Stanford Team Releases RaceWorks, a Digital Toolkit Promoting Racial Literacy

STANFORD, Calif., March 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Stanford University's Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity announces the launch of RaceWorks, a free online resource created for educators and instructors teaching racial literacy. The RaceWorks video series and educational toolkit aims to better equip students and working professionals with the knowledge and skills necessary to have informed conversations on race and how it impacts our world today.

A new resource from a leading higher education institution, RaceWorks contains a series of videos, educational activities, and evidence-based frameworks to make race studies more accessible and easier to understand for a range of learners. RaceWorks is a project that builds on years of research by scholars at CCSRE, Stanford's interdisciplinary hub for teaching and research on race and ethnicity that advances racial justice through the comparative understanding of race. It was developed in collaboration with Stanford SPARQ, a do-tank that partners with industry leaders and changemakers to reduce societal disparities and bridge social divides using insights from behavioral science.

"Having productive conversations about race is challenging and often emotionally-charged. People come at the issue from different starting points and experiences," said RaceWorks Project Director and SPARQ Managing Director Dr. MarYam Hamedani. "The demand for a resource to help people talk and learn about race is high, especially in today's diverse and often divided social climate. We realized the need for a constructive model for how to both learn and talk about race, from the classroom to the workplace."

RaceWorks features insights from a number of scholars who are also a part of the project team, including Jennifer DeVere Brody, Faculty Director of CCSRE and Stanford Theater & Performance Studies professor; Paula Moya, former Faculty Director of the Research Institute at CCSRE, Stanford English professor, and co-editor of Doing Race: 21 Essays for the 21st Century; and Hazel Rose Markus, Stanford Psychology professor, Faculty Co-Director of SPARQ, and co-editor of Doing Race: 21 Essays for the 21st Century. Jennifer Eberhardt, a professor of psychology at Stanford, Faculty Co-Director of SPARQ, and author of Biased: Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice That Shapes What We See, Think, and Do, along with Tomás Jiménez, a professor of sociology and expert in immigration and assimilation, are also among the diverse set of scholars featured in the video series.

The toolkit presents a research-based model for race conversations in America today, recognizing education as key to students and professionals developing a strong sense of racial literacy. RaceWorks aims to prepare individuals to have more effective race conversations, allowing them to better navigate through their own communities and the larger world around them.

"If we're going to change how we talk about race, we need easy access to resources and tools that will help reshape how people think about race in the first place. We can only begin to confront racism and drive action in support of racial literacy when people have the vocabulary and tools needed to engage for positive impact," added Dr. Daniel Murray, Executive Director at CCSRE. "This toolkit is a starting point for helping people learn how race works."

Backed by the latest scholarship in race studies and rooted in the idea that race is not a thing that people have or are, but rather actions that people do, RaceWorks analyzes racial perceptions and biases across topic areas from law enforcement to education, with the ultimate goal of "undoing" racism. Toolkit frameworks can be integrated into academic curriculums, or can be adapted for professional education opportunities such as DEI trainings. RaceWorks is free and publicly available.

To find out more information about RaceWorks, visit https://ccsre.stanford.edu/raceworks.

About The Center for Comparative Studies in Race & Ethnicity
The Center for Comparative Studies in Race & Ethnicity (CCSRE) is Stanford's interdisciplinary hub for teaching and research on race and ethnicity that advances racial justice through the comparative understanding of race. Across its courses, programs, and events, CCSRE supports students and faculty dedicated to studying race and ethnicity. CCSRE students and scholars approach questions of difference, inequality, and inclusion from dynamic interdisciplinary, comparative, and multiracial/multiethnic perspectives from art to medicine, to law, history, technology, economics, literature and more. Learn more at https://ccsre.stanford.edu/.

About SPARQ
Stanford SPARQ is a "do tank" that partners with industry leaders and change makers to reduce societal disparities and bridge social divides using insights from behavioral science. SPARQ works in the areas of criminal justice, economic mobility, education, and health. Learn more at https://sparq.stanford.edu/.

SOURCE Stanford University