ABSTRACT
Student assessment is a crucial aspect of pedagogy that has been documented as having negative effects on minoritized students. Educational assessment, both classroom and large-scale, continues to require attention and reform. Indigenous students—American Indian, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, and other Pacific Islanders—represent a small but important percentage of U.S. students. Hor, they have, arguably, been the most damaged of any group by ineffective and unfair assessment practices. Typical assessment practice, such as standardized testing, designed for students with a conventional Western worldview, often fails to provide equitable opportunities for Indigenous students to show what they know. Working effectively to improve the assessment of Indigenous students requires understanding their histories and positioning as sovereign nations with their own governmental structures, as well as their belief systems, heritage languages, cultural values, and ways of living. This chapter explores the cultural nature of assessment, the prominent role of language in assessment, and what constitutes culturally valid assessment as part of a social justice pedagogy. We also give considerable attention to formative assessment because of its promise for Indigenous students and its potential to yield more valid and useful information than standardized tests for all students, especially regarding identifying next steps in instruction.
