Race and other forms of difference are socially constructed concepts, continually reproduced and redefined in interaction. It is important to focus on how race and class are constructed by future teachers, because the ways in which they perceive their students may affect their interactions in the classroom, including having lower expectations for certain minority groups. This study focuses on how a cohort of interns--predominantly White (European American) and middle-class--make sense of racial and class differences while teaching in an urban, low-income, minority-race high school. Ethnographically oriented discourse analysis was employed to examine the interns' representations of difference. Findings include the rarity of explicit discourse about race and class, the functions of various discourse strategies to circumvent explicit discussions, and a deficit model approach among interns toward educating low income, minority students. (Contains 4 tables.)