ABSTRACT
This commentary considers the tensions that exist between more contextually-based, culturally responsive assessments and the commitment that large-scale assessments have toward positivist objectivity and rank ordering. As part of this discussion, this commentary looks across four chapters on culturally responsive assessment and compares it to different approaches to multicultural education. This commentary also raises questions about the elusiveness of defining culture such that assessments do not rely on the reification or stereotyping of different peoples, and it closes with a consideration of how the political use of large-scale assessments would likely keep culturally responsive assessment from being brought into broader use.
