10 Equity Books to Read This Summer

At Corwin, we believe that education is a basic human right—that we have a moral imperative to ensure every child has the opportunity to fully participate in a democratic society and lead a meaningful life. In support of this belief, we acknowledge the need to disrupt systems of oppression that disproportionally harm children of color and other marginalized groups.

Find below a small sampling of recommended reading from our many brilliant and courageous authors—many of them pioneers in the field of Equity, all of whom have made us better people and help us build a better world.

1. Hammond/Culturally Responsive Teaching & the Brain: Zaretta Hammond draws on cutting-edge neuroscience research to offer an innovative approach for designing and implementing brain-compatible culturally responsive instruction.
   
2. Singleton/Courageous Conversations About Race: Find here a blueprint for holding candid, courageous conversations about race so that we all can better understand why student disengagement and achievement inequality persist and how to develop a curriculum that promotes true educational equity and excellence.
   
3. Moore/Guide for White Women Who Teach Black Boys: So much more than a call to call to action—but that, too!—this book brings together research, activities, personal stories, and video interviews to help us all embrace the deep realities of American education and empower black boys to dream, believe, and achieve.
   
4. Feldman/Grading for Equity: Joe Feldman cuts to the core of the conversation, revealing how grading practices that are accurate, bias-resistant, and motivational will improve learning, minimize grade inflation, reduce failure rates, and become a lever for creating stronger teacher-student relationships and more caring classrooms.
   
5. Romero/Building Resilience in Students Impacted by Adverse Childhood Experiences: Learn how your school community can come together and utilize trauma-informed strategized to establish a healthy social-emotional climate for students and the staff who support them.
   
6. Calderon/Breaking Down the Wall: To distill this groundbreaking book into a single line would go something like this: if we can assume mutual ownership, if we can connect instruction to all children’s personal, social, cultural, and linguistic identities, then all students will achieve.
   
7. Milner/These Kids Are Out of Control: Discover what classroom learning could be if we aspire to co-create more culturally responsive and equitable environments—environments that are safe, affirming, learner-centered, intellectually challenging, and engaging.
   
8. Fergus/Solving Disproportionality and Achieving Equity: According to federal data, African American students are more than three times as likely as their white peers to be suspended or expelled. As a school leader, what do you do when your heart is in the right place, but your data show otherwise?
   
9. Arriaga/Leading While Female: This book’s big ambition? To help both women and men educational leaders confront and close the gender equity gap—a gap that currently denies highly qualified women and women of color opportunities to better serve our millions of public school students.
   
10. France/Reclaiming Professional Learning: Discover how corporate-driven individualized learning initiatives do more harm than good, especially among our most vulnerable students. The far-superior alternative? A human-centered pedagogy that prioritizes children over technology.