Some preservice teachers yearn to disrupt adult-centric hierarchies that tend to dominate classroom discourse, resisting the traditional positioning of teachers as solitary holders of knowledge and authority. As preservice teachers (PTs) consider how to provide students with the "space to grow on their own," they also question how such disruptions might play out in politically contested spaces like school. This article considers how the development of a critical stance of "holding space" for youth epistemologies, literacies and identities in teacher preparation might better prepare emerging educators to position themselves as co-partners with young people in classrooms, and the kinds of curricular and instructional strategies employed by a university instructor to support the development of such a stance.