Social Justice Dialogues in the Classroom: Having and Holding Difficult Conversations

Social Justice Dialogues in the Classroom demonstrates how pre-service and in-service teachers can initiate and hold conversations about social justice and liberation with youth of all ages in their classrooms. Educators and practitioners are facing unprecedented national challenges in the work of supporting youth around issues of social justice, making it even more important to learn how to navigate these conversations in order to support students. This book showcases how pre-service and in-service teachers can have and hold challenging conversations in the classroom, particularly around issues of race, gender, disability, classism, multilingualism, and youth oppression.

Each chapter of this book features a vignette of a social justice topic, along with discussion questions and the language needed for classroom teachers to navigate these discussions. The book also has featured dialogues and examples of conversations that uphold social justice and equity ideals in the classroom, as well as examples of dialogue moments that went successfully, and how to recover from unsuccessful and unforeseen moments in dialogue. This book approaches those difficult conversations with humor, hope, and joy, showing readers that fruitful and generative conversations about social justice are possible.

This book can be used in teacher preparation programs and in equity and inclusion courses, as well as by scholars interested in social justice.

Jackson M. Matos is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology and Education, and the director of middle, secondary, and the arts teacher licensure programs, at Mount Holyoke College.