Anti-Racism and Anti-Bias Resources
A Focus on Transformative Social-Emotional Learning
We’re committed to addressing racial injustice and helping you drive real change in your school communities. These resources will help you implement social-emotional learning (SEL) in a way that builds on students’ cultural assets, critically examines systems of power, and develops better ways of teaching, learning, and being. The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) calls this transformative SEL. Engaging in this form of SEL is challenging—it pushes us to question long-standing beliefs, assumptions, and policies—but it is necessary to move toward a more just and equitable future.
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Resources for School and District Administrators
We believe that transformative SEL needs to happen with students, among educators, and at the whole-school level. These resources can help school leaders reimagine and redesign their practices and policies through an SEL and equity framework.
- The Society for Research in Child Development has published a set of recommendations for school practices and policies that can mitigate disparities during the COVID-19 pandemic for historically marginalized groups, including American Indian and Alaska Native, Asian, Black, Latinx, and LGBTQ+ youth.
- The National Equity Project is a leading organization that provides coaching and resources to leaders and teams.
- CASEL has a framework for integrating SEL and equity work.
- The National Technical Assistance Center on Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) has developed guides to enhancing equity through school discipline policy and family engagement.
- Elena Aguilar’s Coaching for Equity: Conversations That Change Practice is an excellent guide for school leaders and teacher coaches who seek to leverage transformational coaching to advance equity.
- The Anti-Defamation League has a powerful report called Antisemitism Uncovered which examines antisemitic myths that are still present in the 21st century and provides recommendations for confronting these myths.
Resources for Educators
Developing social-emotional competencies is a lifelong and reflection-driven process. This is even more true of transformative SEL. These resources for understanding educational inequity, developing cultural literacy, and learning actionable strategies for the classroom can empower educators to make equity a priority and create inclusive spaces for all students.
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Hollaback!, an anti-harassment organization, partnered with Asian Americans Advancing Justice to adapt the Hollaback! bystander intervention training specifically to combat the recent rise in anti-Asian harassment. Trainings are offered virtually and require advanced registration.
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“Addressing Anti-Asian Racism with Students” is a Q&A with anti-bias educator Liz Kleinrock, conducted by the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center.
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To understand the context of educational inequities, we recommend the foundational book Why Race and Culture Matter in Schools: Closing the Achievement Gap in America’s Classrooms by Tyrone C. Howard, as well as 13th, a Netflix documentary from director Ava DuVernay that outlines the systemic underpinnings of the school-to-prison pipeline.
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Knowing your students’ cultures and the history of their cultural groups is an important first step to cultural literacy. A number of excellent resources are available, including:
- So You Want to Talk About Race, a New York Times bestselling book and a hard-hitting personal examination of race by Black author Ijeoma Oluo
- The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross is a six-part PBS series on African American history in the US
- Asian Americans is a five-part PBS documentary on Asian American history in the US
- Latino Americans is a six-part PBS series on Latino American history in the US
- Underwater Dreams tells the story of a predominantly Latinx high school and their robotics team
- In Kent Nerburn’s Neither Wolf nor Dog: On Forgotten Roads with an Indian Elder, the reader gets to know Native American history and culture through an elder
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There’s a large amount of research on the role of implicit or unconscious bias and its impact on student-teacher interactions and classroom climate. Google has published a comprehensive but accessible report titled ”Unconscious Bias in the Classroom: Evidence and Opportunities.” An implicit bias test is available from Project Implicit.
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The following resources will provide you with a strong understanding of the role of race, ethnicity, and culture in education, and translate that information into actionable strategies you can implement in your classroom:
- Facing History and Ourselves is an excellent free resource for all teachers who want to integrate anti-racist lessons into their classrooms. It’s particularly well-suited for history and social studies teachers.
- Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain: Promoting Authentic Engagement and Rigor Among Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students, by Zaretta L. Hammond, is an evidence-informed and practical guide to culturally responsive teaching.
- CASEL’s webinar, Equity and SEL—What Educators Need to Know and Do, expands on CASEL’s framework to include equity considerations and provides an overview of evidence-informed strategies to enhance equity in your classroom.
- Creating Opportunities Through Relationships (COR) is a web-based training for teachers to help them strengthen relationships with students, particularly students from marginalized racial and ethnic groups. The COR learning modules include training on implicit bias and strategies to combat implicit bias.
- Learning for Justice provides a range of free materials for educators: learning modules that make you think, presentations you can share, and hands-on workshops with expert trainers. These resources help teachers improve their practice and help K–12 leaders shape their schools into strong, equitable communities.
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Learning for Justice (formerly Teaching Tolerance) provides resources to help educators teach about Jewish identities and antisemitism. In addition, the Learning for Justice website has excellent search and filter features that will help you find specific resources and student-facing materials and lessons.
Resources for Working with Students
These resources include curated lessons for educators and schools looking to integrate anti-racism and anti-bias concepts into their SEL work, plus a reading list dedicated to promoting healthy racial identity development in youth.
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Learning for Justice published an article on “speak up” strategies tailored to anti-Asian harassment. The speak up strategies can also be translated to a lesson plan.
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The University of Connecticut Asian and Asian American Studies Institute partnered with the #IAMNOTAVIRUS campaign and the Asian American Literary Review to provide Asian American students with a mental health workbook. This workbook is most appropriate for high school students.
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Learning for Justice, a respected leader in the field of anti-racism and anti-bias work, has designed a robust set of free lessons with direct instruction on identity, diversity, justice, and action that complement and enhance SEL skills. We’ve curated a set of lessons aligned to Second Step® Elementary and Second Step® Middle School. These lessons are aligned by Second Step® unit, lesson, and grade, as well as CASEL core competencies and social justice domains. We recommend teaching these lessons in tandem with your Second Step implementation.
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The Conscious Kid offers a diverse children’s book library that centers underrepresented and oppressed groups.
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Facing History and Ourselves is an excellent free resource for all teachers who want to integrate anti-racist lessons into their classrooms. It’s particularly well-suited for history and social studies teachers.
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Facing History and Ourselves provides materials to help educators learn and teach about antisemitism and religious intolerance and related classroom materials.
Resources from Committee for Children
Resources for educators, schools, and families brought to you by Committee for Children, the nonprofit behind the Second Step® family of programs.
Learning for Justice and Second Step® Programs Alignment Charts
This chart shows how selected Learning for Justice lessons align to the Second Step® Elementary and Second Step® Middle School digital programs.
Superhero Captain Compassion Empowers Kids to Prevent Race-Based Bullying
Our 2020 Captain Compassion® campaign teaches kids and adults to use their bystander power and provides guidance on how to recognize, report, and refuse bullying of racial- and ethnic-minority youth.
Race- and Equity-Related Episodes and Materials from The Imagine Neighborhood™ Podcast
This popular podcast for families helps kids explore and understand the big feelings that come with growing up.
For Educators Aspiring Toward Allyship
In this limited blog series, Senior Implementation Specialist Casey Escola reflects on her allyship journey as an educator.
- First Steps in an Educator’s Path Toward Allyship
- A Note on Where to Begin
- Starting in the Classroom
- Making an Impact at School
How SEL Policy Can Contribute to Issues of Equity
We’re committed to improving specific issues related to our priority areas—SEL, child protection, and bullying prevention—that disproportionately impact the Black community and communities of color.
We Want to Hear from You
If you have suggestions about additional resources, or if there are ways we can better serve you in your work around anti-racism and equity in your school or district, please contact us using the form below.
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