Issues: Understanding Controversy and Society

News sound bites and traditional databases often merely scratch the surface of the most important issues of our time. This database helps students develop an in-depth understanding of how society shapes and is shaped by controversy-with authoritative historical context, expert perspectives, and carefully selected primary and secondary sources on the most enduring, significant, and timely issues. Issues: Understanding Controversy and Society has been produced with the input of leading scholars and educators.

Wide Variety of Tools to Help Students Learn 

The easy-to-use interface is designed to lead researchers through the complexities of a wide variety of challenges facing the United States and the world beyond.  Issues: Understanding Controversy and Society many tools that enable students to conduct deep research into historical and modern dilemmas, including:

Analyze features: This database provides students the opportunity to truly immerse themselves in debate on tough topics through its Analyze features—exclusive presentations of thought-provoking questions and various viewpoints on each controversial subject. The Analyze section provides tools to conduct historical inquiry lessons focused on compelling questions such as “To what extent does anyone have the right to censor the Internet?” and “Should the federal government preserve or conserve natural resources?”

Investigate Controversial Topics: This rich online resource helps users investigate controversial topics by framing thoughtful questions, revealing the background story behind the issues and providing scholars' perspectives and analyses, allowing students to formulate educated opinions on hotly debated "gray area" subjects

Primary Source Features: A wide variety of primary sources provides historical context for the issues, including President Lyndon Johnson’s Voting Rights speech, opinions of court cases (such as Gitlow v. New York, 1925), and over 4,000 images and hundreds of audio and visual files, including animation of the Indonesian tsunami of 2004

Backgrounds on Issues: A complete historical background and the contemporary status of each issue, providing supporting facts, figures, and timelines