Centering Vulnerable Students' Experiences Within Culturally Responsive Mastery-Based Schools to Illuminate Their Perspectives on Equity

• In Event: Students at the Center of Research Design: Promoting Learning, Equity, and Rigor Using Youth Expertise

Abstract

This presentation and paper investigates three vulnerable student groups’ (students of color, students with disabilities, and multilingual students) experiences at NYC schools that implement culturally responsive and mastery-based policies and practices to varying degrees school-wide. Culturally responsive education (CRE) meaningfully centers students’ culture and backgrounds in the teaching and learning process. There are three key components to CRE: academic success, the development of sociopolitical consciousness, and cultural competence. Mastery-based education (MBE) is a continuous improvement approach where students’ individual needs are supported through differentiated instruction and student decision-making about what they learn, how they learn it, and how they demonstrate their knowledge. Together, CRE and MBE create vehicles for schools to enact equitable policies, practices, and outcomes. Findings from this presentation are derived from a larger study that documented the impact of schools’ policies, practices, attitudes, and beliefs on student outcomes.

Specifically, we supply a brief overview of how CRE and MBE policies and practices influence students’:

(a) CR-MBE Attitudes and Skills (student mindsets and dispositions, self-regulated learning skills, and academic behavior) such as their efficacy, intrinsic motivation, future planning, and

(b) Academic Outcomes such as traditional academic benchmarks, sociopolitical consciousness, and learning/progression outcomes.

Additionally, researchers leading the project will share how school-wide CRE and MBE implementations impacted students’ transition to remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. Highlighted are students’ contributions to the creation of CRE and MBE spaces where youth report their learning was promoted. In doing so, we describe the various positioning of students, their power, the integration of their community cultural wealth, and ultimately what they think about equity efforts and outcomes within their schools. Our findings emerge from surveys and focus groups that surfaced students’ experiences as well as their analyses of other students’ responses to questions about equity and responsiveness in mastery-based learning environments. Student data collection took place during the 2019-2020 academic school year across eight public schools in a large metropolitan school district.

Authors

• Leah Q. Peoples, Transformative Research

• David E. Kirkland, New York University