International Center for Ethics in the Sciences and Humanities (IZEW)
Role play on controversy at school
A role play in which participants take on different personas and discuss a problem from their perspective. The participants sit together in the (fictional) staff room when a teacher arrives and describes a problem. In a playful way, participants are confronted with positions they may encounter in their professional lives in school contexts. The roles are based on seven specific types of teachers identified by empirical education researcher Salwa Achahboun: 1.) Denying that there is any controversy at all; 2.) avoiding the controversy; 3.) favouring one side; 4.) taking a neutral position as debate leader; 5.) focusing on the didactic potential; 6.) objectifying and classifying the statements and positions ethically, legally and scientifically; 7.) primarily addressing the emotional aspects.
Participants are divided into groups of no more than seven people. Ideally, each group should have one person who acts as the teacher and approaches their colleagues with the problem. This can also be a participant who has been instructed beforehand. Smaller groups are also possible. Then not all set cards are needed. Especially if you want to play through more than one case study, smaller groups and a redistribution of the set cards for each case study are even more suitable.
