Abstract
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>In the philosophy of education literature, the question of when teachers need to be impartial in teaching and talking about sociopolitical issues with students in schools has traditionally been treated as a definitional problem. From this perspective, a teacher should deal with a sociopolitical issue impartially if it is correctly defined as “controversial.” If not, then they should deal with it partially, steering students toward one viewpoint as the correct one. This chapter challenges this definitional approach to the problem of impartiality in teaching. It argues that decision-making about impartiality is better seen as a problem of professional ethics like any other in that it requires teachers to exercise their professional judgment and seek out a reasonable balance between the competing professional duties at stake. After presenting a brief critical overview of the longstanding philosophical debate about how to define “controversial issues,” the chapter proposes an analysis of professional obligations that can emerge as salient in decision-making about impartiality. These obligations are the duty to be impartial, to act as an advocate for human rights, to respect students’ freedom of conscience and religion as well as their freedom of expression and intellectual freedom. Using two case studies, the chapter illustrates the proposed alternative professional-ethics approach to the problem of impartiality in teaching and highlights the practical advantages of this approach over the definitional approach that has characterized the philosophical controversy over controversial issues.</jats:p>