Emotional Configurations of White Shame and White Ambivalence for White Interns in a Secondary Science Teaching Program

ABSTRACT As a part of the special issue Centering Affect and Emotion Toward Justice and Dignity in Science Edcation, this article draws together literature around emotions and white supremacy. Specifically, I draw upon the work of Reverend Thandeka and Ralph Ellison to describe emotional configurations (Vea, 2020) of whiteness. Focusing on the experiences of three White secondary science interns, I use storytelling to describe how white shame (Thandeka, 1999) and white ambivalence (Ellison, 1953/1995) mattered in how interns learned to be more antiracist within a secondary science program. In doing so, I argue white shame and white ambivalence are emotional configurations that are a part of learning for White secondary science interns and should be targets of learning for White secondary science interns.