Should you belief the theory of evolution? What happens if we genetically manipulate organisms? Is nuclear energy the key to tackle climate change? There are many topics can lead to discussion and induce tensions in the science classroom. This is increasingly true in a changing society with increasing diversity, also in the classroom.

In science education research there is a tradition of researching so-called socio-scientific issues (SSI). These are social issues that are linked to science and technology but also induce social, ethical or moral questions and explore the relation between science and society. Remarkable about this trend in literature is that the educational aspects of teaching and learning SSI was not just researched and described, but that SSI were suggested as a base for educational reform. Chen and Xiao (2021) recently published a systematic review of teachers’ perceptions, challenges and coping strategies in teaching SSI. Despite the large focus of research on SSI, there are other topics that induce tensions in the science classroom. Borgerding and Dagistan (2018) add Active Science (AS) and Societally Denied Science (SDS) as other categories of topics that may lead to discussions and tensions in the science classroom. AS constitutes still actively (sometimes rapidly) evolving science topics where the inherent scientific uncertainty is uncomfortable for many (e.g., gravitational waves, black holes). SDS are topics that are generally accepted by science but are questioned by groups in society. Examples include the theory of evolution through natural selection (Aivelo & Uitto, 2019;), the origin, age and evolution of the universe in physics, geography and religion education (Billingsley et al., 2021), the role of humans in climate change in geography education (Ho & Seow, 2015) and the working and benefits of vaccines in biology education (Arede et al., 2019).  Finally, it is interesting to also include insights from Hess and McAvoy (2014) who, in addition to empirically debatable or not (which is in line with AS), add politics as an extra dimension. I.e., topics may have a base in science but may also be political. For example, homosexuality and homosexual behavior is known to be present in many species (it is part of biology), but legalizing gay marriage is a political issue. While these political topics may not be the focus of science education, they can (and do) enter the classroom through questions of students or discussion on related topics. Note that this is closely related to, though not the same as, the SSI framework.

Researching the educational aspects of these tensions is more pressing than ever given increasing polarization in Europe (Casal Bértoa & Rama, 2021), woke-movement and cancel culture. Getting an overview of the different kinds of sensitive topics (i.e., topics that might lead to tension) is one of the first things that is needed in this research effort. This is exactly where we want to contribute with this work. Our research questions are: “Teaching which topics have secondary science education teachers in Brussels and Flanders experienced tensions in their classrooms?” and “How can these topics be categorized into a comprehensive framework?”. We hypothesize that we will find the topics that can also be found scattered throughout literature, but that we might also find new topics, and that the framework of SSI is not enough.

To answer the first research question, we asked students of our teacher training to administer structured interviews with science teachers in their schools of internship. The students are in their second year of the professional bachelor teacher secondary education (academic years 2018-19 and 2019-20). This fits into a course that prepares students for their bachelor thesis. The university college at which the students are enrolled is set in Brussels, which has a very diverse population typical to a metropolitan context. The structured interviews included questions on teachers’ ideas about science, education and society and included the following questions: - in 2018-19: “Have you ever experienced tensions during your teaching that were related to the relationship science-religion? And if so, which?” (N=70) - in 2019-20 “Have you ever been confronted with tensions about sensitive topics in the science class? If so, for which topics?” (N=39) Finally, a third survey was conducted with teachers (N=29) attending voluntary professional development workshops (2019-20) on dealing with sensitive issues in the science classroom. They were also presented with the question “Have you ever been confronted with tensions about sensitive topics in the science class? If so, for which topics?”. Note that these are different questions, and different samples of teachers. The goal is not to obtain a representative picture on which topics are most prevalent or which topics cause the most tension. The goal is to map out the diversity of topics that may cause tensions and to look for an overarching structure. We combine all three datasets and used a thematic analysis (Nowell, et al., 2017) to inductively obtain a categorization of the different types of topics (answering the second research question).

The topics that were mentioned by the teachers fit into several themes: - The theory of evolution: this is often explicitly connected to religious beliefs of the students. - The limits of planet Earth: a broad category that includes climate change, vegetarianism, consumption, durability, use of resources at school - Sexuality: including reproduction, STD’s, trans- or homosexuality and characteristics of genitals - Biotechnology: including genetically modified organisms and CRISPR - Religion: without any other topics. Teachers mentioned “religion” but also “beliefs”, “Islam”, “Muslim” or “Bible”. - Conspiracy theories: including fake-moonlanding, flat-earth and questioning whether dinosaurs existed. - The origin, age and evolution of the universe and the Earth (as contrasted by e.g., creationist ideas) - A rest category that includes racism and migration, death (e.g., abortion, euthanasia) and science in general (one teacher mentioned that students would explain physics experiments as acts of God). Note that while ‘Religion’ is mentioned as a separate category it was also often mentioned explicitly in combination (or contrast) with other subjects. A lot of science education literature on sensitive topics focuses on SSI. But here we see that tensions in the classroom can also emerge out of topics that do not fit the SSI-framework. We will present a framework in which we categorize the obtained data integrating SSI, SDS, AS, political issues, and the additional aspect of Religion. We will also discuss the roles of teaching Nature of Science (e.g., Khishfe & Lederman, 2006) and citizenship education (e.g., Oulton et al., 2004) in teaching sensitive topics. Finally, while not the intention of the research it was striking that many teachers (between 25% and 50% of participating teachers) experienced tensions in their classroom. Additional research on teachers’, and students’, experiences with sensitive topics and on developing teaching strategies to cope with them is needed.

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