This book is for anyone who is challenged or troubled by the substantial disparities in college participation, persistence, and completion among racial and ethnic groups in the United States. As codirectors of the Center for Urban Education (CUE) at the University of Southern California, coauthors Alicia Dowd and Estela Bensimon draw on their experience conducting CUE’s Equity Scorecard, a comprehensive action research process that has been implemented at over 40 colleges and universities in the United States. They demonstrate what educators need to know and do to take an active role in racial equity work on their own campuses. Through case studies of college faculty, administrators, and student affairs professionals engaged in inquiry using the Equity Scorecard, the book clarifies the “muddled conversation” that colleges and universities are having about equity. Synthesizing equity standards based on three theories of justice—justice as fairness, justice as care, and justice as transformation—the authors provide strategies for enacting equity in practice on college campuses. Engaging the “Race Question” illustrates how practitioner inquiry can be used to address the “race question” with wisdom and calls on college leaders and educators to change the policies and practices that perpetuate institutional and structural racism—and provides a blueprint for doing so. Book Features: Provides concrete examples of policy and practice for improving equity in postsecondary education. Examines the role of individuals and groups in the change process. Includes examples of action research tools from the Equity Scorecard. Offers strategies for professional development and organizational change. “Dowd and Bensimon have been at the forefront of racial equity research in higher education for nearly two decades, and their racial equity scorecard has changed the way higher education thinks about the issue.” —Patricia Gándara, co-director, The Civil Rights Project “Proven strategies that every educator in America can use to develop context-specific solutions for advancing equity while exploring the legacy of institutionalized racism that typically paralyzes reform and hinders change.” —Tia Brown McNair, senior director for student success, Association of American Colleges and Universities “A valuable step-by-step guide to making our colleges more academically inviting and egalitarian.” —Mike Rose, author of Back to School: Why Everyone Deserves a Second Chance at Education

Conversations about race can be confusing, contentious, and frightening, particularly for White people. Even just asking questions about race can be scary because we are afraid of what our questions might reveal about our ignorance or bias. Raising Race Questions invites teachers to use inquiry as a way to develop sustained engagement with challenging racial questions and to do so in community so that they learn how common their questions actually are. It lays out both a process for getting to questions that lead to growth and change, as well as a vision for where engagement with race questions might lead. Race questions are not meant to lead us into a quagmire of guilt, discomfort, or isolation. Sustained race inquiry is meant to lead to anti-racist classrooms, positive racial identities, and a restoration of the wholeness of spirit and community that racism undermines. Book Features: Case studies of expert and experienced White teachers who still have questions about race. Approaches for talking about race in the K–12 classroom. Strategies for facilitating race conversations among adults. A variety of different resources useful in the teacher inquiry groups described in the book. Research with teachers, not on teachers, including written responses from each teacher whose classroom is featured in the book. “In Raising Race Questions Ali Michael is an excavator, determined to dig into every unexplored crevice of White teachers’ experiences with race in order to unearth the complex realities of racism and schooling, and a model of reflective inquiry, willing to lay herself and her assumptions bare in service to the reader's consciousness and her own. This book grew my consciousness in multiple ways, and that is the greatest gift an author can give me.” —Paul Gorski, founder, EdChange, associate professor, George Mason University “Ali Michael has a gift for getting people talking. This must-read book captures her ‘magic’ and shares useful strategies for teachers and schools working to develop their racial proficiency. As a White teacher engaged in this work, I've watched these tools help educators support one another as they make mistakes, reflect, and grow together.” —Lynn Eckerman, Teacher, Independence Charter School, Philadelphia, PA

In this #1 New York Times bestseller, Ijeoma Oluo offers a revelatory examination of race in America Protests against racial injustice and white supremacy have galvanized millions around the world. The stakes for transformative conversations about race could not be higher. Still, the task ahead seems daunting, and it’s hard to know where to start. How do you tell your boss her jokes are racist? Why did your sister-in-law hang up on you when you had questions about police reform? How do you explain white privilege to your white, privileged friend? In So You Want to Talk About Race, Ijeoma Oluo guides readers of all races through subjects ranging from police brutality and cultural appropriation to the model minority myth in an attempt to make the seemingly impossible possible: honest conversations about race, and about how racism infects every aspect of American life. "Simply put: Ijeoma Oluo is a necessary voice and intellectual for these times, and any time, truth be told." ―Phoebe Robinson, New York Times bestselling author of You Can't Touch My Hair

A new, interactive approach to storytime, The Whole Book Approach was developed in conjunction with the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art and expert author Megan Dowd Lambert's graduate work in children's literature at Simmons College, offering a practical guide for reshaping storytime and getting kids to think with their eyes. Traditional storytime often offers a passive experience for kids, but the Whole Book approach asks the youngest of readers to ponder all aspects of a picture book and to use their critical thinking skills. Using classic examples, Megan asks kids to think about why the trim size of Ludwig Bemelman's Madeline is so generous, or why the typeset in David Wiesner's Caldecott winner,The Three Pigs, appears to twist around the page, or why books like Chris Van Allsburg's The Polar Express and Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar are printed landscape instead of portrait. The dynamic discussions that result from this shared reading style range from the profound to the hilarious and will inspire adults to make children's responses to text, art, and design an essential part of storytime.

"Since the highly acclaimed Courageous Conversations About Race offered educators a frame work and tools for promoting racial equity, many schools have implemented the Courageous Conversations Protocol. Now ... in a book that's rich with anecdote, Singleton celebrates the successes, outlines the difficulties, and provides specific strategies for moving Courageous Conversations from racial equity theory to practice at every level, from the classroom to the school superintendent's office"--Back cover.

The New York Times best-selling book exploring the counterproductive reactions white people have when their assumptions about race are challenged, and how these reactions maintain racial inequality. In this “vital, necessary, and beautiful book” (Michael Eric Dyson), antiracist educator Robin DiAngelo deftly illuminates the phenomenon of white fragility and “allows us to understand racism as a practice not restricted to ‘bad people’ (Claudia Rankine). Referring to the defensive moves that white people make when challenged racially, white fragility is characterized by emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and by behaviors including argumentation and silence. These behaviors, in turn, function to reinstate white racial equilibrium and prevent any meaningful cross-racial dialogue. In this in-depth exploration, DiAngelo examines how white fragility develops, how it protects racial inequality, and what we can do to engage more constructively.

"This wonderful book should be a first choice for all collections and is strongly recommended as a springboard for discussions about differences.” —School Library Journal (starred review) In this acclaimed book, the author of the Newbery Honor Book To Be a Slave shares his own story as he explores what makes each of us special. A strong choice for sharing at home or in the classroom. Karen Barbour's dramatic, vibrant paintings speak to the heart of Lester's unique vision, truly a celebration of all of us. "This stunning picture book introduces race as just one of many chapters in a person's story" (School Library Journal). "Lester's poignant picture book helps children learn, grow, discuss, and begin to create a future that resolves differences" (Children's Literature). Julius Lester said: "I write because our lives are stories. If enough of these stories are told, then perhaps we will begin to see that our lives are the same story. The differences are merely in the details." I am a story. So are you. So is everyone.