Conducting discussions on controversial political issues is an important vehicle to promote students’ democratic values and critical thinking in schools. This schoolwide task cuts across all disciplines and different subject matter. Israeli civics and social studies teachers are often required to touch upon such issues and manage the situations that follow. This study examined whether civics and social studies teachers are different from teachers of other disciplines in their attitudes toward controversial political issues and in their reported behaviors. Civics and social studies teachers scored higher in all the variables related to discussions of controversial political issue and reported more relevant behaviors. In examining the variables that predict teachers’ self-efficacy to conduct controversial political issue discussions, variables that related to professional identity were the strongest predictors alongside pluralistic attitudes. We concluded that teacher training should emphasize the importance of discussions of controversial political issue and develop teachers’ ability to conduct such discussions as part of their professional role.

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Given the surplus of Arab teachers and the shortage of Jewish teachers in Israel, the government has adopted the policy of employing Arab teachers in Jewish schools, contrary to the dominant nationalistic agenda. We argue that this low-cost solution meets the criteria for disruptive innovation in that it flies under the radar and has the potential to proliferate and change the existing social order. Through surveys and interviews with boundary-crossing Arab teachers, this article finds that teachers circumvent power structures in three social fields. In the Arab community, work in Jewish schools helps teachers bypass nepotism and provides a new path for upward mobility. In the education system, boundary-crossing teachers disrupt segregation. And at the state level, this innovation may improve Jewish-Arab relations.