Evaluating Materials for Culturally Responsive Practices: A Landscape Analysis

Researchers report that culturally relevant education can increase grades, participation, critical thinking skills, and can lead to higher graduation rates.  Yet, less than a quarter of teachers describe their curriculum as adequate or completely adequate in supporting them to provide culturally relevant instruction. 

The good news is that many states and districts recognize this issue and are tackling it through the creation of local review tools to evaluate materials for the presence of culturally responsive practices.

In an effort to provide information about the range of review tools in use throughout the country, EdReports conducted a landscape analysis of 15 different resources. The report is a follow-up to our Primer on words and terms used to discuss this body of work. Our key findings highlight the tremendous efforts already underway to better serve our nation’s students, as well as areas for improvement around establishing shared definitions, sharpening guidance for reviewers, and acknowledging the capacity necessary to do this work well.

The goal of this analysis is to help educators become more aware of the trends in these review tools, understand what different sets of researchers, community groups, and education stakeholders believe is necessary when creating strong criteria, and gain inspiration for criteria they can use as they review materials.

Explore the full report >