Refinement of the Assessing Classroom Sociocultural Equity Scale for Individual Children (ACSES-SNAPSHOT) for Montessori Classrooms

2/1/2019 – 5/31/2020

$26,400

The American Montessori Society and several scholars discuss the importance of culturally relevant, anti-biased practices in Montessori, especially given that studies examining the effectiveness of the Montessori Method in public schools had samples with large percentages of children of color. There is a need for program leaders, schools, and teachers to have access to measures that provide information about how sociocultural equitable learning in the classroom can be aligned with Montessori principles and support for historically underserved children of color. The goal of this project is to refine and validate a measure that can be used by Montessori programs to measure individual children’s experience in the classroom.  The scores from ACSES-Snapshot will provide information regarding whether marginalized children of color are treated equitably and whether their cultural knowledge and social background are being leveraged and incorporated in classroom instruction. The principal investigator for this project is Stephanie M. Curenton, Ph.D., from Boston University.