Assessing Bias in Standards and Curricular Materials Toolkit

The Assessing Bias in Standards & Curricular Materials Tool enables users to determine the extent to which developed standards and curricular materials reflect educational equity (Fraser, 1998; GLEC, 2011). The tool provides guidance in reviewing standards and curricular materials using equity-oriented domains. It also includes a scoring and analysis guide to assist with the evaluation process. The standards rubric is sectioned into the following three domains: 1. Build Consciousness— Content standards cultivate an understanding of how knowledge is constructed and that the co-construction of knowledge is the medium through which society defines itself. 2. Reflect Students’ Cultural Repertoires and View Them as Worthy of Sustaining—Perpetuate and foster linguistic, literate, and cultural pluralism by sustaining in-group cultural practices and cross-group cultural practices (Paris, 2012). 3. Social Improvement—Content standards encourage social critique and just action.

The curricular materials rubric is sectioned into the following seven domains: 1. Invisibility—The complete or relative exclusion of a group (Sadker, n.d, Invisibility section, para. 2). 2. Stereotyping —Widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or behavior at the cost of individual attributes and differences (Sadker, n.d., Stereotyping section, para. 1). 3. Imbalance and Selectivity—Representing only one interpretation of an issue, situation, or group of people. Simplifying and distorting complex issues by omitting different perspectives (Sadker, n.d., Imbalance and Selectivity section, para 1). 4. Historical Whitewashing—(Sleeter, 2005) - Minimizing unpleasant facts and events in history by ignoring prejudice, racism, discrimination, exploitation, oppression, sexism, and inter-group conflict (Sadker, n.d., Unreality section, para. 1). 5. Fragmentation and Isolation —Physically or visually isolating a group of people in the text. Often, racial and ethnic group members are depicted as interacting only with persons like themselves, isolated from other cultural communities Sadker, n.d., Fragmentation and Isolation, para. 1). 6. Linguistic Bias—Ways in which the use of language and words perpetuate stereotypes, bias, and marginalization of specific groups of people (Sadker, n.d., Linguistic bias Section, para. 1). 7. Cosmetic Bias—The aesthetics of curricular materials suggest that the material is “bias free” however it is really a marketing strategy to give a favorable impression to potential purchases (Sadker, n.d., Cosmetic Bias section, para.1).

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