About

Danielle Butville is an Assistant Research Professor and the Assistant Director of the Holocaust, Genocide and Human Rights Initiative at Penn State Berks. Her role involves engaging in research related to human rights, genocide, and related fields. She is associated with the Penn State community and can be contacted via email at drz5018@psu.edu or by phone at 610-396-6216. Her work focuses on issues surrounding human rights and genocide, contributing to academic and practical understanding in these areas.

Selected publications

• Deepening teachers’ understandings of Holocaust and genocide education through inquiry-based professional learning

  Social Studies Research and Practice · 2025-04-21 · 2 citations

  article

  Purpose This article reports a case analysis of a professional learning residency that supported 30 K–12 teachers in deepening their understandings of quality Holocaust and genocide education. Design/methodology/approach The residency integrated academic study of the Holocaust and other genocides with support for classroom application through inquiry-based professional learning. Thematic analysis of participants’ pre- and post-residency reflections indicated that teachers deepened their understandings of effective Holocaust and genocide education in four ways. Findings First, teachers gained an understanding that the goal of Holocaust and genocide education is to create citizens who advocate for human rights and actively strive to prevent genocide. Second, teachers developed an understanding of the importance of providing a safe space and promoting critical thinking. Third, teachers considered student reflection an integral aspect of Holocaust and genocide education. Fourth, teachers connected a trauma-informed approach to providing their students with processing time and breaks. Originality/value The article’s original contribution to Holocaust and genocide education is to suggest the value of short bursts of intensive professional learning, even though prior research has also strongly affirmed the importance of professional learning that is sustained over time. The article also contributes the insight that teachers can readily make the link between inquiry-based modes of professional learning and inquiry-based methods of teaching about genocide. As such, the article challenges the practice of grounding teachers’ professional learning surrounding the Holocaust primarily in trainings focused on content knowledge.

  PublisherDOI

• What do we know about teacher education for difficult topics? A systematic review

  Oxford Review of Education · 2025-07-15 · 1 citations

  reviewSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Noticing, interpreting, deciding: How elementary teachers address unplanned difficult-topics moments in educational practice

  Teaching and Teacher Education · 2025-04-30 · 2 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• When Difficult Topics Bubble Up: How K-12 Teachers Understand Unplanned Difficult-Topics Moments

  Action in Teacher Education · 2024-12-04 · 3 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Leaning Into Difficult Topics: Inquiry Communities as Teacher Professional Learning for Turbulent Times

  Journal of Teacher Education · 2024 · 16 citations

  • Sociology
  • Pedagogy
  • Sociology

  Although teachers make frequent decisions about whether and how to address difficult topics, they typically do so with minimal support. This article reports a case study of an inquiry community of 20 educators who engaged in practitioner inquiry as professional learning for addressing the difficult topics that they teach within their curricula or otherwise encounter within their professional practices. Through an inductive thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews with 12 community participants, the article’s authors identified four themes characterizing how the inquiry community supported teachers to lean into the difficult topics they believed they needed to address. The community helped teachers define difficult-topics inquiry while connecting them across divergent political and professional perspectives. The community assisted teachers in engaging difficult topics through purposefully structured inquiry talk, and it prompted them to (re)conceptualize difficult-topics teaching as inquiry. The article demonstrates the potential of difficult-topics inquiry communities as professional learning for turbulent times.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Partnering to support K-12 instruction of difficult topics through inquiry-based professional learning

  School-University Partnerships · 2023 · 6 citations

  • Sociology
  • Pedagogy
  • Sociology

  Purpose Many K-12 teachers teach difficult topics as part of their curricula, and discussions of difficult topics are common across grade levels and content areas. As teachers increasingly engage with difficult topics in their classrooms, the need for high-quality professional learning experiences has also grown. In response, the purpose of this article is to introduce an emerging partnership between the Holocaust, Genocide and Human Rights Education Initiative at Penn State and the Red Lion Area School District (Red Lion, Pennsylvania), conceptualized from the outset with an explicit focus on intentionally engaging in collaborative, inquiry-based professional learning surrounding difficult topics in formalized curricula and within educational practice. Design/methodology/approach The article briefly describes how the partners came together, then provides a high-level overview of how they approached their first year of collaboration. Next, the partners’ adaptation of inquiry-based professional learning is outlined. The article concludes by discussing lessons learned from the first year of partnering and implications for scholarship in the areas of school-university partnerships, inquiry-based professional learning, and difficult topics. Findings The article observes that it took educators participating in a difficult-topics inquiry community an entire year to begin shifting ownership of inquiry to K-12 students. It illustrates how school-university partnerships can be used to support difficult-topics inquiry and raises new questions about the role of difficult topics in partnership work. Originality/value The article contributes an original example to the literature that demonstrates how inquiry-based professional learning focused on difficult topics can provide a powerful basis for forming a school-university partnership.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Practitioner Inquiry for Turbulent Times: Learning to Take an Inquiry Stance Toward Teaching Difficult Topics Through a Teacher Inquiry Community

  Journal of Practitioner Research · 2023-10-01 · 5 citations

  articleOpen access

  Amid turbulent times and politically polarized communities, many teachers require support if they are to teach or engage with difficult topics in their curricula or professional practices, yet few teachers actually receive any formalized support for addressing such topics. This article responds by describing the work of an inquiry community of inservice educators that was designed to assist teachers in learning to address difficult topics by integrating practitioner inquiry and student inquiry with asset-based and trauma-informed lenses. The article outlines the community’s conceptual foundations then describes how a team of university-based teacher educators facilitated the community’s work. A participating teacher’s reflection illustrates how the support of the community transformed her teaching of one potentially difficult topic—the American Civil War—as she shifted her pedagogy from being a provider of knowledge to facilitating students’ inquiries. The article highlights implications for future scholarship about professional learning, student inquiry, and teacher retention.

  PublisherDOI

Labs

• Media Effects Research LabPI