This study used two training sessions and two focus groups with 17 preservice teachers (aged 20–36) completing their first teaching practicum placement during their Bachelor of Education program at an urban research university in western Canada. The aim was to implement ideas from terror management theory (TMT) during their teaching practicum. Participants explored how to facilitate contentious issues so as to prevent defensive reactions when worldviews clash in the classroom. A dramaturgical analysis identified participant objectives, conflicts, tactics, attitudes, emotions, and subtexts as they explored how to anticipate and avoid worldview and self-esteem threat, navigate tense pedagogical spaces, build capacity for expressing uncomfortable emotions, and diffuse threat with humor. Because difficult emotions are central to teaching potentially polarizing content, participating preservice teachers explored when compensatory reactions might emerge and, as a result, developed their own emotional awareness—TMT became both an experience and a teachable theory.

本研究使用了两个培训课程和两个焦点小组，17 名职前教师（20-36 岁）在加拿大西部一所城市研究型大学的教育学士学位课程期间完成了他们的第一次教学实习。目的是在教学实习期间实施恐怖管理理论 (TMT) 的思想。参与者探讨了如何促进有争议的问题，以防止课堂上世界观发生冲突时的防御性反应。戏剧分析确定了参与者的目标、冲突、策略、态度、情绪和潜台词，因为他们探索了如何预测和避免世界观和自尊威胁，驾驭紧张的教学空间，培养表达不舒服情绪的能力，以及用幽默来分散威胁。