Teachers around the world are faced with teaching sensitive topics. Although sensitive topics are not new per se, sensitivity is increasing with rapid societal changes, increased diversity in the classroom and the rise of the woke movement.

Sensitive topics are not characteristic for one domain or discipline. For example, in soft science education, topics may be sensitive when it appeals to students’ personal life, their (mental) health or their personal or group identity (Lowe, 2015). It refers to these issues that appeal to the person of the student and his or her behavior (Boysen et al., 2018). Topics related to suicide, eating disorders or gender identity are examples of such sensitive content. Issues may also raise controversy, referring rather to “questions of public policy that spark significant disagreement” (Hess, 2009, p. 37). Talking about ethnic or religious diversity in contemporary western democracies is an example of such a controversial issue. Both types of issues are often taken together under the heading of sensitive and controversial issues (SCIs) (Kello, 2016). In soft science education, SCIs already received research attention in a large diversity of school subjects, such as history (Kello, 2016), languages (Mirhosseini, 2018), citizenship education (Jerome & Elwick, 2020), psychology (Boysen et al., 2018) or religion (Flensner, 2020).

In hard science education, tension may rise when teaching topics that raise ethical, political or moral questions, e.g., discussing whether nuclear energy should be used to combat climate change. These topics are often referred to as socio-scientific issues (SSIs) (Chen & Xiao, 2021). Additionally, science teachers are faced with teaching so-called societally denied science (SDS) (Borgerding & Dagistan, 2018). These are topics that are considered as established in science but are denied by groups in the population, which touches on sensitivity as in SCIs because of its interwovenness with (group) identity. 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).

This overview highlights how research on sensitive topics is fragmented across disciplines. To date, there is no research that examines this challenge across soft and hard disciplines. Hence, a general theoretical framework is missing. An exchange between teachers and researchers from different subjects however has the potential to provide a rich basis for future research and professional development. For example, Day and Bryce (2011) advocate dialogue and cooperation between science teachers and humanities teachers in dealing with sensitive topics. They demonstrated that teachers from different subject domains have different conceptual views. A common language, captured within an interdisciplinary framework is therefore indispensable.

In this study, we address this lack by mapping the diversity of sensitive topics that teachers are confronted with in secondary education, covering content in both soft and hard sciences. This typology will serve as a comprehensive umbrella encompassing a variety of sensitive topics with (potentially contrasting) domain-general and domain-specific characteristics. We use the term ‘sensitive topics’ as an umbrella term including SCIs, SSIs, SDSs and topics that may emerge but were previously missed by literature. We thus adopt a broad definition where sensitive topics refer to those themes that generate tension and discomfort in the class group, the teacher and the wider teaching environment.

Hence, the research question is “What are domain-specific and domain-general characteristics of sensitive topics taught in secondary education?”. In the next section, we define what is meant by this domain specificity.

To categorize school subjects with their particular contents, we start from Biglan's (1973) classification. Biglan argues that the major differences between subjects can be explained by three dimensions: 1) distinction between "hard" and "soft" disciplines, 2) focus on pure or applied research and 3) study of living or non-living objects. In this study we account for the first dimension through the background of the two researchers involved, one with a background in hard science and one with a background in soft science. Biglan’s second dimension is only to a limited extent present in general secondary education (which has a major focus on pure subjects) and is not taken into account. Biglan’s third dimension is accounted for by studying both life-oriented and non-life-oriented disciplines, creating four quadrants. In hard sciences, for example, this involves biology (living) and physics (non-living). In soft sciences, a distinction can be made between, e.g., languages (non-living) and behavioral sciences (living). To answer our research question, we combine two methods: (1) a literature review through which we identify current insights across educational systems, hereby painting a macro level picture of sensitive topics across countries, policies and cultures, and (2) interviews with teachers through which we unravel the reality within one educational system (Flanders, Belgium). (1) Since the systematic review of literature on sensitive topics in secondary education maps perspectives and insights from different research domains, we follow the approach and guidelines of an integrative review (Gough & Thomas, 2016). To ensure the quality and reliability of the search protocol, the two researchers conduct the literature study in cooperation. To facilitate their joint work, the review is accomplished in Covidence software. (2) The teacher interviews are conducted with four teachers in soft and four teachers in hard sciences, capturing the characteristics of sensitive topics in their respective field. In accordance with the four quadrants of Biglan, within each of these groups (hard and soft), two teachers in life subjects and two teachers in non-life subjects are selected. The teachers are recruited through pedagogical guidance services and specialist mentors for teacher training. All interviews are audio-taped and transcribed verbatim. The transcripts are coded with descriptive and interpretative codes. This is followed by an inductive thematic analysis. In line with the overall goal of this project, we specifically focus on identifying and interpreting the domain-general and domain-specific characteristics of sensitive topics.

This study is ongoing at the time of submission and will be finished by June 2022. At this point, both work packages (literature review and interviews) have started. We hypothesize the typology to be related to the dimensions of Biglan. For example, overlapping characteristics may occur between school subjects within hard sciences and soft sciences. Additionally, it is conceivable that there are similarities between subjects that include living subjects (e.g., biology and social sciences), just as there are conceivable similarities in subjects that do not include living subjects (e.g., chemistry and economics). The overarching impact of this study is situated both in theory-building and societal. In particular, the results of this study will serve as a lever for the development of future research lines and will provide preliminary cues for the professionalization of teachers concerning teaching sensitive topics. Indeed, this study will provide target topics that need to be addressed in follow-up projects and longer-term professionalization initiatives, and will help teachers to position identified sensitive topics in the typology. This positioning allows contacts to be made with colleagues teaching topics with similar characteristics whose similarities were not obvious before, e.g., biology and behavioral sciences both describe living objects (dimension III of Biglan). Additionally, the resulting interdisciplinary typology will serve as a common language which will facilitate dialogue between research and policy domains, both at the national and the European level. A general framework allows contacts to be made and research collaborations to be promoted between school subjects and disciplines and across countries.

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