Analyzing Curriculum for Cultural Responsiveness

Throughout your time at Relay, you have referenced the Framework for Equitable Instruction as a way to ensure our instruction is culturally responsive. Several components of the framework are applicable to how we analyze curricular materials as well. The table below offers questions that you can use to critically analyze your curriculum through the lens of cultural responsiveness.

• What are your most salient identity markers in relation to this unit and/or your classroom?
• How might your identity markers inform your interpretation and teaching of the unit?

• Do the lessons build on students’ prior knowledge and funds of knowledge?
• Do the lessons allow students to engage in multiple ways? (e.g. instructional routines, discourse, collaboration opportunities)
• Do the lessons allow students to demonstrate their understanding in diverse ways? (e.g. opportunities for students to respond flexibly within activities and assignments, formative assessments, performance tasks)
• Do students have an opportunity to apply the learning to a relevant or meaningful context?
• In what ways will students’ agency as learners and doers of the discipline be developed and/or expressed?

ELA and Social Studies

• How does the instruction utilize students’ funds of knowledge?
• Does the curriculum present different points of view on the same event or experience, especially points of view from marginalized people/communities?*
• How does the lesson/unit provide opportunities for students to see their identity markers represented (mirrors) and for students to learn about people with identity markers they do not share (windows)? (Style, 1988)
• Are people with identity markers that have been historically marginalized central to the story that is being told?* How are characters of diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds represented? (e.g. accurate references to different ethnic and cultural traditions, avoidance of stereotypical representations)*

* indicates that the question has been adapted from the Culturally Responsive English Language Arts Curriculum Scorecard (Bryan-Gooden, Hester, & Peoples, 2023)

Math & Science

• How does the instruction utilize students’ funds of knowledge?
• Does the lesson/unit elevate the everyday uses of math, science, technology, and engineering?*
• Does the lesson/unit affirm the multiple forms of communication or language systems during mathematical and scientific argumentation rooted in historically marginalized cultures?*
• Does the lesson/unit elevate mathematicians and/or scientists with historically marginalized identities and their discoveries?*
• Does the lesson/unit have photos/pictures, names, scenarios, and text that reflect the experiences and interests of students of color in your community?*

* indicates that the question has been adapted from the Culturally Responsive-Sustaining STEAM Curriculum Scorecard (Peoples, Islam, & Davis 2021)

• Does the unit and instructional activities promote or provoke critical questions about the societal status quo?*
• Does the unit encourage students to critically examine dominant knowledge systems as readers, writers, historians, mathematicians, and/or scientists?*
• Does the unit provide avenues for students to connect learning to social, political, or environmental concerns that affect them and their lives and contribute to change?*
• Does the unit encourage students to take actions that combat an inequity or promote equity within the school or local community?*

* indicates that the question has been adapted from the Culturally Responsive English Language Arts Curriculum Scorecard (Bryan-Gooden, Hester, & Peoples, 2023) or the Culturally Responsive-Sustaining STEAM Curriculum Scorecard (Peoples, Islam, & Davis 2021)

J. Bryan-Gooden, M. Hester, & L. Q. Peoples. (2023). Culturally responsive ELA curriculum scorecard. New York: Metropolitan Center for Research on Equity and the Transformation of Schools, New York University

Peoples, L.Q., Islam, T., & Davis, T. (2021). The culturally responsive-sustaining STEAM curriculum scorecard. New York: Metropolitan Center for Research on Equity and the Transformation of Schools, New York University

Style, E. (1998) Curriculum As Window and Mirror. Listening for All Voices. Oak Knoll School monograph, Summit, NJ. https://nationalseedproject.org/Key-SEED-Texts/curriculum-as-window-and-mirror