Validity of Socioculturally Responsive and Culturally Sustaining Assessments - Issues and Practice in an Alaska School District

Oct 15, 2026

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Over a 6-year period, a sociolinguistic and sociocultural project in Alaska was carried out by Yup’ik Expert Group educators and linguists from the Lower Kuskokwim School District. They designed a culturally sustainable, valid, and reliable Kindergarten-to-Grade-6 Yugtun (Yup’ik) language assessment. The paper highlights a foundational element, the Yup’ik Cultural Awareness subtest, including Nonverbal Communication and Yup’ik Worldview, to address how culture and language meaning are assessed.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages9

Reading Time23 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

Project Overview

District context and language shift

Funding and assessment aims

Project Requirements

Stand on Yup’ik Ground

Validity, reliability, and acceptance

Alignment with dual-language curriculum

Validity of Socioculturally Responsive and Culturally Sustaining Assessments: Issues and Practice in an Alaska School District WCER Working Paper No. 2024-3 July 2024 Rosalie Grant Wisconsin Center for Education Research University of Wisconsin–Madison [rosalie.grant@wisc.edu](rosalie.grant@wisc.edu) Keywords: Language assessment, language testing, Alaska Native languages, Yup’ik culture, Yugtun language Suggested citation: Grant, Rosalie. (2024) . Validity of socioculturally responsive and culturally sustaining assessments: Issues and practice in an Alaska school district (WCER Working Paper No. 2024-3). University of Wisconsin–Madison, Wisconsin Center for Education Research. © 2024 by Rosalie Grant. All rights reserved. Any opinions, findings, or conclusions expressed in this paper are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the funding agencies, WCER, or cooperating institutions. Readers may make verbatim copies of this document for noncommercial purposes by any means, provided that the above copyright notice appears on all copies. WCER working papers are available at [https://wcer.wisc.edu/publications/working-papers](https://wcer.wisc.edu/publications/working-papers) Validity of Socioculturally Responsive and Culturally Sustaining Assessments: Issues and Practice in an Alaska School District Rosalie Grant ABSTRACT Over a 6-year period, a sociolinguistic and sociocultural project was undertaken by Alaska Native expert educators and linguists (aka the Yup’ik Expert Group) from the Yup’ik community in the Lower Kuskokwim School District, Central Alaska. The native experts developed their own culturally sustainable, valid, and reliable Kindergarten through Grade 6 Alaska Native language (Yugtun) assessment. Yup’ik experts named their assessment the Yugtun Piciryaranek Qaneryaranek-llu Cuqyun (aka Yup’ik Culture and Language Measurement) . This paper focuses on a foundational component of the assessment, the Yup’ik Cultural Awareness subtest, which has two components, Nonverbal Communication and Yup’ik Worldview. Validity of Socioculturally Responsive and Culturally Sustaining Assessments: Issues and Practice in an Alaska School District Rosalie Grant Project Overview The project was conducted in the largest (by student population) off-road school district in Alaska—an area of approximately 22,000 square miles. The Lower Kuskokwim School District comprises 27 schools, 23 of which are situated in remote, subsistence living Yup’ik villages.1 There are approximately 4,000 Yup’ik students in the district and travel is by boat, snowmobile, or small plane. Yup’ik community members and Lower Kuskokwim School District officials believe that preserving the Yugtun language and Yup’ik culture is critical to the survival of the Central Alaska Yup’ik community. District officials found that the nature and use of the Yugtun2 language was shifting rapidly due to the all-pervasive influence of the English language. One strategy that district officials enacted to reverse the shift to English and to preserve the Yugtun language and Yup’ik culture was to introduce a Yugtun dual-language program. Officials understood that assessments translated from an English test would not identify key features of the Yugtun language. For example, the assessments would not reflect the ways in which Yugtun language structures convey meaning, the ways in which Yugtun words and sentences are organized, or how aspects of Yup’ik culture are reflected in the Yugtun language. In 2016, district officials received funding from the U. S. Department of Education3 to develop their own culturally sustaining, valid, and reliable native language assessment. The project aims were to: “(1) Preserve the Yugtun language and Yup’ik culture; (2) Help future generations of Yup’ik students to understand the importance of who they are in the world and appreciate that their language and culture are to be embraced and resp

FAQs

What is the main purpose of the working paper?

To describe issues and practice in developing valid, socioculturally responsive, culturally sustaining assessments for Yugtun in an Alaska school district.

Which assessment component does the paper focus on?

The Yup’ik Cultural Awareness subtest, which includes Nonverbal Communication and Yup’ik Worldview.

Why were English-translated assessments considered insufficient?

Because they would not capture how Yugtun conveys meaning through language structure and how Yup’ik cultural aspects are reflected in Yugtun words and sentences.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Melati