White preservice teachers facilitating African American history discussions: Tensions of identity in practice

This comparative case study leverages dynamic systems theory to analyze how whiteness impacts social studies discussions about racial topics. Four white candidates facilitating discussions of African American history with predominantly Black students experienced identity tensions that led them to foreclose student discussion and privilege their own conceptual understandings, trumping their goals for open discourse. Analysis suggests such moments and identity tensions emerged when discussions of the past intersected directly with contemporary topics, or when teachers perceived a potential or real threat to identities they held as non-racist or anti-racist teachers. Implications for role-identity exploration and teacher education are discussed.