Principles of Design Justice for Assessment Design

• In Event: Dreaming, Designing, and Doing Justice: Justice-Oriented Assessment Systems in Medical Education

Abstract

Once unjust systems have been dismantled, how do we build more just systems from the rubble? Many current strategies to address this question have foundational values of urgency, solutionism, and top-down leadership. This presentation explores a counternarrative: Design Justice. Rooted in critical scholarship and critical design, Design Justice recognizes the interconnectedness of various forms of marginalization and works to critically examine power dynamics that exist in every design process. As a set of guiding principles, Design Justice centers the experiences and perspectives of marginalized individuals and communities. These principles include mutual accountability and transparency, co-ownership, and community-led outcomes, and honoring local, traditional, Indigenous knowledge; these co-created principles act as practical guardrails, directing progress towards justice. Recognizing the harms that co-design can cause (e.g., minority tax), Design Justice seeks to mitigate harms via accountability and co-ownership. In practice, this can take the form of negotiating community decision-making and creating program evaluation processes that prioritize the impacts on the program’s community of marginalized learners and stakeholders over [good] intentions of educators and leaders. This presentation begins with an overview of Design Justice's history in critical scholarship and critical design, providing foundational background knowledge for educators, scholars, and leaders in key concepts of justice and design. This presentation further explores how the Design Justice principles were developed and have been applied across sectors, highlighting its applications specific to the design of justice-oriented educational assessments.

Authors

• Pricilla Valeria Senne Cabral, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia

• Hannah L. Kakara Anderson, Maastricht University

• Dorene F. Balmer, University of Pennsylvania

• Daniel C West, University of Pennsylvania

• Meghan O'Connor, University of Utah

• Patty Hobday, University of Minnesota

• Laura Lockwood, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus

• April Edwell, University of California - San Francisco