Every child valued and empowered to learn—this book shows you how!

This book is focused on a set of strategies that have a positive effect on student learning and attachment to schooling, in spite of real and powerful social inequalities. This evidence-based book is drawn from research showing that students from all backgrounds in identity safe classrooms learn better and like school more than their peers in other classrooms.

In identity safe classrooms, teachers strive to ensure that students feel their identity is an asset rather than a barrier to success at school. Elementary teachers will learn the importance of teaching pro-social skills and cooperative learning in the context of high expectations and challenging curriculum.

Use these strategies, rooted in social psychology research and child centered teaching practices, to build communities of learners in diverse classrooms. Invaluable teacher vignettes, reflective exercises, and practical advice make this comprehensive guide a must for creating an inclusive, academically challenging classroom where students come to understand the empowering message that who they are and what they think matters.

“In this timely, engaging, and needed book, Steele and Cohn-Vargas describe creative and captivating ways in which teachers can construct identity safe classrooms where students from diverse racial, social, economic, and linguistic groups can learn and flourish.”
—James A. Banks, Professor, University of Washington
Founding Director, Center for Multicultural Education

“This timely and pragmatic book thoughtfully lays out a new vision of education with design principles for inclusive, respectful, and rigorous classroom environments that promote expansive and culturally validating forms of learning.”
—Kris D. Gutierrez, Professor of Learning Sciences and Literacy
University of Colorado at Boulder

“The authors combine their scholarship, experience, and wisdom in this amazing book. We all want to know: How can we help students enjoy school and become eager learners? Educators, read this book and find out!”
—Carol Dweck, Professor
Stanford University

• Practitioner-oriented: Unlike the majority of books on this topic that call on school leaders to shift school culture , Steele and Cohn-Vargas address classroom teachers directly and offer strategies that can be implemented quickly with students.
• Grounded in a rich body of theory: This will be the first professional development resource that draws on Stereotype Threat, a groundbreaking line of social-psychological theory
• Classroom-tested: These strategies were highly successful when implemented during a year-long study of 84 elementary classrooms
• Built around an innovative framework: Features four categories of core instructional practices for creating identity-safe classrooms
• Includes vignettes and reflective exercises: These practical tools can be used by individual teachers or completed by teacher teams