Experiences of Teaching Controversial and Emotive Issues in Terrorism Studies Courses in the Politically-Charged Classroom: A Transcendental Phenomenological Study

The purpose of this transcendental phenomenological study is to understand the phenomenon experienced by faculty members in higher education who teach courses in Terrorism Studies with curriculum containing controversial and emotive issues in a politically-charged classroom.  The Jurisprudential Inquiry Model and the Curricular Instructional Gatekeeper Theory was used to provide a theoretical framework to address the issue of dealing with controversy and the idea that classroom teachers have great autonomy in determining the instructional content when addressing these emotive and controversial issues.  The study included 12 college faculty members who teach courses in Terrorism Studies from several institutions of higher learning in the U.S. using face-to-face interviews as the primary collection method and supplemented with questionnaires and artifacts.  The data collected through these methods is being analyzed using the process suggested by Moustakas (1994) to write a composite description of the phenomenon using textural and structural descriptions to develop the culminating aspects of the essence of the experience.  The results of this study are to be determined.  Preliminary results are being reported for this paper for the benefit of this conference.