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Readings for Social Justice

Social Justice Reading List (Suggested)

  • Loewen, James (1995), Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong
  • Monti, Daniel J. A Semblance of Justice: St. Louis School Desegregation and Order in Urban America
  • Painter, Nell Irvin (2010), The History of White People
  • Alexander, Michelle (2010), The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
  • Smith, Chip (2007), The Cost of Privilege: Taking on the System of White Supremacy and Racism
  • Bell, Derrick (1992) Faces at the Bottom of the Well: The PErmanence of Racism
  • Zinn, Howard (1980), A People’s History of the United States
  • Wise, Tim (2008), White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son
  • Wise, Tim (2008), Speaking Treason Fluently: Anti-Racist Reflections from an Angry White Male.
  • Delpit, Lisa (1995), Other People’s Children: Cultural Conflict in the Classroom
  • Wise, Tim (2010), Colorblind: The Rise of Post Racial Politics and the Retreat from Racial Equity
  • Harris-Lacewell, Melissa (2004), Barbershops, Bibles, and BET: Everyday Talk and lack Political Thought.
  • Wells, Amy Stuart and Robert L. Crain (1997), Stepping Over the Colorline: African-American Students in White Suburban Schools
  • Delpit, Lisa and Joanne Kilgour Dowdy, The Skin That We Speak: Thoughts o Language and Culture in the Classroom.
  • Hooks, Bell (1981), Ain’t I a Woman: Black women and feminism
  • Hooks, Bell (2003) Teaching Community: A Pedagogy of Hope. 
  • Tatum, Beverly Daniel (1997), Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? And Other Conversations about Race.
  • Tatum, Beverly Daniel (2007) Can We Talk About Race? And Other Conversations in an Era of School Re-segregation. Beacon Press, Boston.
  • LaRosa-Stern, Caryl and Ellen Hofheimer Bettmann (2000), Anti-Defamation League’s Hate Hurts: How Children Learn and Unlearn Prejudice
  • Ross, Howard (2014) Everyday Bias: Identifying and Navigating Unconscious Judgments in Our Daily Lives. Rowman & Littlefield, London.
  • Kozol, Jonathan (2005), The Shame of the Nation: The restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America
  • Wise, Tim (2009), Between Barack and a Hard Place: Racism and White Denial in the Age of Obam
  • Freire, Paulo (2011), Pedagogy of the Oppressed
  • Hooks, Bell (1995), Killing Rage: Ending Racism
  • Matais, Cheryl E. (2016) Feeling White: Whiteness, Emotionality, and Education
  • Kitwana, Bakari (2002), The Hip Hop Generation: Young Blacks and the Crisis in African-American Culture
  • Bell, Derrick (1948), Faces at the Bottom of the Well: The Permanence of Racism
  • Lipsitz, George (2011), How Racism Takes Place
  • Brandt, Joseph (1991), Dismantling Racism: The Continuing Challenge to White America
  • Kivel, Paul (1995), Uprooting Racism: How White People Can Work for Racial Justice
  • Feinberg, Leslie (1996), Transgender Warriors
  • Berger, Maurice (1999), White Lies: Race and the Myths of Whiteness
  • DiAngelo, Robin (2018), White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism
  • Coates, Ta-Nehisi (2015), Between the World and Me
  • Ortiz, Paul (2018) An African American and LatinX History of the United States
  • Howard, Gary R. (2006)We Can’t Teach What We Don’t Know: White Teachers, Multiracial Schools. Teachers College Press. New York
  • Delgado, Richard and Jean Stefancic (2001) Critical Race Theory: An Introduction. New York University Press. New York and London
  • Hamer, Jennifer F. (2011) Abandoned in the Heartland: Work, Family, and Living in East St. Louis. University of California Press. Berkeley and Los Angeles
  • Taylor, Edward, David Gillborn, and Gloria Ladson-Billings eds. (2009) Foundations of Critical Race Theory in Education. Routledge. New York and London
  • Au, Wayne ed. (2014) ReThinking Multicultural Education: Teaching for Race and Cultural Justice. ReThinking Schools Publication. Wisconsin
  • Adams, Maurianne and Lee Anne Bell, with Diane J. Goodman and Khyati Y. Joshi eds. (2016) Teaching for Diversity and Social Justice third edition. Routledge. New York
  • Steele, Claude M. (2010) whistling vivalid: how stereotypes affect us and what we can do. W.W. Norton & Company. New York & London
  • Sensoy, Ozem and Robin DiAngelo (2017) Is Everyone Really Equal? An Introduction to Key Concepts in Social Justice Education. Teachers College Press. Teachers College Columbia University, New York
  • Weiner, Lois (1999) Urban Teaching The Essentials. Teachers College Press. Teachers College, Columbia University, New York.
  • Emdin, Christopher (2016) For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood…and the rest of y’all too: Reality Pedagogy and Urban Education. Beacon Press. Boston.
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