Learning to Teach for Equity, Social Justice, and/or Diversity: Do the Measures Measure Up?

Abstract

This article reviews 45 assessment tools designed to capture aspects of teaching and learning to teach for equity, social justice, and/or diversity to understand whether the existing tools measure up to the most pressing concerns in teacher education. First, we provide an overview of the 45 assessment tools, focusing on conventional properties. Second, we argue that the tools need to be examined beyond the conventional categories by attending to culture in both the content of assessments and their development processes. Finally, we use Kirkhart’s multicultural validity framework to reexamine the tools, focusing on their theoretical, methodological, relational, experiential, and consequential dimensions. Our analysis reveals that only a few assessments “measure up,” when examined in terms of multicultural validity. This means they tend not to do enough to address the most pressing challenges in today’s teacher education context or to advance equity and social justice goals at a deep level.