Courageous Conversations About Race
A Field Guide for Achieving Equity in Schools
- Glenn E. Singleton - Pacific Educational Group
Foreword by Gloria Ladson-Billings
Create a systemwide plan for transforming the district office, schools, and classrooms into places that truly support ALL students achieving their highest levels!
This updated edition of the highly acclaimed bestseller continues to explain the need for candid, courageous conversations about race so that educators may understand why student disengagement and achievement inequality persists and learn how they can develop a curriculum that promotes true educational equity and excellence. Almost a decade since its original publication, the revised book includes new features as well as preserves the core content that led to many schools’ and districts’ success.
- NEW! Courageous Conversation Compass
- NEW! Racial autobiographies, offering more focused and relevant voices from a diverse group of skilled Courageous Conversation practitioners
- NEW! Case study on St. Paul Public Schools, a district that has stayed on track with Courageous Conversations and successfully implemented the Systemic Racial Equity Transformation Framework
- NEW! Links to video segments featuring the author describing different aspects of the work
- UPDATED! Implementation exercises
- UPDATED! Activities and checklists for school and district leaders
- UPDATED! Action steps for creating an effective equity team
"What this book has given me is an effective set of tools to support me in understanding, first, my own racial biography and then how to discuss with my team race and its impact on education. The lessons from this book offer a useful starting point for every school district that wants to change mindsets, policies, and outcomes. Singleton takes readers on a personally and professionally transformative journey toward understanding and action."
—S. Dallas Dance, Superintendent
Baltimore County Public Schools, MD
"All students, especially white students, need to read, think, converse and write about issues of race, racism and whiteness if teachers are to help move society into a more racially aware and just place for all. The work of Glenn Singleton and Pacific Educational Group gives educators the tools they need to have those Courageous Conversations."
—Jackie Roehl, 2012 Minnesota Teacher of the Year
Edina High School, Edenia, MN
"Brave and grounded, patient but pointed, Courageous Conversations About Race delivers a rare combination of critical information, illuminating perspective, and truly useful tools to get and keep us all engaged in the most important work of our time. A great nation is not defined by its ability to assimilate all of its citizens, but by its ability to provide equitable opportunities for all of them. This book shows us how."
—Dr. Anton Treuer, Author, Everything You Wanted to Know About Indians But Were Afraid to Ask; Executive Director, American Indian Resource Center
Bemidji State University, MN
"When I finished reading this book, I immediately wanted to share it with others. Glenn Singleton provides strategies and tools to help one examine one's own racial identity. His curriculum and modes of inquiry promote self-discovery and self-awareness. The racial autobiographies allowed me to deepen my racial consciousness and become a more effective Courageous Conversation practitioner. Mr. Singleton is the best equity practitioner I have worked with—provocative, stimulating, mindful of the sensitivities of this topic, and devoted to fulfilling our racial equity mandate."
—Ellen C. Stein, Head of School
The Dalton School, New York, NY
"In the first edition of his groundbreaking book, Courageous Conversations, Glenn Singleton made a powerful case that, in order to dismantle racism, it is first necessary to talk about and understand how power and privilege are related to race. In this second edition, he takes it one step further, adding racial autobiographies and supplements to make it even more accessible to diverse audiences. This work is sorely needed if we are ever to reach educational and social equity in our nation."
—Sonia Nieto, Professor Emerita - Language, Literacy, and Culture
College of Education, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
"The City’s leadership team has used Pacific Educational Group’s training and the Courageous Conversation protocol effectively to launch our racial equity work. Sharing these concepts and approaches with our partners, Saint Paul Public Schools, has created a level of trust and understanding around racial equity we didn’t have before."
—Christopher B. Coleman, Mayor
City of Saint Paul, MN
The Racial Achievement Gap and Other Systemic Racial Disparities |
Three Critical Factors |
The Courageous Conversation Strategy and Protocol |
Courageous Conversation |
A Difficult Conversation |
The Problem of the Color Line |
The Racial Gap |
Race as a Factor in Education |
Dealing With Race |
Establishing Common Language Around Race |
Do We Have the Will? |
Racial Autobiography Part I: Glenn Singleton |
Racial Consciousness |
Four Agreements of Courageous Conversation |
Racial Autobiography: Curtis Linton |
Personal, Local, and Immediate |
The Impact of Race on My Life |
Degree of Racial Consciousness |
Racial Consciousness Versus Racial Unconsciousness |
Racial Autobiography: Melissa Krull |
Isolating Race |
Unpacking Race |
Racial Autobiography: Patrick Sanchez |
Social Construction of Knowledge |
Surfacing Critical Perspectives |
Racial Autobiography: Leidene King |
Interracial Dialogue |
Creating Safety |
The Courageous Conversation Compass |
Racial Autobiography: Andrea Johnson |
A Brief History of Race |
A Working Definition of Race |
Racial Autobiography: Luis Versalles |
White Is a Color |
White Privilege |
White Is a Culture |
White Consciousness |
Whiteness as Examined in the Five Conditions |
White Racial Identity Development |
Racial Autobiography: Rev Hillstrom |
Invisibility Versus Hypervisibility |
Understanding Students of Color and Indigenous Students Within a White School |
Understanding Systemic White Racism |
The Injustice of Gradualism and Incremental Change |
Racial Autobiography: Courtlandt Butts |
A Vision of Equity |
Systemic Racial Equity Transformation |
Racial Autobiography: Unsuk Zucker |
Racial Autobiography: Malcolm Fialho |
Personal Racial Equity Leadership |
Individual Teacher Racial Equity Leadership |
Whole School Racial Equity Leadership |
Systemic Racial Equity Leadership |
St. Paul Public Schools: A Case Study |
Leadership for Racial Equity |
Racial Autobiography Part II: Glenn Singleton |
"What this book has given me is an effective set of tools to support me in understanding, first, my own racial biography and then how to discuss with my team race and its impact on education. The lessons from this book offer a useful starting point for every school district that wants to change mindsets, policies, and outcomes. Singleton takes readers on a personally and professionally transformative journey toward understanding and action."
"All students, especially white students, need to read, think, converse and write about issues of race, racism and whiteness if teachers are to help move society into a more racially aware and just place for all. The work of Glenn Singleton and Pacific Educational Group gives educators the tools they need to have those Courageous Conversations."
"Brave and grounded, patient but pointed, Courageous Conversations About Race delivers a rare combination of critical information, illuminating perspective, and truly useful tools to get and keep us all engaged in the most important work of our time. A great nation is not defined by its ability to assimilate all of its citizens, but by its ability to provide equitable opportunities for all of them. This book shows us how."
"When I finished reading this book, I immediately wanted to share it with others. Glenn Singleton provides strategies and tools to help one examine one's own racial identity. His curriculum and modes of inquiry promote self-discovery and self-awareness. The racial autobiographies allowed me to deepen my racial consciousness and become a more effective Courageous Conversation practitioner. Mr. Singleton is the best equity practitioner I have worked with—provocative, stimulating, mindful of the sensitivities of this topic, and devoted to fulfilling our racial equity mandate."
"In the first edition of his groundbreaking book, Courageous Conversations, Glenn Singleton made a powerful case that, in order to dismantle racism, it is first necessary to talk about and understand how power and privilege are related to race. In this second edition, he takes it one step further, adding racial autobiographies and supplements to make it even more accessible to diverse audiences. This work is sorely needed if we are ever to reach educational and social equity in our nation."
"The City’s leadership team has used Pacific Educational Group’s training and the Courageous Conversation protocol effectively to launch our racial equity work. Sharing these concepts and approaches with our partners, Saint Paul Public Schools, has created a level of trust and understanding around racial equity we didn’t have before."
“Aotearoa New Zealand and especially Auckland, is becoming increasingly diverse. Our learner population reflects that diversity, including Maori, Pacific and over 100 other ethnic groups. We are striving to create an environment that enables equity of success for all. That involves learning how to engage with these learners on their terms, and confronting how people of different racial backgrounds understand and interact with each other. Courageous Conversations provides vital insights that guide our journey.”
"Courageous Conversations About Race has guided our cultural transformation at Portland Public Schools toward becoming a more racially aware and culturally responsive institution - from our classroom instruction to our business and hiring practices. This protocol not only provides a way in to difficult conversations, it gives each of us the tools to see, own and act upon our role in perpetuating the status quo and understanding the urgency to reframe the paradigm for the success of all students."
“Courageous Conversations About Race came across my desk at a time that I had almost given up on engaging in discussions of race and equity. I was exhausted from countless painful and unproductive conversations on this sensitive topic. I quickly learned why so many people choose not to engage in these conversations - because it is hard. This book not only inspires educators and system level leaders to courageously address what we have all become comfortable with ignoring, but also gives us concrete tools for productively entering a conversation about race.”
“In a nation that too often eschews either real dialogue or courage when it comes to issues like race and inequality, and particularly in regard to education, Glenn Singleton has demonstrated over many years just how important fearlessness can be in transforming schools and communities into places where justice is possible. The Courageous Conversation approach to enhancing equity is invaluable to the struggle for a more fair-minded and truly just America.”
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Available formats
ISBN: 9781483320168 | Electronic Version | Suggested Retail Price: $36.95 | Bookstore Price: $29.56 |
ISBN: 9781483383743 | Paperback | Suggested Retail Price: $36.95 | Bookstore Price: $29.56 |
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