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Controversial issues characterize life in democratic societies, and they often arise unexpectedly in the classroom, without being planned for by the teacher. However, controversial issues are rarely addressed beyond a mandatory curriculum and are often avoided. The aim of this exploratory study is to investigate what teachers identify and address as unplanned controversial issues in the classroom and the content of such issues. Unplanned controversial issues identified fell into three categories (1) mainstream controversy, (2) teacher-initiated controversy, and (3) controversial pedagogy. The findings suggest that more attention needs to be paid, among other things, to the political dimension of education, teacher vulnerability, and who the person in teaching is.

As we reckon with the #MeToo movement, the gender-based violence that occurred during the 1947 Partition continues to remain forgotten in mainstream discourses and is an emotive and polarising issue within both India and its diaspora. Just like mainstream news in the United States covered the Gabby Petito case, causing a controversy as it led to the realisation that the rape and gender-based violence of missing indigenous women were not covered, it can be suggested that mainstream news channels both within India and in the diaspora construct narratives that privilege the stories of some over others – with issues of shame, izzat (‘honour’) and policing of women's bodies compounding the silence in South Asian communities. In this chapter, I argue that we need to rethink the Partition as a genocide to recognise the gender-based violence that occurred on women's bodies as the cataclysmic event occurred. I discuss the feminist historiographical research led by Urvashi Butalia, Kamla Bhasin and Ritu Menon who interviewed survivors in the aftermath of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots that triggered their research and reminded them of the Partition violence. It is only recently when the 1947 Partition Archives (in 2010) and the Partition Museum (in 2017) that the conversations of Partition are also taking place in academic spaces.

This book comprises the second volume in the recently launched New Horizons in Managerial and Organizational Cognition book series. Volume 1 (Sund, Galavan, & Huff, 2016), addressed the topic of strategic uncertainty. This second volume comprises a collection of contributions that variously report new methodological developments in managerial and organizational cognition, reflect critically on those developments, and consider the challenges that have yet to be confronted in order to further advance this exciting and dynamic interdisciplinary field. Contextualizing within an overarching framework the various contributions selected for inclusion in the present volume, in this opening chapter we reflect more broadly on what we consider the most significant developments that have occurred over recent years and the most significant challenges that lie ahead.

Following South Africa's democracy, a new constitution was adopted that allowed for freedom of all citizens. This legal protection has, however, not fully translated into a change in attitudes of members of society. Raising the topic of gender being on a spectrum in an African context is bound to result in controversy. Many African countries continue to criminalise same-sex relationships. Therefore it can be understood that the notion of a same-sex desire is seen to be un-African. A common view is that the spectrum of gender identities is a Western import. This chapter focuses on how cultural nuances hinder South African Indian gay men from fully expressing themselves within the South African Indian community. Non-acceptance of South African gay men by the South African Indian community is often based on factors such as religion, patriarchy, hetero-normativity and the idea of same-sex relationships being un-African. Theoretically, intersectionality is used to make sense of discrimination. Intersectionality also serves as a lens because it considers an individual has multiple identities based on race, culture, gender, social class, age and sexual orientation, which are derived from power, history and social relations. Within this chapter, accounts from research studies as well as e-zine articles will be used to demonstrate aspects of the intersectionality theory.

Relations in university settings are becoming more heterogeneous in terms of race, ethnicity, religion, nationality, class, and gender. In South Africa, transformation imperatives have radically changed the complexion of the country’s university campuses but have also entrenched political imperatives in its universities. As a consequence, the university is a highly politicised space. This is not new. What is new is a communication environment characterised by real-time, global networked digital communication and the uptake of digital media platforms (including social media platforms). We explore the effects of politicisation and new modes of communication using the case of a controversial article published in a South Africa journal and the ensuing polemic. Drawing on both institutional theory and Castells’ description of the network society, we conceptualise collegiality along two dimensions: horizontal collegial relations which exist for the purpose of knowledge creation and transfer which, in turn, depends on self-governance according to a taken-for-granted code of conduct; and vertical collegiality which describes collegial relations between academic staff and university management, and which is necessary for the governance of the university as a complex organisation. We conclude that the highly personal nature of communication that is propelled by digital communication has a direct impact on collegial relations within the university. The motivations of both university academic staff and management, as well as the public, extend beyond stimulating collective debate in the service of knowledge production to serving individual and/or ideological agendas as the communication of science becomes politicised. While issues pertaining to collegiality in South Africa may at first glance appear to be unique to the country, we believe that in a globally transforming academy, the South African case may offer novel insights and useful lessons for other highly politicised university systems.