Honouring the diverse ways Alberta students know, think, and participate.

Culturally responsive assessment (CRA) is a transformative approach that centers student identity and cultural strengths. It is not just about changing assessment tasks, but about designing assessments that value multiple ways of knowing and ensure learning is assessed fairly and meaningfully.

The framework

The 5 pillars of CRA

These 5 pillars emphasize fundamental shifts in instructional design, content relevance, pedagogical practice, and the educator’s foundational role in pursuing systemic equity.

In-depth Study

In the classroom

Translating the 5 Pillars into Everyday Classroom Assessment Moves

Culturally Responsive Assessment is not a separate curriculum; it is a way of seeing and doing assessment that honors student identity. These five practices offer concrete entry points for Alberta educators to refine assessment design, expanding beyond one-size-fits-all approaches toward practices that more fully reflect the brilliance of every learner.

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References

Brookhart, S. M. (2024). Educational assessment knowledge and skills for teachers revisited. Education Sciences, 14(7), Article 751. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci14070751

Jaber, L., Stirbys, C., & Saint-Cyr, C. (2024). Decolonizing the higher education curriculum: An evaluation of incorporating Indigenous ways of knowing and pedagogy. The Canadian Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 15(1), Article 6. https://doi.org/10.5206/cjsotlrcacea.2024.1.14796

Lee, J. C. (2022). Towards an antiracist classroom formative assessment framework. Educational Assessment, 27(2), 179–186. https://doi.org/10.1080/10627197.2022.2087625

Lorenz, D. (2013). Dream weaving as praxis: Turning culturally inclusive education and anti-racist education into a decolonial pedagogy. In Education, 19(2), 30–55. https://ineducation.ca/ineducation/article/view/100

Middleton, K. V., & Haynes, J. A. (2025). Implications of Culturally Responsive Education for Classroom Assessment Practices. In C. M. Evans & C. S. Taylor (Eds.), Culturally Responsive Assessment in Classrooms and Large-Scale Contexts (1st ed., pp. 245–263). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003392217-18

Nortvedt, G. A., Wiese, E., Brown, M., Burns, D., McNamara, G., O’Hara, J., Altrichter, H., Fellner, M., Herzog-Punzenberger, B., Nayir, F., & Taneri, P. O. (2020). Aiding culturally responsive assessment in schools in a globalising world. Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability, 32(1), 5–27. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11092-020-09316-w

Pellegrino, J. W. (2020). A learning sciences perspective on the design and use of assessment in education. In R. Sawyer (Ed.), The Cambridge Handbook of the Learning Sciences (3rd ed., pp. 238–254). Cambridge University Press.

Shyman, E. (2015). Toward a globally sensitive definition of inclusive education based in social justice. International Journal of Disability, Development and Education, 62(4), 351–362. https://doi.org/10.1080/1034912X.2015.1025715

Vea, M. C. (2020). Sense of place and ways of knowing: The landscape of experience for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color in natural resources, environmental education, and place based learning [Doctoral dissertation, University of Vermont]. UVM ScholarWorks.

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