Program
The National Convening on Children’s Racial Learning will take place over three days, from the afternoon on Tuesday, May 6, to midday on Thursday, May 8, 2025. We hope you will join us for the entire Convening - or for as long as you can.
Registration opens
Welcome
Welcome Dinner
Keynote Speaker: Hari Kondabolu
Breakfast
Why the Time is Right for Field-Building for Children's Racial Learning
Speakers from several professional sectors share their views on what is known (and not yet known) about how to promote healthy racial learning among US children and lift up within-reach opportunities to improve our socialization practices. What does research and experience tell us about when, how, and what children learn about race? How has that knowledge shaped the way families, schools, and communities nurture children? What needs to be done?
Join your peers in children’s media, education, health, parenting, philanthropy, research, and others to reflect on the contributions and possibilities in a sector you identify with. How does the sector support healthy racial learning among children? Where do you see an opportunity for growth? What work, happening now, makes your eyes twinkle? What kinds of working partnerships, within and across sectors, would you love to be part of?
Lunch
Panelists from different sectors will share their ideas on the need for and possible goals of a cross-sectoral field of children’s racial learning, and on the efforts needed to bring the field fully to life. What are the building blocks of this effort? What would success look like and what are some milestones? Possible next steps?
Join one of several concurrent sessions focused on key challenges in building a robust field of children’s racial learning: e.g., building relationships and community among us; identifying and lifting up key goals and programmatic priorities; creating and sustaining fresh partnerships; protecting the safety and well-being of people engaged in this work; and raising public awareness of children’s racial learning as a space in need of much more attention and resources.
Dinner
Panelists will consider what it means to pursue the work of supporting children’s racial learning in a social context marked by racial division and polarized perspectives on racial issues, including the issue of whether and how we engage US children on race.
Entertainment
Breakfast
What message frames are most likely to get others on board with our goals to support children’s learning about race and racism? Partners from the FrameWorks Institute will share best practices for effective communication about children’s racial learning and literacy.
Participants are invited to join concurrent conversations focused on new initiatives to build learning and practice of children’s racial learning, including an open and inclusive next national conference, a collaborative message-framing research project, and other possibilities. What compelling ideas can we generate together?
Closing
Farewell Lunch
