Multicultural Education

Building on the ideas introduced in his New York Times best-selling book, For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood, Christopher Emdin introduces an alternative educational model that will help students (and teachers) celebrate ratchet identity in the classroom. Ratchetdemic advocates for a new kind of student identity - one that bridges the seemingly disparate worlds of the ivory tower and the urban classroom.

The context in which adolescents are learning has shifted radically since students first offered blunt advice to high school teachers in the groundbreaking Fires in the Bathroom, a perennial best seller. Now their world is changing at warp speed, and classrooms, too, are seething with anxiety. This sequel raises the voices of diverse youth around the nation as they live through the mind-bending quandaries of this era and ask their teachers to notice.

The Reconstruction and Rise of Jim Crow describes the fallout of the Civil War, whose aftermath left the United States South angry and poor. This book details the struggles to decide how to deal with the newly freed slaves, through the years of Reconstruction, Jim Crow, sharecropping, and segregation. The storyline also sets the stage for the country’s next battle, which is between the Jim Crow laws and the 14th and 15th Amendments.

In Just Ask, United States Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor celebrates the different abilities kids (and people of all ages) have. Using her own experience as a child who was diagnosed with diabetes, Justice Sotomayor writes about children with all sorts of challenges - and looks at the special powers those kids have as well. As the kids work together to build a community garden, asking questions of each other along the way, this book encourages listeners to do the same.

This friendly, fun biography series focuses on the traits that made our heroes great - the traits that kids can aspire to in order to live heroically themselves. Each book tells the story of one of America's icons in a lively, conversational way that works well for the youngest nonfiction listeners and that always includes the hero's childhood influences. This volume features Sonia Sotomayor, the first Latina Supreme Court Justice.

Sending his daughter off to college is the proudest day of single dad JaQuan Reynolds’s life. Everything took a back seat to raising her - including his career. He has no idea what comes next, but his newfound freedom is quickly curtailed by a crash deadline at work and the uptight, hovering presence of consultant Matthew Donaldson. He’s surly and insufferably sexy, and Jaq’s ready to check him out and write him off - right up until a work assignment forces them together.

In the newly revised Third Edition of The Dreamkeepers: Successful Teachers of African American Children, distinguished professor Dr. Gloria Ladson-Billings delivers an encouraging exploration of the future of education for African American students. She describes eight exemplary teachers, all of whom differ in their personal style and methods, who share an approach to teaching that affirms and strengthens cultural identity.

Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) play a pivotal role in promoting social and economic mobility for African Americans and in mentoring the next generation of Black leaders. In HBCU, Marybeth Gasman and Levon T. Esters explore the remarkable impact and contributions of these significant institutions. Through inspiring personal stories and extensive research, Gasman and Esters showcase how HBCUs have mentored generations of leaders and scholars, fostering a collaborative culture of success and empowerment.

In a polarizing and racially divided America, what do children of color learn about themselves before they even go to school? How do they see themselves and is that image only exacerbated by spending twelve years in a public education system that perpetuates negative stereotypes? Brian Rashad Fuller personally knows that the impact of low expectations can be devastating. He aims to make a difference in this humanizing and very personal portrayal of what it means to be Black in America's schools.

Rather than endure the conflict of racial realities, many people choose instead to avoid the topic altogether, or remain silent when it is raised. Race Talk and the Conspiracy of Silence: Understanding and Facilitating Difficult Dialogues on Race puts an end to that dynamic by sharing strategies for smoothing conversations about race in a productive manner. A guide for facilitating and participating in difficult dialogues about race, author Derald Wing Sue explores the characteristics, dynamics, and meaning behind discussions about race....

Carlton Monroe is finally getting his groove back. After a year playing dad to his nephew and sending him safely off to college, it’s back to his bachelor ways. But when his teenaged niece shows up on his doorstep looking for a permanent home, his plan comes to a screeching halt. Family is everything, and in the eyes of social services, a couple makes a better adoptive family than an overworked bachelor father. A fake relationship with his closest friend is the best way to keep his family together.

Almost 10 years before Brown vs. Board of Education, Sylvia Mendez and her parents helped end school segregation in California. An American citizen of Mexican and Puerto Rican heritage who spoke and wrote perfect English, Mendez was denied enrollment to a whites-only school. Her parents took action by organizing the Hispanic community and filing a lawsuit in federal district court. Their success eventually brought an end to the era of segregated education in California.

On August 28, 1963, more than 200,000 people gathered in Washington, DC, to demand equal rights for all races. It was there that Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech, and it was this peaceful protest that spurred the momentous civil rights laws of the mid-1960s.

Anasi, one of the great folk heroes of the world, is saved from a terible fate by his six sons in this traditional tale from West Africa.

Although there has been significant exploration of the need for and importance of culturally responsive, sustaining, equitable and inclusive teaching and learning within the past several years, the focus is often on creating these environments and experiences for Black and Brown students. Open Windows, Open Minds builds from Rudine Sims Bishop's concept of Mirrors, Windows and Sliding Glass Doors to provide anti-bias, anti-racist, and allyship development for teachers, then to offer strategies for moving that work into classroom instruction through literacy practices

Three clever soliders devise a plan to get food and lodging from the selfish inhabitants of a French village during the time of Napoleon.

Nicole M. Joseph investigates factors that contribute to the glaring underrepresentation of Black female students in mathematics. Joseph's account calls attention to educational structures and practices that contribute to race- and gender-based stratification in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. In her assessment of the intersectional difficulties facing this marginalized group, Joseph offers a critical view of the existing mathematics education research, practice, and policies that have neglected Black girls and women; and then provides suggestions for reform.

In 1994, 25-year-old Yuyi Morales traveled from her home in Yelapa, Mexico, to the San Francisco Bay Area with her two-month-old son, Kelly, in order to secure permanent residency in this country. Her passage was not easy, and she spoke no English whatsoever. But due in large measure to help and guidance provided by area children's librarians, she learned English the same way her young son learned to read. In spare, lyrical verse, Yuyi has created a lasting testament to the journeys, both physical and metaphorical, that she and Kelly have taken together in the intervening years.

Each of us has a finite amount of mental bandwidth, the cognitive resources that are available for learning, development, work, and everything else we have to do. These "attentional resources" are not about how smart we are, but about how much of our brain power is available to us for the task at hand.

When Thurgood Marshall - the great-grandson of a slave - was born, African Americans were denied equal rights in America. Segregation was legal. Lynching was common. In some places, African Americans were entirely excluded from public life; they were forbidden to enter public parks and museums or use public swimming pools and restrooms. After being denied admission to the University of Maryland Law School because of his race, Marshall enrolled at Howard University. He graduated first in his class and set out as a young lawyer determined to achieve equality for all Americans.