Paper short abstract:

Drawing on a literature review on social justice teacher education, we illustrate dilemmas around niceness, emotions and discomfort experienced by student teachers and teacher educators in teacher education aimed at disrupting systemic inequities.

Paper long abstract:

Based on a literature review, we discuss common challenges in social justice-oriented teacher education. For example, resistance and emotional responses are to be expected when addressing issues like white privilege (e.g. Ohito, 2020; Hyland, 2010; Rolon-Dow et al., 2020). When analyzing these emotions, it is important to acknowledge that they are not individual, apolitical experiences: Emotions can stem from systemic inequities, influence the sense of connection or distinction between groups, and can hinder social change (Ahmed, 2014). Although various authors show how these responses and the resulting discomfort can be employed as teachable moments, they also carry the risk of creating situations that are unsafe or place a large toll on student teachers, especially those from marginalized backgrounds. As a result, teacher educators may resort to niceness to avoid conflict and discomfort. This means social justice teacher educators are often navigating a delicate tension. Introducing issues of racism in the classroom may evoke stigmatizing remarks or put students from marginalized backgrounds in a position where they must explain or even defend their reality of oppression (Matias & Grosland, 2016; Berry et al., 2021). However, not addressing it or staying ‘neutral’ as a facilitator can lead to silencing or reproduce harmful dominant discourses (Galman et al., 2010; Jones, 2016). By illustrating dilemmas around niceness from empirical and theoretical literature, we aim to contribute to our collective understanding of what happens in education that aims to transform systemic inequities, but can often (unintentionally) reinforce the injustices it is trying to disrupt.