Courageous Conversations About Race

A Field Guide for Achieving Equity in Schools

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