The Causal Effects of Cultural Relevance

2016/11/23 by Thomas S. Dee, Emily K. Penner · 1 voice · 21 citations
Social Sciences · #Critical Race Theory in Education #Higher Education Research Studies #School Choice and Performance

paper · doi:10.3102/0002831216677002

openalex publication_date 2016/11/23 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29

Abstract

An extensive theoretical and qualitative literature stresses the promise of instructional practices and content aligned with minority students’ experiences. Ethnic studies courses provide an example of such “culturally relevant pedagogy” (CRP). Despite theoretical support, quantitative evidence on the effectiveness of these courses is limited. We estimate the causal effects of an ethnic studies curriculum, using a “fuzzy” regression discontinuity design based on the fact that several schools assigned students with eighth-grade GPAs below a threshold to take the course. Assignment to this course increased ninth-grade attendance by 21 percentage points, GPA by 1.4 grade points, and credits earned by 23. These surprisingly large effects suggest that CRP, when implemented in a high-fidelity context, can provide effective support to at-risk students.

Citations

• Identification and Estimation of Local Average Treatment Effects
• 1. Toward a Theory of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy
• Dispositions Toward (Collective) Struggle and Educational Resilience in the Inner City: A Case Analysis of Six African-American High School Students
• Linking Teacher Quality, Student Attendance, and Student Achievement
• Black students' school success: Coping with the ?burden of ?acting white??
• A Social Justice Approach to Achievement: Guiding Latina/o Students Toward Educational Attainment With a Challenging, Socially Relevant Curriculum
• Toward a Critical Race Theory of Education

Cited by

• Cultural Relevance at Scale: The Effects of an Ethnic Studies Expansion on Academic Outcomes
• The Development of Critical Consciousness and its Relation to Academic Achievement in Adolescents of Color
• Legislating Trauma: Book Bans, Educational Gag Orders, and Microaggressions
• The Role of Asset-Based Pedagogy in Promoting Belonging and Ethnic-Racial Identity among Latine Students
• What Matters Most? Toward a Robust and Socially Just Science of Reading
• Supporting student voice in science classrooms: The limits of psychosocial approaches and the importance of sociocultural and critical perspectives on student agency
• Critical Collective Consciousness: Ethnic Studies Teachers and Professional Development
• Ethnic Studies: From Counternarrative to Curriculum
• Critical historical inquiry: A meta-ethnography of researcher frameworks, 2000–2022
• Making Learning Personally Meaningful: A New Framework for Relevance Research. [europepmc]
• Racial discrimination and substance use among African American youth: Personal and collective self-esteem as mechanisms. [europepmc]
• Asian American Elders: Caught in the Crosshairs of a Syndemic of Racism, Misogyny, and Ageism During Coronavirus Disease 2019. [europepmc]
• Preventing Youth Suicide: Potential "Crossover Effects" of Existing School-Based Programs. [europepmc]
• A Person-Centered Analysis of Adolescent Multicultural Socialization Niches and Academic Functioning. [europepmc]
• Black adolescents' motivation to resist the false dichotomy between mathematics achievement and racial identity. [europepmc]
• Identifying Culturally Relevant School Support Profiles and Links to Academic Functioning in Adolescents. [europepmc]
• "Todo el tiempo no participamos porque se van a burlar" (we never participate because they will make fun of us): Latinx youth give voice to their cultural and systemic stressor experiences. [europepmc]
• How online learning can engage students and extend the reach of talented teachers: evidence from a pandemic-era national virtual summer program. [europepmc]
• " So no one feels left out: " Latinx youths' and parents' re-imagined school realities in the context of cultural stressors. [europepmc]
• Toward Causal Inferences in Discipline-Based Education Research: Using Regression Discontinuity Design to Understand the Effect of Classroom Interventions. [europepmc]
• The explorer's edge: Racial-ethnic identity exploration confers early adolescents of color with protection against racial-ethnic discrimination in a co-sibling control study. [europepmc]

Discussions

• A highly successful ES pilot improved grades, attendance, credits, HS graduation, and post-secondary enrollment (see prior research by Sade, @tomdee.bsky.social, and myself below). The district subs [bsky, 0 points, 1 comments]

Related

• Cultural Relevance at Scale: The Effects of an Ethnic Studies Expansion on Academic Outcomes
• The Theory and Practice of Culturally Relevant Education
• How Pedagogy Makes the Difference in U.S. Schools
• 1. Toward a Theory of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy
• Does Multicultural Education Improve Students’ Racial Attitudes? Implications for Closing the Achievement Gap