How do you guard against defensiveness when having conversations about race? For early education scholar Petrea Hicks, it starts with focusing the conversation on children. “When you put children at the center of the conversation, people listen.” 

Hicks grew up in a predominately African American community, with parents who each attended an HBCU, but it wasn’t until later in her career that she confirmed what she had always suspected about how children of different genders and races are treated in education.