Stephanie Curenton

Every day, 250 children are suspended from school. Many are children of color, deprived of opportunities to experience learning at the same rate and quality as white children. Many families don't feel heard or respected in their child's schools.Don't Look Away: Embracing Anti-Bias Classrooms leads early childhood professionals to explore and address issues of bias, equity, low expectations, and family engagement to ensure culturally responsive experiences. Importantly, this book will challenge you to consider your perceptions and thought processes: Identify your own unconscious biases--we all have them Recognize and minimize bias in the classroom, school, and communityConnect with children and their familiesHelp close the opportunity gap for children from marginalized communitiesThis book offers strategies, tools, and information to help you create a culturally responsive and equitable learning environment.

This book lays out how mental health practitioners can best engage parents in their children's education for the child’s best educational outcome. The book presents several different engagement strategies, allowing for differences in socio-political, cultural, and parental beliefs and understandings. Topics include information from early childhood, family processes, efficacy, racial socialization, and social capital. While of interest to educators and parents, this book is written primarily for the clinician, in particular clinicians working with vulnerable child and parent populations, who may be struggling with learning or developmental disabilities.