Chapter 5: Didactic reflection and practice

This chapter explores concepts and pedagogical strategies for teaching controversial issues and contested narratives. In the first section, we introduce key concepts, such as collective memory, historical consciousness, literacy, and multi-perspectivity. In the next section, these concepts are related to subject didactics for history education, religious education, and citizenship education. This is followed by a didactic model for planning, conducting, and evaluating lessons that address CI or CN. The model consists of four aspects the teacher should consider in the planning of CI or CN in a subject. At the centre, we place the question: How is this a controversial issue or a contested narrative? The four dimensions of the model describe the didactic interplay between 1) subject content, 2) challenges, 3) context, and 4) competences. With reference to these four aspects, chapter 6 unfolds didactic examples from history education, religious education, and citizenship education. The aim is to pay attention to the art of teaching, provide examples of how the teacher can plan for and practice the inclusion of CI and CN in specific school subjects, and discuss which challenges the teacher may encounter.