Pre-service Teachers’ Beliefs of Competence With Teaching Socially Sensitive Issues

This paper is part of a larger cross-sectional, phenomenological study that examined pre-service teachers’ belief of the competencies they possess to teach socially sensitive issues at secondary level in Trinidad and Tobago. Purposive sampling resulted in 39 pre-service social studies teachers (Years 2 to 4) who were exposed to a methodology course in a social studies specialisation programme and nine social studies lecturers, at the University of Trinidad and Tobago. The study is located in the mixed methods paradigm, with a quan/QUAL design. This paper represents discussions and findings from two questionnaires and four focus groups analysed through the IBM SPSS Statistics 22 software for the quantitative analysis and content and micro-interlocutor analyses for the qualitative analysis. The findings show that pre-service teachers believe they have the competencies to teach socially sensitive issues;yet they had not obtained these from the designated methodology course. Further that both contextual and personal factors affect the teaching of socially sensitive issues. Six themes, with accompanying competencies emerge from the data and frame affective teaching of socially sensitive issues. Arising out of the findings, the author developed a competency-based framework that has implications for curriculum development and transformational pedagogy.