ABSTRACT
The field of measurement has begun to critically examine how assessment development and score interpretation activities need to evolve away from monolingual and monocultural norms towards processes that acknowledge and seek to rectify the negative consequences of assessment on marginalized groups, including Native students. Research on cultural and community validity and antiracist assessment practices have provided the field with a way to begin to reassess these processes (Kūkea-Shultz & Englert, 2021; Randall, 2021). This chapter highlights a development process that is grounded in the culture and worldview of students using a Native language assessment as an example. By examining the development of a theory of action and purpose statements aimed at addressing cultural and linguistic validity and utilizing that as a developmental foundation, we provide concrete steps that large-scale summative assessments can take to shift towards fair, equitable, and culturally sustaining assessments for our most marginalized communities. We further contend that for an assessment to reflect cultural relevancy, there needs to be a critical interrogation of its foundations, theory of change, and purpose. This cannot be done in a vacuum; assessment professionals must acknowledge that the complexity of students’ cultures can only be understood through partnerships with communities.
