Books We're Reading
Foundational Texts
The Dreamkeepers: Successful Teachers of African American Children by Gloria Ladson-Billings
“In the second edition of her critically acclaimed book The Dreamkeepers, Gloria Ladson-Billings revisits the eight teachers who were profiled in the first edition and introduces us to new teachers who are current exemplars of good teaching. She shows that culturally relevant teaching is not a matter of race, gender, or teaching style. What matters most is a teacher’s efforts to work with the unique strengths a child brings to the classroom. A brilliant mixture of scholarship and storytelling, The Dreamkeepers challenges us to envision intellectually rigorous and culturally relevant classrooms that have the power to improve the lives of not just African American students, but all children. This new edition also includes questions for reflection.” (Publisher’s note)
Culturally Responsive Teaching: Theory, Research, and Practice by Geneva Gay
“Beginning with the assertion that the PreK–12 educational system as it exists now is inequitable, particularly for children of color, Gay demolishes the deficit-based models of achievement remediation, instead arguing for a more holistic appreciation for the gifts and strengths children from diverse cultural backgrounds bring to the classroom environment and how teachers can better prepare to act in culturally-responsive ways.” (The Wabash Center Journal on Teaching)
Culture in School Learning: Revealing the Deep Meaning by Etta Hollins
“Challenging educators to better understand themselves and their students, this text presents a powerful process for developing a teaching perspective that embraces the centrality of culture in school learning. The six-part process covers examining culture, personalizing culture, inquiring about students’ cultures and communities, applying knowledge about culture to teaching, formulating theory or a conceptual framework linking culture and school learning, and transforming professional practice to better meet the needs of students from different cultural and experiential backgrounds. All aspects of the process are interrelated and interdependent. Two basic procedures employed in this process are presented: constructing an operational definition of culture that reveals its deep meaning in cognition and learning, and applying the reflective-interpretive-inquiry (RIQ) approach to making linkages between students’ cultural and experiential backgrounds and classroom instruction. Pedagogical features in each chapter include Focus Questions; Chapter Summaries; Suggested Learning Experiences, Critical Reading lists. A Companion Website, new for the Third Edition (www.routledge.com/cw/Hollins), provides additional student resources.” (Publisher’s note)
Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paolo Friere
“First published in Portuguese in 1968, Pedagogy of the Oppressed was translated and published in English in 1970. The methodology of the late Paulo Freire has helped to empower countless impoverished and illiterate people throughout the world. Freire’s work has taken on especial urgency in the United States and Western Europe, where the creation of a permanent underclass among the underprivileged and minorities in cities and urban centers is increasingly accepted as the norm.”
Mindset by Carol Dweck
“After decades of research, world-renowned Stanford University psychologist Carol S. Dweck, Ph.D., discovered a simple but groundbreaking idea: the power of mindset. In this brilliant book, she shows how success in school, work, sports, the arts, and almost every area of human endeavor can be dramatically influenced by how we think about our talents and abilities. People with a fixed mindset—those who believe that abilities are fixed—are less likely to flourish than those with a growth mindset—those who believe that abilities can be developed. Mindset reveals how great parents, teachers, managers, and athletes can put this idea to use to foster outstanding accomplishment.” (Publisher’s note)
Courageous Conversations About Race by Glenn Singleton and Curtis Linton
“Schools, like all organizations, face a nearly insurmountable hurdle when addressing racial inequities―the inability to talk candidly about race. In this timely update, author Glenn Singleton enables you to break the silence and open an authentic dialogue that forges a path to progress for racial equity. The third edition offers new coverage of the structural inequities in schools and society that have been exposed by the pandemic as well as heightened public awareness of racial injustice.” (Publisher’s note)
Focus on Higher Education
Diversity and Inclusion on Campus: Supporting Students of Color in Higher Education by Rachelle Winkle-Wagner and Angela Locks
“This new and updated second edition of Diversity and Inclusion on Campus: Supporting Students of Color in Higher Education provides an exploration of the range of college experiences, from gaining access to higher education to successfully persisting through degree programs. By bridging research, theory, and practice related to the ways that peers, faculty, administrators, staff, and institutions can and do influence racially and ethnically diverse students’ experiences, Winkle-Wagner and Locks examine how and why it is imperative to have an understanding of the issues that affect students of color in higher education.” (Publisher’s note)
Teaching Across Cultural Strengths by Alicia Chavez and Susan Longerbeam
“With a steady range of specific examples of how to create more culturally inclusive pedagogies persuasively supported by faculty testimonies of pleasure at how students are more engaged, no one can pretend it can’t be done in their courses. The moving quotes from students threaded throughout the book should prick the conscience of those immobilized into only one form of teaching. Faculty need only to listen to students in this book―and in their own classes―to realize the transformative possibilities they can unleash in their classrooms.” (Caryn McTighe Musil, Senior Scholar, AAC&U)
From Equity Talk to Equity Walk: Expanding Practitioner Knowledge for Racial Justice in Higher Education by Tia McNair, Estela Mara Bensimon and Lindsey Malcom-Piquiex
“From Equity Talk to Equity Walk offers practical guidance on the design and application of campus change strategies for achieving equitable outcomes. Drawing from campus-based research projects sponsored by the Association of American Colleges and Universities and the Center for Urban Education at the University of Southern California, this invaluable resource provides real-world steps that reinforce primary elements for examining equity in student achievement, while challenging educators to specifically focus on racial equity as a critical lens for institutional and systemic change.” (Publisher’s note)
Black Minds Matter: Realizing the Brilliance, Dignity, and Morality of Black Males in Education by J. Luke Wood
“The comments presented in this book are based on lectures Dr. J. Luke Wood, Ph.D. gave during the Black Minds Matter course and during speeches that were associated with the class. The goal of this book is to convey social science research in a manner that is accessible to the people it is designed to reach. While this book is designed for educators of Black boys and men, the accessible tone is designed to ensure that the messages expressed are useful for non-educators – namely parents, community members, and advocates for Black males.” (Publisher’s note)
Popular Reading
Caste: The Origins of our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson
Beyond race, class, or other factors, there is a powerful caste system that influences people’s lives and behavior and the nation’s fate. Linking the caste systems of America, India, and Nazi Germany, Wilkerson explores eight pillars that underlie caste systems across civilizations, including divine will, bloodlines, stigma, and more. Using riveting stories about people—including Martin Luther King, Jr., baseball’s Satchel Paige, a single father and his toddler son, Wilkerson herself, and many others—she shows the ways that the insidious undertow of caste is experienced every day.
Learning from the Germans: Race and the Memory of Evil by Susan Neiman
In the wake of white nationalist attacks, the ongoing debate over reparations, and the controversy surrounding Confederate monuments and the contested memories they evoke, Susan Neiman’s Learning from the Germans delivers an urgently needed perspective on how a country can come to terms with its historical wrongdoings. Neiman is a white woman who came of age in the civil rights–era South and a Jewish woman who has spent much of her adult life in Berlin. Working from this unique perspective, she combines philosophical reflection, personal stories, and interviews with both Americans and Germans who are grappling with the evils of their own national histories.
hite Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk about Racism by Robin DiAngelo
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.