The increasing complexity of contemporary life demands deeper student learning, highlighting the need for ambitious instruction—teaching practices that foster deep engagement and problem-solving skills among students. Experimenting with ambitious instruction requires teachers to engage in complex learning processes that involve the examination of their taken-for-granted assumptions about effective teaching and being a good teacher. These assumptions may differ from teachers’ learning experiences, and the way schooling is organized (Cohen & Ball, 1999). Teachers may face a significant challenge when they encounter ambitious professional development since it creates conflicts in teachers’ perceptions about the meaning of good teaching (Kolikant et al., 2020), which can bring about resistance.

Building on Gitlin & Margonis (1995), this study frames teacher resistance not merely as opposition but as a “political act” that exposes systemic challenges within schooling, which reflects a form of "good sense".

During professional development, resistance can serve as a resource for teacher learning, creating ruptures toward possibility discourse (Rainio & Hofmann, 2021)—in which teachers rethink their existing practices and assumptions. The analysis of the discursive devices teachers use, also termed “micro-linguistic tools that people use in interaction in order to construct a particular version of the world and their relationship to it” (Mueller & Whittle, 2011, p. 5), may reveal teachers' self-view as agentic or un-agentic regarding the difficulties experienced by students. Teachers might stabilize limited views about students' difficulties, restabilize them by closing new opportunities, or destabilize them—articulating ruptures, and opening opportunities for possibility discourse (Rainio & Hofmann, 2021).

When professional development focuses on controversial topics, teachers encounter additional complexities because of these topics' sensitive nature. Teachers may feel discomfort or helplessness, with some avoiding contentious issues and others seeking strategies to reframe the issues (Hess & McAvoy, 2015). Professional development can support teachers by exposing systemic challenges within teaching through interaction (Lefstein et al., 2020). Facilitators play a key role in professional development, managing in-the-moment decision-making and challenging learners’ assumptions (Hmelo‐Silver et al., 2019). Yet, how facilitators navigate teacher resistance toward possibility discourse remains underexplored (Borko et al., 2014). 

Although teachers’ resistance has been studied in reform contexts (for example, Gitlin & Margonis, 1995) and individual coaching (Jacobs et al., 2018), professional development research often overlooks its potential as a resource for possibility discourse in teacher-facilitator interaction. This study aims to address this gap. Specifically, our research question is: What forms of resistance do teachers express in professional development, and how do these acts of resistance play out in the unfolding discourse and interaction?

Using a micro-ethnographic approach to discourse analysis (Bloome et al., 2005), we explored interactions between teachers and facilitators in two PD programs designed to support classroom discussions of controversial political and societal issues. We identified and characterized three forms of teacher resistance that emerged as conceptual, pedagogical, and participatory, each exposing systemic challenges by questioning assumptions, processes, or structures of professional development (Gitlin & Margonis, 1995).

Conceptual resistance involved teachers’ conceptualizations of students’ lack of motivation. Pedagogical resistance involved teachers' lack of practical tools for controversial classroom discussions, highlighting the gap between theoretical ideals and actionable pedagogical resources. Participatory resistance emerged when teachers sought an active role in professional development, citing limited authority in decision-making, which underscored systemic issues in collaborative structures.

By closely examining these interactions of teacher and facilitator, our findings offer concrete insights into how professional learning and development processes can lead to more deliberate ways to support teachers, thereby contributing to the knowledge base on professional development in complex educational contexts.

This study is part of a larger investigation into two professional development programs (August 2024–June 2025) focused on classroom discussions about controversial political and societal issues. One program involved 25 Israeli in-service teachers and two experienced facilitators from eight high schools. The second involved 20 Israeli in-service teachers and two experienced facilitators from six high schools. We examined 12 hours of discussions from the first two sessions of each program. In these sessions, teachers selected discussion themes, planned lessons, and reflected on their classroom experiences—key to addressing teachers’ discomfort and offering opportunities to expose systemic challenges (Hess & McAvoy, 2015). Data included video and audio recordings of each session, transcribed and analyzed (Bloome et al., 2005). Resistance is interpreted as teachers’ alternative to cooperation within interaction, reflecting their attempts to challenge, reframe, or delay proposed actions. Such acts often highlighted systemic issues, such as teacher authority (Gitlin & Margonis, 1995). We focused on teachers’ expressions that deviated from expected discourse norms; we interpreted these deviations as acts of resistance (Humă et al., 2023). We uncovered how these acts unfolded and potentially supported possibility discourse by revealing teachers’ “good sense”. Our analytic process unfolded in four steps: (1) Identifying opportunities that supported or hindered participants’ perceptions and practices, by examining issues that appeared particularly consequential, for example, how participants navigated tensions between their perspectives (Lefstein et al., 2017), (2) identifying and analyzing opportunities for the creation of ruptures, such as the negotiation of tensions and concerns, revealing how the expansion of teachers’ practices and assumptions occurred. Noting that acts of resistance were identified within these rupture opportunities, we examined what each participant did—the teachers and the facilitators (Humă et al., 2023). (3) Comparing examples of resistance across sessions and categorizing them as conceptual, pedagogical, and participatory, (4) identifying discursive devices by comparing data examples across sessions (Rainio & Hofmann, 2021).

This study demonstrates how teacher-facilitator interactions can shift teachers from reinforcing existing assumptions to possibility discourse—a shift crucial for ambitious instruction yet often constrained by resistance. By identifying conceptual, pedagogical, and participatory forms of resistance, we highlight distinct openings that can support possibility discourse. By characterizing these forms as “good sense” (Gitlin & Margonis, 1995), we illustrate how facilitators and teachers can respond with targeted strategies—whether by encouraging teachers to confront implicit assumptions, providing tangible pedagogical tools, or enabling collaborative decision-making processes. Moreover, each form of resistance may support possibility discourse in unique ways. Our micro-analysis of language use further reveals how “the smallest openings…create explicit spaces” (Rainio & Hofmann, 2021, p. 742) within the subtext, potentially enabling or hindering teachers’ to engagement in the interaction, and highlighting ways to strengthen them professionally as active in relation to change. Facilitators can adopt specific destabilizing strategies to help teachers engage in ambitious instructional practices that may expand their existing assumptions. While resistance may appear most prominently during early sessions when group norms form (Gelfand & Jackson, 2016), it remains a potential resource throughout the entire professional development (Boschman et al., 2014). Missed opportunities to address resistance risk leaving current assumptions unexamined. Future research should examine the dual nature of resistance—investigating when it fosters teacher learning and when it hinders it. Additionally, research should identify facilitator strategies that work together, engage participants, advance ideas, and consistently promote possibility discourse while mitigating counterproductive forms of resistance.

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