The Causal Effects of Cultural Relevance: Evidence From an Ethnic Studies Curriculum Situated in a University-District Partnership

• In Event: Can University-District Partnerships Promote Educational Equity?

Abstract

Objective
This study examined the causal effects of 9th grade students’ participation in a course on ethnic studies on their end-of-the-year academic outcomes. The students attend high school in a large urban district in California, and the school district would like to understand the effects of the course as they determine whether to pass a policy making the a course a graduation requirement and subsequently scale the course to all 9th grade students. The motivation for this study evolved out of the close relationship the university and district have within their partnership.

Framework
A diverse body of theoretical and empirical research supports the importance of culturally relevant teaching and curriculum. The fundamental theoretical argument for culturally relevant teaching is that instructional practices are substantially more effective when differentiated to align with the cultural priors of individual students (e.g., Gay 2010). However, we know of no study that has examined the impact of a culturally relevant curriculum using modern methods for causal inference.

Methods, Data
This study implemented a regression discontinuity (RD) design that effectively compares academic outcomes among students whose baseline data meant that they were assigned to the course sequence to students whose baseline data meant they were not assigned to the course sequence. Students were assigned to an ethnic studies course in two of the district’s high schools if the students had two indicators (attendance rate of less than 87.5% or a GPA (excluding P.E.) of less than 2.0 in eighth grade) that increased the likelihood of dropping out of high school.

Results
Our findings are that participation in the ethnic studies course increased student instructional time (i.e. reduced unexcused absences) by 21 percentage points; increased final 9th grade GPA (exclusive of social studies and P.E. grade) by 1.2 grade points; increased GPA more for boys than for girls and more in math and science than in English Language Arts. We find that these surprisingly large effects are robust to a variety of robustness checks. We think these findings have credibility because the causal claims based on an RD design are widely understood to have the same reliability as those based on random assignment.

Significance
This could be the first study to examine the impact of a culturally relevant curriculum using research methods leading to causal inferences. This also could be an example of a course reducing stereotype threat as it contained active ingredients for this type of intervention (e.g. forewarning, external attribution for academic difficulties) and the course happens at the beginning of a student’s high school experience when evaluative stress is thought to be both high and malleable. Additionally, the study also represents an exemplar for other researchers and practitioners working together to address district problems of practice, learn from interventions addressing those problems, and scale successful interventions. The researchers presented two caveats to the district, which led the district to adjust the curriculum design to be accessible to all types of students, and provide strong professional development for new teachers teaching the course.

Authors

• Thomas Dee, Stanford University

• Emily K. Penner, Stanford University

• Bill W. Sanderson, San Francisco Unified School District