4. Mean ranks of teachers’ sources of pressure on academic freedom as a function of individual differences.
Gender Grade level Subject taught School religious affiliation
School congressional
districts
Sources of pressure
Male
M rank
Female
M rank
Junior high school
M rank
High school
M rank
Social science
M rank
Science
M rank
With religious affiliation
M rank
Without religious affiliation
M rank
Democrat
M rank
Republican
M rank
Principal 66.10
a
91.21
b
88.82 85.47 73.09 85.83 85.77 87.12 50.39
a
62.86
b
Parents 66.53
a
91.12
b
94.72
a
80.52
b
69.50
a
87.37
b
105.73 85.22 55.70 58.85
Public opinion 71.33
a
90.16
b
79.14
a
93.61
b
80.54 82.63 97.70 85.98 50.61
a
62.69
b
Board members and trustees 71.02
a
90.22
b
84.74 88.90 68.53
a
87.79
b
89.63 86.75 51.99 61.65
Other teachers 75.22 89.37 84.64 88.98 77.86 83.78 98.57 85.90 59.22 56.20
Students 90.24 86.35 74.04
a
97.89
b
80.95 82.45 86.40 87.06 55.96 58.66
Business
community
79.62 88.49 82.94 90.41 77.13 84.09 78.50 87.81 54.36 59.87
Local politicians 86.86 87.03 85.18 88.53 76.10 84.54 66.03
a
88.99
b
54.69 59.62
Religious groups 93 85.79 84.82 88.83 77.82 83.80 121.67
a
83.71
b
54.15 60.02
School donors 75.41
a
89.33
b
85.99 87.85 75.02 85 110.10
a
84.81
b
54.48 59.78
Rank means in different columns labelled with different superscripts are significantly different at p < .05 (e.g. “a” is significantly different from “b”).
TEACHERS AND TEACHING 13

Discussion
RQ 1—how much do teachers value academic freedom?
In response to our first research question, participants indicated that they place
a relatively high value on curricular academic freedom—between ‘moderately
important’ and ‘very important.’ Given that our participant group was not pre-
disposed to be committed on this point in advance, this finding is novel. Previous
research on teachers’ perspectives on academic freedom suffered from some
recruitment constraints—for example, participants in past surveys had had
recently finished teacher education programmes that offered a focus on this
issue (Misco & Patterson, 2007) or featured localised samples who self-identified
as working in ‘progressive communities’ (Byford et al., 2009). Having used a new
recruitment tool to elicit a broader sample from across North America, we
anticipated that the importance our participants assigned to curricular academic
freedom would be lower than the baseline set in previous studies. Yet this was not
the case.
RQ 2— how do teachers broach controversial subjects with their students? What
kinds of postures (e.g. avoidance, neutrality, disclosure) do teachers adopt with
reference to these subjects? Which subjects are they most cautious about?
In stark contrast to the value participants placed on curricular academic freedom, we
found that, in general, teachers did not feel comfortable exploring controversial topics; in
other words, they did not feel they had much in the way of curricular academic freedom.
Responses to this question about perceived levels of academic freedom fell, on average,
between ‘very little’ and ‘to some extent.’ This finding aligns well with previous research,
which has noted significant hesitancy around teaching controversial issues among both
pre-service and in-service teachers (Philpott et al., 2011; Tannebaum, 2020). These
concerns are well grounded. Teachers currently have few legal protections for the choices
they may make regarding curricular-free speech (Eckes & Russo, 2021; Maxwell et al.,
2018; Stuller, 1998; Uerling, 2000), and so a cautious pedagogical strategy is well advised.
Teachers’ strategies for specific issues in the classroom were also generally cautious,
varying between neutrality (even-handed presentation of the issue with no disclosure of
the teacher’s view) and disclosure (balanced presentation of the issue in which the teacher
reveals their views). When dealing with some issues—notably prisons, abortion, and safe
injection sites—teachers claimed to adopt a cautious approach. Perhaps, it is not surpris-
ing that these hot-button issues inspired reticence, especially in the current charged
political climate. On other issues, however, we were surprised that so few teachers
embraced strategies of advocacy—for example, on controversial issues on which there
is a strong scientific consensus (e.g. evolution and climate change).
This result echoes previous findings in this area (D. E. Hess, 2004; Journell, 2016;
Oulton et al., 2004). When dealing with controversial issues, teachers gravitate towards
a pedagogical stance of neutral impartiality. There are some difficulties with this, how-
ever: Hand (2008) has noted that some teachers treat as ‘controversial’ even behaviours
and stances that are clearly opposed to the values of inclusiveness and respect and which
are explicitly condemned in schools: for example, racism and intolerance of
14 D. I. WADDINGTON ET AL.

homosexuality. There seems to be a trend towards what George W. Bush termed the
‘teach the controversy’ approach, in which teachers at least gesture at the merits of the
‘other side’ of these issues. Again, a likely explanation for this situation is the increasing
polarisation of North American classrooms—it may be the case that some classroom
environments are so tense that teachers feel they must gesture towards ‘both-sidesism,’
even on issues that are settled or that clearly run counter to the basic values that underlie
the liberal democratic political order (for an in-depth study of this phenomenon see
Dunn et al., 2019).
Yet the observation that teachers prefer a stance of neutral impartiality must be taken
with some caution, as there is evidence that teachers’ actual classroom practices are less
cautious than their professed views might indicate. For example, Journell’s research
programme on teacher neutrality and impartiality in the context of US presidential
election campaigns (see Journell, 2011a, 2011b, 2012) has revealed that even teachers
who ostensibly adopt a standpoint of neutral impartiality—i.e. they don’t disclose their
views and strive to teach about the issues in a balanced way—regularly make value
judgements and place more emphasis on viewpoints that are consistent with their
personal beliefs (Journell, 2011a).
Even though the teachers in our sample tended to prioritise neutral impartiality,
our survey data did highlight considerable variation in teachers’ strategies from issue
to issue. This is a notable finding from our research that challenges the received idea
that the pedagogical stance that a teacher adopts when dealing with controversial
issues is primarily a function of their personality or individual teaching style rather
than the issue under discussion. The existence of a more stable preference has been
advanced by D. E. Hess and McAvoy (2014), who maintain that particular teachers
have general philosophies of teaching that do not fluctuate across different issues. The
responses in our study do not preclude the existence of such a consistent approach to
controversial issues, but they may indicate that these philosophies are flexible enough
to be modified when the political realities of the classroom require it.
Turning now to the between-group differences regarding teachers’ approaches to
controversial issues, of note here is what we did not find. Teacher years of experience
seemed to make no difference in terms of the pedagogical approach that teachers took.
Going into the study, we hypothesised that veteran teachers, due to factors such as
a strong connection with the communities in which they teach and a relatively secure
relationship with parents and school administrators, would take a less cautious approach
to controversial issues than newer teachers. This turned out not to be the case; we
examined several ways of defining ‘newer’ and ‘veteran’ teachers and found no mean-
ingful differences between groups. Why this was the case is a matter of speculation.
Perhaps different reasons for caution prevail among each group? New teachers might be
cautious because their job security depends on it or because they are more easily
influenced by the administration, whereas veteran teachers may be cautious due to
previous experience; they simply do not want to deal with parents or administrators.
The only teacher characteristic that does appear to make a substantial difference in
teacher approaches to particular issues is job status. Teachers who did not have tenure
were significantly more cautious, particularly regarding politically charged issues such as
critical views of the President/Prime Minister, unions, income inequality, gun control,
safe injection sites, and prisons. Notably, the contrasting findings regarding the tenured/
TEACHERS AND TEACHING 15

non-tenured teacher grouping and the novice/veteran teacher grouping are linked to the
fact that teacher tenure is unavailable in some places. Therefore, while most tenured
teachers are likely to be veteran teachers, the non-tenured group includes both novice
and veteran teachers.
The context-sensitivity of teachers’ willingness to address controversial issues is also
attested to by our findings around differences between American teachers in Republican
and Democrat-leaning Congressional districts. Teachers working in Republican-leaning
districts were more cautious in their approach to a variety of issues, including affirmative
action, immigration, and same-sex marriage. These findings call into question
a widespread view regarding ‘cancel culture’ in education—namely that it is a left-wing
phenomenon. Among our respondents, however, the teachers who feel the most in
danger of being ‘cancelled’ or ‘called out’ are working in predominantly conservative
areas, not in left-wing or liberal parts of the country. As others have pointed out
(Dahlgren, 2009; Nganga et al., 2020), teachers working in communities in which
conservative views dominate may rightly fear that an irate parent’s first response may
not be a call to the local principal or even to post on social media, but rather to make a call
to their local right-wing talk radio host.
RQ3–how do teachers engage with key stakeholders within or outside the school?
Are there stakeholders that teachers particularly worry about oending?
The survey results showed that the key sources of pressure affecting teachers’ decision-
making about addressing controversial issues in class are parents, students, and admin-
istrators. This phenomenon is abundantly described in the literature and frequently
mentioned anecdotally by teachers who fear student and parent misinterpretations and
local social media firestorms if they raise controversial issues in the classroom. In past
eras, teachers seemed to face less organic opposition from parents and students and more
organised institutional opposition. Early 20th century authors such as Beale (1936) and
Sinclair (1924) highlight the role of organised conservative forces in the form of indus-
trialists, politicians, and political/civic organisations such as the American Legion and
local Chambers of Commerce. However, with an increase in anti-Critical Race Theory
activism and attendant legislation—as of mid 2022, 17 US states had passed legislation
banning the teaching of Critical Race Theory or imposing restrictions on the ways
teachers deal with racism and sexism in class (Schwartz, 2022)—sources of pressure
appear to be becoming more institutionalised once again.
Another significant result in relation to sources of pressure for avoiding controversial
issues is that female participants reported receiving more pressure across various fronts
than their male counterparts. This finding aligns with studies that indicate that male
high-school science teachers in the sciences are seen by students as being more effective
than female teachers (Potvin et al., 2009). However, other evidence indicates that
administrators tend to evaluate male teachers more poorly than female teachers (Drake
et al., 2019), which would tend to militate against the result we see here. Gendered
expectations do not always favour male teachers, but one way in which gender may play
out more favourably for men is specifically on the grounds of controversial issues. Men
may perceive themselves as having more epistemic authority on controversial topics and
may be able to take advantage of discussion forms that are seen as being prototypically
16 D. I. WADDINGTON ET AL.

male (e.g. vigorous debate), as well as of popular archetypes of the ‘maverick teacher’
(Medina, 2011). We cannot draw any definitive conclusions here, but the differences
between the reports of male and female participants are stark enough to warrant further
investigation.
Conclusion
Overall, there are three main findings of this study. The first concerns the considerable
importance that teachers give to their own curricular autonomy even though they
understand they have little freedom to choose what they teach. From strong parental
and student pressure to a mountain of case law showing that school officials have the last
word about instructional choices, the limits on teachers’ curricular autonomy are multi-
ple and powerful.
On the one hand, the fact that teachers continue to believe in an ideal of academic freedom
is promising. It can empower them to teach creatively within the scope of the de facto freedom
that they have within the classroom. When this freedom is exercised responsibly, students are
the primary beneficiaries because they are able to learn in a vibrant academic environment.
The importance of student learning is, in fact, one of the strongest justifications for a possible
right to curricular academic freedom (Maxwell et al., 2019).
On the other hand, for some other teachers, the stark contrast between the value they
place on academic freedom and their actual working conditions, which may afford them
little freedom, represents a significant problem. It is a recipe for burnout to have a group
of professionals who value the idea of autonomy but simultaneously feel that they have
very little. Indeed, the juxtaposition between teachers’ adherence to the ideal of academic
freedom in the face of considerable obstacles to achieving the ideal aligns with Doris
Santoro’s (2018) description of the underlying cause of what she labels ‘demoralisation’
in teaching. Teachers become demoralised, Santoro suggests, when they ‘cannot do what
they believe a good teacher should do in the face of policies, mandates, or institutional
norms. The source of the problem is dissonance between educators’ moral centres and
the conditions in which they work’ (p. 43). We have already seen that pioneering union
leaders like Linville (1908) felt that it was critical to provide a degree of autonomy to
attract talented people to the profession, and this claim has been echoed by many others
in the years since. Notably, in The Process of Education, Jerome Bruner (1977) holds that
the teacher should not be merely a communicator or a mouthpiece for the curriculum,
but rather a model—a person who must be free to exercise their scholarly passion and
intellectual intuitions within the bounds of the curriculum in order that students might
learn to do this as well. In most North American classrooms, we are a long way from
realising this ideal, and in many others, we are moving further and further away from it.
One promising avenue to fight back against these trends, however, is teacher tenure,
which brings us to the second critical finding of this study: teacher tenure makes
a substantial difference in how much autonomy teachers feel they have in the classroom.
This is not a surprising finding, but it is interesting in how it lines up with the historical
pattern of union demands. Despite aspirations in this direction, activists like Linville
(1908) were not able to win full curricular academic freedom for teachers, but they did
win a degree of job security in the form of teacher tenure. It is a reasonable supposition
TEACHERS AND TEACHING 17

that teachers who have more job security will feel more secure in broaching controversial
topics in the classroom. Our findings support this.
Our findings also suggest that teachers who have more job security are willing to take
the risk of stepping out of the role of the neutral facilitator when dealing with contro-
versial issues and adopt more educationally enriching pedagogical approaches. In parti-
cular, tenured teachers may be more likely to adopt the pedagogical approach that Kelly
(1986) labelled ‘committed impartiality.’ With committed impartiality, teachers deliber-
ately disclose to students their own personal evaluative perspectives on the controversial
topic at hand while at the same time striving to present the evidence and arguments in
a fair and balanced way. Educational thinkers from Warnock (1975) to Kelly (1986) and
Noddings (1993) have argued that the pedagogical value of committed impartiality is that
it models the skills in democratic dialogue and rational deliberation that teachers want
their students to develop.
Notably, valuing committed impartiality is not equivalent to taking the position
that teachers can or should speak out about whatever controversy happens to move
them. As we noted in the introduction, we are limiting our discussion here to
‘curricular academic freedom’—an exercise of teacher autonomy on a topic that
receives at least some justification from the official curriculum. The teacher who
exercises committed impartiality demonstrates that one can have strongly held per-
sonal convictions on an ethically charged question yet still give the matter a fair
hearing. This is a rare thing in an increasingly politically polarised culture and,
unfortunately, the only place most students have any chance of encountering it is
at school. The pursuit and preservation of tenure is still a path available to teachers’
unions, and if increased curricular academic freedom for teachers is impossible in the
current polarised climate, increased job security (or at least the preservation of tenure
when it is already in place) may be a reasonable compromise.
A third critical finding of this study is that our teacher participants in more politically
conservative areas of the United States are feeling particularly constrained in terms of their
classroom speech. We anticipated that there might be some differences between Republican
and Democratic-leaning congressional districts, but we did not expect the degree of difference
that we found from our respondents. The survey was conducted in 2019, and it is reasonable to
hypothesise that this situation may have significantly worsened since that time. The storming
of the US Capitol building by right-wing activists in January 2020, the renewal of anti-
vaccinationism and its overlap with radical conservatism, the high levels of concern around
Critical Race Theory and so-called ‘woke’ teachers—all of these have contributed to
a significantly higher level of scrutiny for teachers and may generate a higher perceived (if
not actual) level of danger around discussing controversial issues in the classroom. Although
these findings should be interpreted with caution, we feel that more research is needed on the
impacts of local political climates on how teachers teach.
As we indicated in the introduction, this project was significantly inspired by Howard
Beale’s 1936 book, Are American Teachers Free? Beale’s comprehensive discussion and
analysis of the various challenges to teacher curricular autonomy, as well as a treasury of
horrifying anecdotes pertaining to the limitations of teacher autonomy, make his work an
outstanding, if largely forgotten, piece of historical and educational scholarship. What is
remarkable about the experience of reading Beale today is the feeling that, fundamentally, little
has changed regarding teacher autonomy. The cast of characters is different—instead of the
18 D. I. WADDINGTON ET AL.

American Legion, the wealthy industrialist, and the conservative local newspaper, one has the
syndicated talk radio host, the Republican state legislator, and online right-wing activists—but
the story is mostly the same. And the story is that teachers had better watch their step when it
comes to teaching about controversial issues.
Note
1. Note that participants could also select ‘Other’ or ‘Decline to Answer’ when asked the
question ‘With what gender do you identify?’ but no participants selected these options.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank Holly Recchia, Evgueni Borokhovski, and Larysa Lysenko for their
invaluable survey design feedback.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Funding
The work was supported by the Centre for Ethics and Education.
Notes on contributors
David I. Waddington is a Professor in the Department of Education at Concordia University. His
research interests include teacher free speech, video games and citizenship, philosophical ques-
tions in science and technology education, and the history and philosophy of progressive
education.
Bruce Maxwell is a Ph.D. candidate in educational studies at McGill University. Her research
investigates the relationship between wind band pedagogy and democratic education. In particu-
lar, she is interested in how conductors’ view their educational authority and the limits and
potentialities of enacting their authority toward democratic ends.
Tessa MacLean, Ph.D., is a professor in the Department of Criminal Justice at Kutztown
University where he teaches classes in corrections, criminology, and substance abuse and crime.
His research interests include offender classification, mediation analysis, and the drug-crime
connection.
Kevin McDonough is an Associate Professor of Philosophy of Education at McGill University. His
current research focuses on philosophical questions that arise at the intersection of social episte-
mology, intellectual disability, and education policy.
Nasim Tavassoli is an Educational Developer at Dalhousie University. Her research interests
include children’s social and moral development, particularly the development of prosocial
behaviors in early childhood within the context of sibling relationships and friendships.
ORCID
David I. Waddington http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3201-9799
TEACHERS AND TEACHING 19

Ethics statement
This research received Certification of Ethical Acceptability for Research Involving Human
Subjects from Concordia University’s Human Research Ethics Committee, Protocol
Certification #30010732.
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