This study explored how world history teachers think about the United States and the world in their practice. The purpose of this study was to understand how teachers make decisions about including the United States in their world history instruction and how those choices position the United States in relation to the world. The study sought to consider how teachers describe their roles as world history teachers and the ways they exercise these roles to reinforce or challenge broad cultural ideas such as American exceptionalism. This qualitative study focused on the reflections and descriptions of four world history teachers in the same Midwestern state. Semi-structured interviews that included prompts and resources were used to collect data over two months in the spring of 2020. Figured worlds and teacher decision making were combined with a macro discourse analysis to examine participant responses and resources. While other studies have examined world history curriculum more broadly or how teachers organize world history content, the findings of this study suggest that while teachers aspire to broaden student views of the world, they are influenced by more than that aspiration. Their instructional decisions are also influenced by broader cultural understandings such as American exceptionalism and Western-influenced theories of democracy. These cultural understandings position the United States as an exemplar, a modern power, an extension of Western actions or as separated from the happenings of the rest of the world at times. This study suggests that teachers, both in and pre-service teachers navigate a variety of considerations and influences in their teaching. It also demonstrates that teachers might benefit from more opportunities to examine the ways that societal views impact their choices as well as access to decolonial knowledge that might also impact their choices.
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